Keith Milne
By Keith C. Milne
Our families can be our ultimate support system or our worst nightmares come to life. Many, if not most of us are taught by our family and our culture that “family” matters the most. We hear echos of this throughout our upbringing, with statements made like, “you’d better honor your family, or your father, or your mother, brother, or sister, they are all you have!” or something similar. In short order we all come to believe in this sacred doctrine.
The “Social” surrounding this phenomenon is powerful. Just as the silent code that young men and women learn about what “being a man” or “being a woman” means, i.e. not crying, not being weak, defending your honor, being a lady not a tramp and so on, so is the doctrine regarding one’s own family. We will punch someone in the face for saying something off color about one of our family members, especially when it comes to defending our Mother’s honor, and learn as we grow up that these are basic, foundational pillars of our existence.
Unfortunately, all too often, this “code,” surrounding defending ones family honor at nearly all cost, also becomes an avenue for some family members to use it to their advantage at everyone else’s expense. The brother who is always broke and needs just one more loan, the sister who refuses to acknowledge she is a kleptomaniac and needs to be bailed out again for shop lifting, or the uncle who keeps trying to get his younger niece into bed with him when no one else is around. Many of us can relate to a seemingly endless list of transgressions that are levied upon other members of our family in oscillating levels of magnitude over the years, gradually eroding the love, the trust, and the caring that was, perhaps, once a very prominent feature within a particular family but is now only a shadow of what it once was, or is nothing but darkness all around and plenty enough for everyone!
In this time of political division in America, and the world at large, along with radical climate change, gross economic upheaval and high inflation as a function of post covid supply disruption paired with the war being waged on Ukraine by Russia, there is more and more rhetoric arising that posits the need for increased kindness in the world and what a positive difference a concerted effort by all to be kinder to one another can actually make. I agree with this premise and have become far more aware of my own behavior towards everyone, including family members, and am actively working towards becoming a kinder individual.
This brings me back to how so many families treat other members of their family so badly when they have been taught, indoctrinated into believing by their church perhaps, or in some way, shape, or form have bought into the idea that family is all one has, and needs to be defended from outsiders no matter what. Yet they treat their spouses, kids, brothers, sisters, and others in their family like crap!
Too many people show little or no respect for the members of their own family and I am disgusted by it. There is always a lengthy excuse as to why they do it, and it usually involves a long history of friction that has gone on unresolved for years or decades, and it is always a function of repeated behaviors that piss others off and it goes unsaid and is not worked out.
Quite often there is no care given, no thought given, no mindfulness whatsoever involved in dealing with others in our family. We assume way too much, are quick to judge, ready to cut-off for any infraction, those in our family that we do not particularly care for, but are unwilling to take a hard look at ourselves and what we project to others in the family with our own words and actions.
We may not be truthful with ourselves about how much effort or lack thereof we put into the relationships that we profess to value so much. Further, we may not even be aware of just how much energy we may be sapping from someone we like to latch onto in our family because they care about us and will not turn away from us. Does that then mean that we should now tap that resource as if it were a money tree or endless source of water? NO!
We may also not be aware of how much we speak to only certain members of our family and tend to exclude those who have come into our family through other means like marriage, and in doing so are sending the message that those who have married into the family, or thinking about it or hopeful will forever be outsiders, or not as valued as the original circle of family members.
We need to not only become kinder and more loving and caring towards one another again, but we also need to learn about appropriate boundaries and not necessarily engage in or assume that others in our family want to hear every morbid detail about what ails us in our lives. It’s fine to have the ability to talk about things with someone in your family and then run with it if they are able and willing to listen to your woes, but no one should assume that the other should listen, has to listen, or needs to be listening to someone else’s woes at all, just because they are (un?)fortunate enough to have them as family.
I remember a time when others, out of respect for their friend or family member, would check in with the other person first as to whether or not it would be okay or if they would be willing to listen to a problem or issue first, before just launching into a torrid of personal woes without any notice or permissions being exchanged, or before texting it all to the intended recipient.
Checking in with someone first and getting their permission to discuss personal issues before launching into them, is a formerly normative social behavior that seems to have gone the way of privacy, peace and quiet, etiquette, manners, and common decency in 2022.
We all need advise or input from other perspectives sometimes, and we all need to vent sometimes too. We just need to remember that life, our lives, are not other peoples lives, and the problems we have others also have. In other words, we aren’t the only ones in the universe with problems.
We need each other far more than we’ll ever admit.
I feel strongly that everyone should make a more concerted effort towards restraint, respect, manners, and kindness and allow ourselves to become more loving and caring towards one another, and our “family” should be the group that we start with.
Make amends if you have to, and if it’s still possible. You’ll be surprised at how receptive others will be once they feel acknowledged and not taken for granted, used, and lied to anymore. Be honest and be humble.
With that said, I also believe in mental fitness and positive mental and physical health. Therefore, after over six decades of living I have come to a place where I will no longer waste any of the little time I have left fighting or fussing or playing doctor, counselor, financial advisor, computer go-to guy, or emotional pin-cushion to anyone, and that includes family members, and neither should you!
I will hang in with you for a long time, but when you continually sap me of good energy, worrying me all the time, dragging me down with all of your drama and whining and neediness and lies and irresponsibility and laziness, then I firmly believe in self preservation and will not go down with your ship.
Remember, family can be your ultimate support system, believing in you and your future. Promoting and encouraging you, and others in the family, to aspire to their dreams and then expending energy to help you in some way along your path to your own happiness.
But family can also be your worst enemy. If they sap you of energy, do everything they can to make you feel bad about yourself and who you are, or if they constantly put you down, discourage you, never show any caring for you or anyone else, lay guilt on you when it doesn’t belong, or discourage you from pursuing your dreams, then divorce them out of your life.
“Family” is all you have-TRUE. But family isn’t necessarily confined to blood and marriage relations–That’s a myth! Your family should be, in my opinion, only those people who want you to succeed, uplift you in some way, seem genuinely happy for you, and truly only want the best for you and will help you succeed. This also means that they will also be brutally honest with you if asked for their opinion in an attempt to help you. Surround yourself with these people and make them your family. They deserve it, not those who suck the life out of you, try to bring you down, are jealous, and think they hate you for what they hate about themselves.
This is your life. Don’t let your family or anyone else ruin it or tarnish the beauty of your personal journey! It all goes by so quickly. You don’t realize just how quick until you’re old enough that your own age sounds old to you. Don’t waste another moment on those who bring you down all the time.
