Ok, so this
post isn’t really about a new car, but it was a great way to get your attention.
What I really want to write about today was family systems which is why I thought
about a car. A car is a culmination of many different systems that make it run.
It has the electrical system, the ignition system, and the drive train to name
a few. Now you may be asking how is a family like a car? Like what are you talking
about? The family is most often referred to as a system with each member having
a specific role and working together to accomplish a well running machine as it
were. If one part is not doing its job, the system as a whole cannot function.
One reading
that we had this past week that I want to pull from to help explain some of these
ideas is from the book “Exploring Family
Theories” by Suzanne R. Smith, Raeann R. Hamon, Bron B.
Ingoldsby & J. Elizabeth Miller. Let’s look at some of what is said in the
book and talk about what is said. “The whole is greater than the sum of the
parts. A family is much more than a collection of individuals who live together
and are related to each other; it has a holistic quality” (Smith, Hamon, Ingoldsby, & Miller, 2008) The family is so
much more than just a collection of people who are related living in the same
house. Unfortunately, I think that this is the way the world sees that family
these days. The family is just people who are related to us that we can maybe
come to if we need help, but they provide no real connection (which is a whole other
issue). More and more people are living alone recently and don’t have a lot of
the family interaction that use to be prominent. I don’t know what I would have
done without my family when I needed support when I was miles away in Argentina
for almost two years. We need to get back to being holistic and not just a
group of people living under the same roof. The family is a system, as
mentioned above, and all of the parts have to work together and everyone do
their job or the family (system) falls apart.
Going
off of that statement from above that the family members have jobs to perform,
in the book, this concept is talked about. “All family members take on roles. Family
roles are defined as ‘recurring patterns of behavior developed through
interaction that family members use to fulfill family functions’” (Smith, Hamon, Ingoldsby,
& Miller, 2008) . Each family member has a job or role
to play. Think about some roles you have in your own family. Whether you are
living with your parents, or if you are newly married, you have roles that you
need to do. One of my roles as a husband is to provide for the family. This
encompasses having a good job to have money to buy food and things that we
need. Another role I will have in a few short weeks is that of a father. That
means that I will help to take care of my new son and I’ll probably end up
changing most of the diapers. I have to say here that my wife says I also will
get to burp him.
Overall
the family system is important and having clearly defined roles helps a family
to run the way it was intended. I’m not trying to tell you what to do in your
own family, and I know that no family is perfect, but I have seen in my own
family the difference it makes when everyone plays their role. The family runs
more smoothly.
Bibliography
Smith, S. R., Hamon, R. R., Ingoldsby, B. B., &
Miller, J. E. (2008). Exploring Family Theories. Oxford University
Press.
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