What's a Family?

by Leland F. Edtl

(my Dad!)

Many parents, in an effort to hang onto the fond memories of their child's first years keep a book or a journal. In it, they record all the data that tells the story of a life: first words, first steps first day in school. Pictures too are usually included.

Mary, my wife and mother of our seven children, seems to have brought this task to perfection. Originally she kept a "baby book," beginning with the birth of each of our seven children, and ending with their high school graduation. Her intention was to pass the book on to each child as he or she left the nest; and this she did. But for her the loss of those books was too much. So she called them all back, duplicated them – statistics, records, and photos – and returned the original to its owner. And her duplicated books continue, each becoming an ongoing "book of life" for each child. Now these books contain a lot of history of both the individual and of each person's family. And just looking at them points out to me, so loud and so clear, just how complex family life can be.

Every family, it seems, becomes a complicated network of relationships in which each member is connected with the others, in straight or crooked lines. So the family is like a cobweb of delicate pattern and gossamer thread: when touched anywhere the whole thing trembles. When a father loses a job, a daughter gets pregnant, a son gets hooked on drugs, the whole family has to absorb and assimilate that unemployment, that baby, that addiction. So then the family either designs a new network, or the cobweb is torn apart.

Within the family, different people play different roles. There are natural roles, of course, like "parent," like "child;" and there are assigned rolls, such as making money, cooking dinner, dumping garbage. And then there are the acquired roles like being sweet, or delicate, or just a darned nuisance.

Families need roles because family life is too hectic to be wondering who's who. We have to have ordinary things structured so we can handle the emergencies, and emergencies do occur. Life has to be ordinary while leaving room for surprises. Without definite roles, we might suffocate in our dirty laundry. But also, we must allow for role shifting. Parents must become friends to their children when they grow up.

A family is a living, breathing organism. Members live off each other; they cope with, assist, and aggravate each other. The family is the experimental ground for learning intimacy; and the family is also the proving ground for individuality. While schools are making us students, jobs making us workers, and the advertising media is making us consumers, it's the family that makes us unique individuals.

Now here are just a few suggestions from one who sort of survived a family of seven children. Families must be flexible, but within limits. Remember that nothing is ever what it used to be, nor is it entirely different. People need room to grow, but the family plot cannot be allowed to grow into a weed patch. Families need to expect change and crises as a way of life. The purposes of marriage are mutual love and raising children. But love is a moving target; we need to discover new ways to express old love, or it becomes old hat.

And remember, too, that children are naturally born to change, to become what they are not. That makes the family a change agent, a growth industry. And families need to face the truth, to avoid a future catastrophe by bearing a present pain. We need to allow ourselves to be in trouble. There is a rule in the world of golf that makes a good rule for family life, if not for all life; and that is to play the problem where it lies. Almost always, we only make it worse by trying to improve our lie.

And of course families, like individuals, live on love, without which even the best arrangements fall apart; because the family is not an institution; it is an occasion of love.

~ Lee Edtl ~

Deacon at St. Rose Church in Longview, WA

(FROM BARB:  As a deacon, Dad has available to him resources with idea-starters and quotes for him to use freely (and legally) in his sermons ~ "homilies," as they call them in the Catholic Church. He used a few of those in this homily and can't remember which parts were from those sources and which originated with him.  But that's because it's all from his heart, even if another source originally penned the words. Just wanted to mention this in case so that noone would think he's trying to take credit where it is not due.)