What Roles do You Play in Your Family?

 

    This week in class we talked about something very interesting that I had never considered before. A least to the depth in which we talked about it. The primary focus of our discussion was “family roles”. Now when most people think about family roles, they think about how the man’s role is to protect and provide while the women’s role is to nurture and make a house feel like a home. (I’m speaking generally here.) Yet I think we forget about perhaps the most important roles we play. The individual roles we play in each of our family members personal lives. For example, an older sister often takes the role of role model and best friend of her younger sister. Or maybe a father takes on a role similar to one of an older brother to a son whose closest siblings are all girls or hasn’t any. These are often the unspoken roles we take on in our families.

    This week I was invited to create what’s called a “family map” I had never heard of one before and had no idea what it meant when I first heard about it. But what it is, is a “map of the relationships within a household. Not just the blood ones but the emotional ones. One is typically drawn by placing everyone’s names in a cluster on a paper and then drawing circles around the close relationships. For example, there is usually a close circle around a husband and wife. Then another around the mother and an oldest daughter, and maybe one around the 2 siblings that are closest in age to each other.  It really just depends on the family. I found it very fascinating and helped me to see some of the roles my own family members play. Ones I had never even considered.

    The conversation took a really interesting turn when we began to talk about when a change occurs within that family system or map. Maybe an older sibling moves out, or a baby is born, maybe even a divorce happens. Regardless of the change, a stage of unspoken chaos always seems to follow. This is because when any part of the system changes it effects every other part at least to some degree.  Lets use the my own family for example, My mom, my dad, and my younger sister. Growing up my dad and I were always pretty close and them my sister and mom were always pretty close as well. However, there was a bit of a rift right between the genders. Not a lot of change really happened in my family so this is just kind of the way to stayed for a long time. That is until I left on a 2-year mission for my church where contact with my family was very limited. I noticed my families lives back home seem to be pretty chaotic for a while, but after about 6 months something began to change. My father began to cleave unto my mother more than I had seen in probably 10 years and things became much happier around the house. You see when I left my father was left alone to a degree or had no one in his circle anymore. I think this sparked a new and evolved relationship to form between my parents and for that circle to be reinforced. Things have pretty much stayed this way ever since as I have not been home much for some years now due to a mission, college, a job, and being married myself now. It will be interesting to see what happens when my sister finally decides to move out.

    In closing I invite whoever may be reading this o think about what their family map may look like and how and why it has evolved over the years. It has led me to a great amount of insight and shed new light on my own family. For me it was a bit of an emotional and revelatory experience.