Changing Family Traditions
Forms of family are constantly changing.
Where is the Iconic American Family
The “All American Family” structure, depicted above, is iconic. But how often does its rigid organization fail to account for the realities in which parents and children co-exist? The video above shows mom, dad, and young ones in their traditional roles. Dad looks outward, working to protect the family from potential threats. Historically, this has come through the provision of financial security, which translated into a life of stability and predictability in the face of potential external challenges.
Mom is shown focusing inward, focused on the children. She oversees their behavior, providing the context in which they can explore and grow. Historically, she did this until the children were well along in their ability to fend for themselves, at which point they left home to form their own families. The kids, obliviously engaging in the activities that comprise childhood and free youthful exploration of their world while operating under the watchful gaze of the parents. Mom and dad each reined over their own turf, each ostensibly secure in the knowledge that the role responsibilities they fulfilled were what was necessary to raise the children that their union was designed to produce.
Role Flexibility and New Realities
Today, of course, this picture hangs like an ill-fitting suit on mothers and fathers and children. The very idea that “family” consists of a mother, father, and children is itself an relic of the past for many people. Redefining family entails changes in who we partner with, our own more fluid self-identity, whether we choose to have children, and how we choose to raise them. Family structures must make room for cultural, economic, social, and religious dimensions, as well as the many arrangements that involve former partners who must make some accommodation to address the needs of any children they shared in creating, as well as current partners needing to integrate someone else’s children into the new family structure.
Modeling Open System Functioning
My professional work involves paying careful attention to these many “family” structure variations and co-developing ways of living, cooperating, and supporting the many needs that co-exist in the people struggling to exist within the family system structures they bring when they come seeking my help. A defining feature of the family members that come to see me is conflict. By definition, conflict involves boundaries, the emotional, physical, financial, or even legal lines across which the flames of their conflict burn and simmer.
Boundaries do many things, some of which are helpful and essential for healthy functioning. For the individuals and couples who seek my help, however, the boundaries in their lives are often closed. Little conversation. Even less cooperation. Collaboration is often non-existent. The sad truth is that closed boundaries create family systems closed to new thinking, feeling, and functioning. They are, instead, inflexible means that help assure ongoing bitterness, resentment, spiraling costs, and operate like a prison cell that limits personal and family member growth. The key difference, of course, is that in this scenario, the people who condemn the couple to their imprisonment are the couple themselves. Both are trapped. Both are desperate to be freed from the emotional prison in which they live. My job is to find the keys that reopen the doors to their cells.
Through a combination of honest and non-judging assessment of each person’s values, fears, and goals, I help my clients develop a comprehensive picture of what ties the couple to their troubled relationship routines. Radical honesty, clear-cut accountability, and personal responsibility resting on each party’s personal integrity are elements necessary for creating the conditions necessary for creating an open relationship system that restores the flexibility of thought and action necessary for new personal and family growth to emerge.
Trust but Verify
In international relations between nations, the phrase “trust but verify” is used to describe how they interact. I believe this phrase works well to describe how I help restore even high conflict couples to a state where each can live their lives, where necessary compromises operate to support the larger goals of personal freedom and healthy functioning for each member of the evolved “family” system. Trust but verify implies that the benefit of the doubt is accorded to each party and structures to assure accountability are built in, as well.
I look forward to help you achieve a resolution to the conflicts you are experiencing. I commit to help you unlock the resources you already possess to reach a new family structure that works for everyone involved.