The Chaos that is Family
Every Monday night we have a scheduled time when we are all together as a family. This is called Family Home Evening and it is something that our church advocates. Prior to this year, we have had one once every other year or so. Starting the first week of January we have done it every single Monday. It has been a good thing for our family. We made up a chart so that the burden of planning for this event is spread out. Each child has a job to do in preparation. The jobs are opening prayer, song, lesson, closing prayer, chart keeper, and activity. Giving them each assignments helps them look forward to the event. They’re also more respectful during it, because they know the work that is involved.
All is not sunshine and roses though. I hardly expect that from an activity that puts all of us into close proximity for any period of time. Sometimes the event is more about Mom and Dad modeling good conflict management than about the topic or activity of the day. This evening for example. Gleek had an upset just prior to start time and declared that she would not come at all. I told her it was family time and that she had to come. Then she declared that she would just put her fingers in her ears the whole time. She didn’t, of course. She was far too interested in hearing what was going on. Kiki did a marvelous job with the lesson and kept everyone’s interest really well. The chaos began with Link’s activity.
Link decided to create a variant of “Doggie Doggie where’s your bone.” This version had a bone carefully constructed out of duplo blocks. The “doggie” then broke the bone into pieces and hid them. The other players then had to walk around in the dark, find all the pieces, re-construct the bone, and then give it to the doggie. Then the players would try to steal the bone back and the doggie had to guess who stole it. We did the “find pieces in the dark” thing exactly once and then I declared that we had to play a more traditional version of the game. All was well for the first couple of rounds, but then the little ones began to take the game far too seriously. Being guessed when you had the bone was cause for tears. Not getting to be the doggie was cause for tears. Not getting to be the bone-stealer was cause for tears. Each bout of tears required the game pause while ruffled feelings were soothed. The biggest catastrophe of all was when Howard played a joke by calling out to the doggie before the stealing was done. That had three kids crying simultaneously because “Daddy ruined the whole game!”
So tonight the family event ended grumpily. Know what? That’s just fine. Family isn’t always about being happy together. Family is about sometimes hurting each other’s feelings and still loving each other. Family is about saying sorry a lot. Family is about being irritated by a person that you would move the whole world to help if it becomes necessary. That kind of love and loyalty is built slowly through lots of shared experiences both good and bad. When I talk with my siblings we reminisce as fondly about the old squabbles as we do about the happy games. I like to think of my grown-up kids looking back at this grumpy evening and laughing with joy that it existed. I’ll pay the price of some grumpy family times to get a future like that.