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| The Shelter of Each Other: Rebuilding our Families |
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 Mary Pipher's The Shelter of Each Other: Rebuilding Our Families offers a tremendously rich insight into the tasks of families in the modern world. She pinpoints the paradox that while society insists that it cherishes families, modern culture is 'at war' with families. She argues that families "have been invaded by technology, mocked or 'kitschified' by the media, isolated by demographic changes, pounded by economic forces and hurt by corporate bodies."Drawing on her work and experience as a family therapist, Pipher proposes two family activities that will shelter and strengthen families in this context. One is protecting families by building walls, "that give the family definition, identity and power. These walls are built by making conscious choices about what will be accepted and rejected. They can be built in a variety of ways – by time, space, celebrations, stories, tradition and connecting rituals." The other is connecting families by creating what the Sioux called a 'tiopaye', a sense of community. The Shelter of Each Other is beautifully written, thought provoking and packed with spirituality. It's a book for families to reflect on and a must read for all who support families, care for families and minister to and with families. The strategies suggested in the book for sheltering families will empower and enrich families and those who work with them. Here are a few gems from the book: What are families for? Families are about caring for people, about feeding and sheltering the young, the old and the needy. In addition to those roles, families have had two other major roles – to protect and to socialise. In today's families those two roles are often at odds with each other. To protect is not to socialise and vice versa. Parents must figure out how to protect their children from values that are harmful to their well-being, and they must help their children connect with a meaningful world outside the family. This connecting of children to a larger world of meaning is actually one definition of the word "socialise". Teaching values to children Families teach children their earliest lessons – how to bathe, eat with silverware, tie their shoes and speak their language. Families hold lives together, teach moral virtues and inspire their members to action in important ways. Ideally, the education of the heart is done in families. Ideally, children learn from their families what to love and value. Some parents have the impression that they shouldn't impose their values on their children. But if parents don't teach their children values, the culture will. Calvin Klein and RJ Reynolds teach values. Good parents are what Ellen Goodman called counterculture; they counter the culture with deeper, rich values. Families are good for children. I would never argue that families are great, only that they are human. And I would argue that children do better in families, whether formed or biological, than they do anywhere else. Children grow best in a matrix of connected relationships. They exhibit failure to thrive in a world of strangers and talking machines. With some exceptions, families are more likely than anyone else to be nurturing with their children. As institutions, families are far superior to their alternatives – the state or the corporate world. At least until something better comes along, I am for families. When the family disagrees All families must work through disagreements. It's best to do this quickly and kindly, then return to a calm, peaceful state. What unhappy families do is just the opposite. They savour and nurse their pain and blow up small disagreements into battles. They build skyscrapers of pain on the meringues of small miseries. Families – a remedy to addiction Families teach people to manage pain. Much of the terrible craziness in the world comes from running from pain. Many people drink, do drugs or engage in other self-destructive behaviours so they can avoid facing pain. Healthy people acknowledge pain, accept it and talk about it. Running keeps people from learning. Learning the painful lessons Good families know that no experience is worthless if it teaches lessons. Extracting meaning from suffering ennobles and heals. Rather, to survive any great tragedy, whether it be the Holocaust or a riding accident such as Christopher Reeve's, a person must learn things. Properly attended, pain makes a person more tolerant, empathic and emotionally complex. Pain helps family members grow and become more fully human. Along with transcendence comes forgiveness, a compassion for others and an awareness of how flawed humans all are. Healing requires forgiveness, not for the sake of the causer of suffering, but for the sufferer. The alternative to forgiveness is anger, which can destroy from within the person who feels it. Those special times Good families are about joy. Strong families find ways to make time sacred, to make days special. People eat meals together, sing or play baseball or violins. They make jokes and hug, smile at the thought of a get-together. Strong families find something to appreciate in every day and teach their members to wrest beauty from a mottled reality. Andrew McNally |
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