The Family System

The Family System

The family is one of the greatest systems of life. The family goes all the way back to the first humans on earth, Adam and Eve. God ordained the family to be the basic unit of life. All beings function in a family in some fashion. 

An important role within the family is the parents. They are responsible for raising and caring for children. In The Book Of Mormon in Mosiah 4 we are taught our responsibilities as parents, 

"14 And ye will not suffer your children that they go hungry, or naked; neither will ye suffer that they transgress the laws of God, and fight and quarrel one with another, and serve the devil, who is the master of sin, or who is the evil spirit which hath been spoken of by our fathers, he being an enemy to all righteousness.

15 But ye will teach them to walk in the ways of truth and soberness; ye will teach them to love one another, and to serve one another."

These verses teach us to take care of our children and provide the necessities of life. It also includes how we should raise our children spiritually. The scripture yearns us to not allow any breaking of Gods' commandments. Breaking any of Gods' commandments would be following Satan and lead to falling away from righteousness.

Parents are the only aspect of family that needs to be talked about. A broad perspective that needs to be discussed more is family relationships. My Mom taught me at a young age to always maintain family relationships especially extended family. I grew up on the east coast in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Florida. Both sides of my extended family live on the opposite side of the country on the west coast in Oregon, California, Utah, and Arizona. From a young age I noticed my Mom always exchanged Christmas cards and frequently called all the members of our extended family. This always confused me, partially because I didn't know who most the people she was talking to, but also because we only saw them a couple of times my whole childhood. As a kid I wondered why she would put so much effort into these relationships since we basically never saw them and really didn't have a presence in their life nor did they have one in ours.

As explained in Family System Theory, "the family is much more than its formal or legal definition; instead, it is a living, growing superpersonality that has as its essence the interactions of its members". We our a part of our family and we share a personality with them because of how we are raised and what values we share as a whole.

The relationships in my immediate family is very different from other families. I have two sisters that are five and seven years older than me. Both are married and one has a baby girl and the other has three little boys. My sisters didn't get along super well since they chose different lifestyles. The oldest was a very bright student and choose to go to a school my parents approved of while the younger sister struggled more in school because she chose to rebel against my parents teachings. The oldest sister was married to a nice man and started a wonderful family. My other sister chose to live a different lifestyle and had a child outside of marriage. They have continued to grow apart from one another and from me as well. Even though my mother always stressed the importance of maintaining family relationships my sisters chose to seclude themselves from the rest of the family. I am different from them but no better, I chose to keep my relationship with my parents and I try to have a relationship with my extended family even though it is difficult.

Family relationships are complicated and can be a very touchy situations depending on each family and time. The relationship we have with our family is very important and impacts the "superpersonality" that our family has.

Smith. Family System Theory.