I do have to admit, I am very much
so a “momma’s boy.” I grew up thinking very highly of my mother, and as time
goes on, I realize more and more how amazing she really was in raising me and
my brothers. My father was very complimentary to my mother in that they were
both very compassionate. But, to be frank, my dad got the good end of the deal
in my family structure. I was raised with five brothers, and zero sisters. My
poor mother had to deal with living in a house with seven dirty boys. For those
of you who have seen the musical, “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” you can
probably guess why she loved this film. Like Milly, my mother had to bring
order to our house.
A couple weeks ago in a pre-class
activity, we were asked to make a list of family rules that were incorporated in
our own nuclear families. This made me think back to when all my brothers and I
were all still living at home. I had to think back about how my family
functioned and interacted. I made several connections to how I act now and how
they came about through family rules.
I grew up out in the middle of
no-where in Northern California. There my parents bought a good amount of
property and decided to raise a variety of animals, not as a way of making
money, but to give us boys something to do. We had chickens, rabbits, cows,
horses, sheep, dogs, cats, and turkeys. There was always plenty of work to be
done outside. When my mom thought that we were becoming too complacent with our
work outside, she started a large garden. We lived on bluffs, so the dirt was a
hard cement –like soil that required a lot of work to dig so keeping up with a
garden was time demanding. In the summer, it got hot, and in the winter it got
wet. Needless to say, we got dirty a lot.
But, inside the house we had to
treat it like it was a sanctuary. Everything was clean and proper. In a house
full of boys, we had to live as if we had sisters. Even though we had four
bathrooms in the house (two of which my mom never used) we had to keep the
toilet seat down. Certain bodily functions that boys just naturally like to
flaunt were taboo. We always had a formal dinner at the dinner table with
napkins on our laps, and a table set even with wine glasses to drink from. We
always had to say please and thank you. Negative terms such as “shut up” required
20 pushups per word. Needless to say, some of my brothers bulked up in the
winter.
Now, there is a point to all this
ranting. After I looked at how I was raised, and the rules that were in place,
I looked at my wife’s upbringing. Needless to say, it was very different. They
didn’t have as many rules and responsibilities. Do I think that is a bad thing?
Of course not! Her family focused on different aspects. The things that I have
realized sense I thought through the differences in our upbringing, is how we
both see life differently. In my wifes family, they were often, what my family
would consider rude to each other. They would do things that normal families
would do and call each other stupid and point our each other’s flaws. In my
family, we would make fun of each other in a different way. We would make implications.
For example if I tried to cook rice, but ended up burning it, my wifes family
would say, “don’t let him make the rice, he’ll just burn it.” And in my family
they would more likely say, “Maybe we should let someone else cook the rice.”
Both are insulting in different ways. The way I make fun of my wife offends
her, and the way that my wife makes fun of me offends me. Both are due to our
upbringings.
Now that was just one example of
many things that I found of why we think things through differently. Other examples
of differences are differences in priorities, order, and entitlement. With
understanding how we were both brought up really helps us learn how to better
communicate to each other in the other’s “language.” In our daily interactions,
we make a lot of assumptions of how others interpret and understand us. If we
actually take the time to try to understand one-another and see each other’s strengths
and weaknesses, marriages will be stronger, and in turn, families will be closer.
