4 Family Types

There are basically four family types that we all come from. 

1 - The Traditional Family System

The old-fashioned family has a myth that “father knows best.”  This family is under the control of only one member. 

2 - Enmeshed Family System

The frightened family has a myth that it's “us against the world.”  It is emotionally bound together and protective of itself. 

3 - The Fighting Family System

The fighting family has a myth of “every man for himself.”  Each member of this family is strongly individualistic, recognizing no other authority than his (or her) own.

4 - The Open Family System

The healthy family system theme is “all for one and one for all.” The open family system emphasizes the worth, dignity, and uniqueness of each individual, the importance of unconditional positive regard, and the value of positive reinforcement.

Creating Candidates for Cults

Cults do not destroy families as much as stuck-togetherness attitudes in families create candidates for cults. When parents focus on societal influence it actually serves to increase their anxiety even though it helps them avoid personal responsibility. On the other hand, parents who accept the fact that their children are less likely to be influenced by other systems to the extent that they are comfortable in their own, while they might find the idea more painful at first, are given an a means of approaching the problem that is quite within their power, and it can, in turn, contribute to their own self-respect.

Edwin Friedman, Generation to Generation

The capacity to be an “I”

Differentiation means the capacity of a family member to define his or her own life's goals and values apart from surrounding togetherness pressures, to say “I” when others are demanding “you” and “we.” It includes the capacity to maintain a (relatively) nonanxious presence in the midst of anxious systems, to take maximum responsibility for one's own destiny and emotional being. It can be measured somewhat by the breath of one's repertoire of responses when confronted with crisis. The concept should not be confused with autonomy or narcissism, however. Differentiation means the capacity to be an “I” while remaining connected.

Edwin Friedman, Generation to Generation

The Residue of the Relationship

When individual members leave a family, whether through death, marriage, relocation, or a cutoff, the system will generally be quick to replace the person who is lost. Whoever the replacement is, new child or new spouse, new in-law or new boarder, clergyman or clergy woman, in the same generation or the next, he or she will replace in all the family triangles the person who has left. They will have grafted onto them all the expectations associated with the predecessor, and the un-worked-out problems that may have contributed to the predecessor’s leaving (or becoming symptomatic) are likely to resurface in the new relationships. Replacement is a function of grief, and grief is always proportional to the un-worked-out residue of the relationship that was lost.

Edwin Friedman, Generation to Generation

When Work is like a Family

When a business is presented as a family, its workers may feel pressure to pledge an unreasonable degree of loyalty to their employer, putting up with long hours, mistreatment, and the erosion of work-life boundaries, all in the spirit of harmony and a shared purpose. In other words, when a workplace resembles a family, it’s frequently for reasons that would make you want a different job.

Joe Pinsker, writing in The Atlantic

Frankl’s Decision: Meaning or Happiness?

By 1941, Viktor Frankl’s theories had received international attention and he was working as the chief of neurology at Vienna's Rothschild Hospital, where he risked his life and career by making false diagnoses of mentally ill patients so that they would not, per Nazi orders, be euthanized.

That was the same year when he had a decision to make, a decision that would change his life. With his career on the rise and the threat of the Nazis looming over him, Frankl had applied for a visa to America, which he was granted in 1941. By then, the Nazis had already started rounding up the Jews and taking them away to concentration camps, focusing on the elderly first. Frankl knew that it would only be time before the Nazis came to take his parents away. He also knew that once they did, he had a responsibility to be there with his parents to help them through the trauma of adjusting to camp life. On the other hand, as a newly married man with his visa in hand, he was tempted to leave for America and flee to safety, where he could distinguish himself even further in his field.

As Anna S. Redsand recounts in her biography of Frankl, he was at a loss for what to do, so he set out for St. Stephan's Cathedral in Vienna to clear his head. Listening to the organ music, he repeatedly asked himself, "Should I leave my parents behind?... Should I say goodbye and leave them to their fate?" Where did his responsibility lie? He was looking for a "hint from heaven."

When he returned home, he found it. A piece of marble was lying on the table. His father explained that it was from the rubble of one of the nearby synagogues that the Nazis had destroyed. The marble contained the fragment of one of the Ten Commandments -- the one about honoring your father and your mother. With that, Frankl decided to stay in Vienna and forgo whatever opportunities for safety and career advancement awaited him in the United States. He decided to put aside his individual pursuits to serve his family and, later, other inmates in the camps.

The wisdom that Frankl derived from his experiences there, in the middle of unimaginable human suffering, is just as relevant now as it was then: “Being human always points, and is directed, to something or someone, other than oneself — be it a meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter. The more one forgets himself — by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love — the more human he is.” 

Emily Esfahani Smith writing in The Atlantic

Harmful comments at Work

Families and workplaces have a tendency to overlook people’s harmful comments or behavior out of respect for a shared history. At family gatherings, “sometimes there’s this idea of like, Oh, well, that’s just Uncle Larry. He might say some homophobic or racist, sexist stuff, but that’s just how he is,” Cynthia Pong, a New York City–based career coach said. “I have seen that happen before in the workplace, excusing people who’ve maybe been around the company for some time, and really not holding them to account for the highly problematic things that they may be saying or doing.”

Joe Pinsker, writing in The Atlantic

When Professional and Personal Lines are blurred

We must understand that “family” means different things to different people. Not everyone wants to connect with their coworkers on a deeper level, let alone create a dependency to the organization. In a professional context, an employee will want to reserve private details of their personal lives outside of work. But when your workplace is a “family,” these types of conversations can be fair game, as the goal of the organization is to encourage socialization for the benefit of the whole. This leads employees to emotionally attach themselves to the organization. While it can reduce conflicts and disagreements within the organization, a fear of causing a strain in the relationship with their superiors (who are now seen as fathers or mothers) could leave employees feeling like they must share any information that is being asked of them.

Joshua A. Luna, writing in the Harvard Business Review

The Box of Love

Paul’s wife bought Christmas wrapping paper for presents they could not afford. Angry over the purchase, Paul flew into a rage. His three-year-old daughter fled into another room with the paper. She soon returned with a poorly wrapped box. Enraged even more, Paul sent her back to her room sobbing after a harsh spanking for wasting the paper. 

On Christmas day, the little girl brought the same box to Paul, promising it contained her daddy’s gift. Paul’s embarrassment soon turned to anger, when he discovered the box was still empty. But the little girl explained to him that she had not forgotten to add a gift.

“It is full of love and kisses" she had “blown into the box” herself. 

Paul hugged his daughter and asked for forgiveness. He promised to leave his anger and bitterness behind. Paul, a child abuse survivor, kept that box. He used it as a well of affection to draw from when he was hurt or discouraged. 

Paul had seen the best and worst of fatherhood. But that box of love served as a reminder of what being a father can truly mean.

While we do not choose our fathers, we have the opportunity to decide how we will respond to them. As we gather with family this coming Thanksgiving and Christmas, may we reflect the goodness and kindness we have received from the one father who never disappoints and loves unconditionally.

Author unknown 

Who comes out on top

To understand a company’s strategy, look at what they actually do rather than what they say they do. The same logic applies to one’s life. For example, ambitious people will reliably tell you that family, or being a mother or father, is the most important thing in their lives. Yet when pressed to choose between racing home to deal with a chaotic pre-bedtime scene and staying another hour at the office to solve a problem, they will usually keep working. It’s these small, everyday decisions that reveal if you’re following a path to being the best possible spouse and parent. If your family matters most to you, when you think about all the choices you’ve made with your time in a week, does your family come out on top?

Clay Christensen, How will you Measure your Life?

Falling into old ditches

Have you ever had someone bait you when your family gets together?  “Come on. Join me, and let’s relive those old patterns you’ve tried to shed.”  You try not to let the person get under your skin, but somehow, you end up behaving in a way you believed you had left behind long ago. You can't stop yourself. You stumble backward into old dysfunctional patterns.

“Why does the other person say these things?” you wonder. Perhaps they want to feel superior to you. Maybe that unhealthy relationship is in their comfort zone.

You could try being passive—that might allow you to avoid conflict, put off the problem, and set it aside for the sake of peace. But the goal should be a healthy relationship rather than the absence of conflict. On the other hand, you could make yourself vulnerable, rising and falling with the other’s approval and rejection. This will mean spending a lot of your life bouncing between working hard to prove you are worthy of respect and resenting the need to prove it. 

Stephen Goforth

What’s really on people’s minds

Too often spouses, and also parents with their children, reduce conversations to logistics such as what to have for dinner, whose turn it is to do the laundry, or when to leave for soccer practice. Friends might run down their latest accomplishments and activities. What often gets left out is what is really on people’s minds — their joys, struggles, hopes and fears. Sometimes people keep conversation light with friends and family because they assume they already know what’s going on, but also, they may be afraid of what they might learn.

But what is love if not a willingness to listen to and be a part of another person’s evolving story? 

It turns out the best way for us to really understand those closest to us is to spend time with them, put down our phones and actually listen to what they have to say.

Kate Murphy, writing in the New York Times, author of You’re Not Listening: What You’re Missing and Why It Matters

Measure Up

There is no way to quite describe the feeling that I got when I sat down to eat with daughter at the school cafeteria for the first time. She looked up at me. It was a look that said she completely adored me just for being me. That just blew me away. She couldn't hardly sit still, or know what to do with her hands, as if she wanted to hug me.  There was a searching look as if to say, "Who am I?"  "Tell me who I am."

Fathers have a way of planting life mottos in the heads of their daughters.

"Measure Up!" is one of the most often heard. Perhaps it is never verbalized, but a daughter knows what's expected—and her attempts to live up to those expectations from her childhood result in her running her life by guilt. She ends up serving a motto instead of her creator. 

Stephen Goforth

The Value of Community

I used to think that community was as simple as having friends who bring a lasagna when things fall apart and champagne when things go well. Who pick up your kids from school when you can’t. But I think community is also an insurance policy against life’s cruelty; a kind of immunity against loss and disappointment and rage. My community will be here for my family if I cannot be. And if I die, my kids will be surrounded people who know and love them, quirks and warts and oddities and all.   

Jenny Anderson writing in Quartz

Writing your Own Eulogy

A visualization technique that asks people to write their own eulogy. It’s a technique that Daniel Harkavy, CEO and executive coach at Building Champions and co-author of Living Forward, has been teaching executives for over 20 years.

Harkavy’s tip is to write your eulogy first as if your funeral was today and everything you’ve accomplished so far was all you ever would. “Picture your memorial service as if it were being held right now. Your casket is sitting center stage, and as you look down the center aisle you see the first three rows, usually reserved for those with whom we were closest. Who’s sitting there for you?” he asks. “Most likely your family and dearest friends. Now keep looking down the aisle, and now you’re looking at rows 10 through 20. Who’s sitting there? Probably acquaintances, clients, customers. What did you give to the people in these rows?”

Harkavy says when he walks clients through this exercise during his speaking engagements, they usually all say the same thing: “We gave them our best!” He then asks them what they gave to the people sitting in rows one through three–and their answers usually amount to “We gave them our leftovers.” In other words, their work-life balance is out of whack.

“When you go to write your eulogy, you need to be brutally honest. Don’t pull any punches. You want to really feel this,” Harkavy says. “What would those closest to you say about who you were, how you lived, and what you had to give them, and why would they say that?”

Michael Grothaus writing in Fast Company

We prefer the Apps

The family that is eating together while simultaneously on their phones is not actually together. They are, in writer Sherry Turkle’s formulation, “alone together.” You are where your attention is. If you’re watching a football game with your son while also texting a friend, you’re not fully with your child — and he knows it. Truly being with another person means being experientially with them, picking up countless tiny signals from the eyes and voice and body language and context, and reacting, often unconsciously, to every nuance. These are our deepest social skills, which have been honed through the aeons. They are what make us distinctively human.

No wonder we prefer the apps. An entire universe of intimate responses is flattened to a single, distant swipe. We hide our vulnerabilities, airbrushing our flaws and quirks; we project our fantasies onto the images before us. Rejection still stings — but less when a new virtual match beckons on the horizon.

Andrew Sullivan writing in New York Magazine