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Your relationship with your child is the smallest unit of community. Your relationship with your child is the smallest building block of culture. Your relationship with your child is what defines your family.
Home may be the place where, “when you have to go there, they have to take you in,” but family is the place where, where ever you are, they have to be there with you. Billy Joel was referencing romance when he sang, “Well I’ll never be a stranger and I’ll never be alone; whenever we’re together, that’s my home,” but he could just as well have been talking about parents and children.
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Speaking of community, why do I write these blog posts every week? Is it about connection? Am I looking for support? This is essay number 318 as it happens. I haven’t missed a Tuesday morning in over six years. And you have fulfilled your part in the relationship by reading. If you have also been gracious enough to reach out with a “attaboy” or even a “you are completely wrong on this one,” you have gone above and beyond.
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The next level of community for me after my family is my Families Anonymous group. What does Families Anonymous offer? I have been to my share of meeting, none of which was ever held in a $5000 conference room overlooking the Manhattan skyline. To the contrary, folding chairs in sweaty church basements are the norm. Refreshments, such as they are, typically include coffee and cookies. No lobsters or foie gras anywhere.
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Just as there are no expensive seafood dishes at my Families Anonymous meeting, there are no power point presentations or multi-media displays, no professional motivational speakers. One of us will “lead” the meeting. Some of us will read the same inspirational suggestions as the week before. We will tell our stories of how our “qualifier”–the loved one whose addiction has merited our attendance–is still using or is in jail or is in a program. We will take strength in our fellowship.
Maybe community is what this blog is about as well.
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Maybe you also feel under attack by a culture that would prefer that your beloved children take heroin rather than participate in family game night. Maybe you feel that when you are playing “Scattergories” with your kids that there are those who would prefer that said children should be at the mall, doing ecstasy, texting strangers, listening to records played with a machete. Maybe you are aware that there is someone, maybe any number of someones, who would be more than willing to sell your child some “one and done” drugs. There is no high school student in this country who could not find marijuana to purchase in under twenty minutes. But neither is there a kid who would say that he no longer wants to be part of game night. Not if the family has been having an outrageous time of playing Boggle dating back to before the kid can even remember.
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So what’s it going to be, dad? Are you going to commit to keeping family game night inviolate? Are you going to stand up and put down your hand-held device to play “spit” with your kids every Friday night? Are you going to respond to one of my blog posts with the most magnificent words ever typed? “My 14-year-old son beat me at Parcheesi for the first time last night. You should have seen him grin.”
Because I’m pretty sure it doesn’t get any better than that.
And please don’t forget to write to let me know about the victory and the smile. Because we all need the support.
15 thoughts on “Support for FGN”
Great post – this one hit home for me. In my family kids were seen and not heard – and seen as little as possible. It’s so wonderful to be part of a generation that’s relearning communication and community!
Attaman! This is my first reading of your Tuesday blog. How my name appeared on your subscribe list i do not know.
For now, keep my name on ” the list”.
Listening to records? Sounds downright innocent.
Good job David. When is the next Families Anonymous meeting?
My kids (ages 10 to 24), despite very different schedules still play games together regularly. Their taste in games has changed, but the bondng has not. And taking drugs is a non-issue, not because it is forbidden, but because it is a bad idea and a waste of time and resources.
And if, Heaven forbid, you should lose your child to accident, illness, or whatever, as I did, what do you want your memories to be? My head and heart are filled with basketball games in his room (We didn’t break anything that couldn’t be replaced.), camping trips, and giggles in the night, and, thankfully, not too many times when I told him I was too busy.
I confess I was getting a bit bored with this post until you got to the story about the 14 year old beating dad at Parcheesi. Pretty compelling.
You have my support. I always enjoy the blog posts. Even learn a thing or 5.
I don’t usually write comments on anything. That being said – I look forward to reading this blog each week. You have a unique and wonderful perspective and you make me look at things a bit differently than maybe I normally would. Thank you.
Beautifully inspirational. Thank you!
I think your blog is about connection. Thank you.
Woohoo for family game night! Settle Catan, Clue, Scatergories – spades – whatever! Movie nights were a standard for a while too… everyone took a turn choosing and we eventually made our way through every Godzilla movie ever made. Thanks for always reminding us of what is important!
David,
. . . Whatever happened to Family Game Night? Gone with the internet? Though it is the best
time to interact, learn, and have fun. Great piece!
Jonathan
Attaboy and you’re completely right on this one! We all missed you at the community meeting/run this am. Thanks much.
Thanks for reminding us of the powerful positive impact of family time. Also, it’s great that you spoke of Families Anonymous as many people are not aware of this valuable support group.