A System of Families in a Family System

This weekend has been an exciting one for me. I went down to Utah with my little sister to see the rest of my family. My brother is in Sandy with his wife and three week old baby. My sister is in Erda with her husband, daughter, and son. My other sister is in Springville with her husband, fours sons, and one daughter. My parents drove up from southern California. Unfortunately, they left my youngest sister there because she couldn't afford to miss three days of school, she's a junior in high school. Here's an honorary picture of her

She's seriously the glue of this whole family operation. I love her. We all love her. 

I'm sure you're aware of the different roles everyone in your own families play. We have very definite roles in my family and when someone is missing you can tell. There's a void. I love my family because of how we work together and the love we have for each other. I know that I can turn to them at anytime and count on them to have my back. One reason for this is because of the way we were raised, my parents are the bomb.com. Check them out

I just can't get over how cute they are. (This is a current picture of my mom but my dad has aged significantly. And lost the mustache. Thank goodness.) 

My parents taught us many important life lessons and had rules set up for us to live by. I come from a traditional, patriarchal family. We are different though because we believe in having equality as well as having separate roles. There are six girls in my family and each of our opinions are valid and worth just as much as my dad's or brother's. We have been taught the importance of an education; my older sisters have graduated college, my younger sister and I are working towards earning our degrees, and my youngest sister is planning on going to college. My dad is a lawyer and encourages us to discuss topics together without becoming contentious. Disagreement happens at my house all the time! 

If something isn't working in your own family system it is extremely difficult, not impossible, to fix it if you are only working on yourself or the "problem person." A family system works together, like the parts of a clock, you have to work on changing everyone to find greater peace and harmony. You can't just eliminate the problem because then it won't work as well. You have to fix the system as a whole.