If you follow my blog, you already know that not every behavior my parents modeled for me was a positive one. I challenge you to find one set of parents that did. Despite the dysfunctions that plagued our family, there were also positive aspects to be had. And I fear, I don't often focus on these positives enough.
A large part of my childhood revolved around our church community. And many of the lessons I was taught stemmed from a fairly fundamental view of Christianity. Dr.Dobson was a favorite in our home. If you follow my posts, you already know that religion is no longer something I subscribe to. I think a lot of unhealthy habits and behaviors can easily grow from fundamentalism including exclusion, judgmentalism, revenge ("an eye for an eye"), and even violence and abuse -("spare the rod and spoil the child").
But I think it's only fair to give credit where credit is due. While I have many gripes about my childhood and even more about religion, there were many things that my parents did well. And they used Christianity as the basis for much of it. In a spirit of taking the good with the bad…
Here are some lessons taught by Christians … and carried on by this Non-believer:
We always ate dinner together at the table. Meal time was community time. It encouraged family togetherness and conversation and it created an awareness of each other's lives. It's harder to be self-centered and disconnected when you share a meal with someone and are aware of their days' struggles.
It's a practice that I've carried-on in my family today. One of the reasons I continue to work night shift is that it allows us to continue to eat dinner together. Many days it's the only time we all have together. Not hungry? Too bad … you sit at the table anyway. For that 30 minutes we commune as a family. And I've found that often times, that sulking teenager soon has something to share about their day that we wouldn't have otherwise heard.
Thirteen years of dinners we have had together and now the kids are dumb-founded if someone is missing from the table one night. While their growing independence may create a desire to pull away from this tradition, the sense of normalcy surrounding this routine is one I hope they continue to appreciate.
My parents taught me to be a friend to the less fortunate and to appreciate people for their genuineness, not their popularity. My father, in particular, had an affinity for the unusual and less popular kids and he taught me to not only discover their worth, but to celebrate their treasured uniqueness. Most of my childhood, I was friends with the dorks and still am …. dorks usually grow-up to be way cooler than the cheerleaders anyway 😉 Ok ok who's judging now … point taken.
They taught me charity. I remember my mother holding the hand of a homeless man in church once. When everyone else stepped away because he smelled bad, she stepped in. She always volunteered for the projects for the poor. Through her, we learned that there were many people much poorer than we were and that their misfortune was usually due to a history or unfortunate life events and not through some direct fault of their own.
Consequently, I've raised children who sympathize with the less fortunate. They carry extra snacks with them, to pass out to the homeless, every time we go into the city and donating clothes and bagged lunches are monthly practices for us.
They taught us to appreciate the things we had and to take good care of them. It was a lesson in respect for the work it took to buy the things we had. Nothing came free and every gift, no matter how small was to be cherished. I still have quite a few items from my childhood, in good working condition, that I have been able to share with my children. In a world of disposability, I cherish this lesson and continue to teach the same to my children.
Focus on the Family is a Christian ministry that focuses on helping families thrive. Family Game Night was one of the suggestions my Dad took from this and he practiced it regularly with us kids. Being able to escape from the current stressors and focus on something less serious, to spend time together just having fun was crucial to our survival. Some of my favorite memories came from those family game nights and it brought-out a youthfulness in my father that I rarely saw. My mother didn't usually participate on these nights and instead used it as an opportunity to have some "quiet time". As a mother, I now understand that need and have used my disappointment of her absence as a child as an opportunity to understand and improve.
Game night is a common practice in my household and while it is sometimes a challenge to pull my teens/tweens away from the screens, once the game is underway, it is almost always a great success! I love that Game night gives my kids another opportunity to see me as a fun-loving person and not just a parent all the time.
Leaving my childhood, there were a lot of things my parents told me to do/not do … and many of them I chose not to subscribe to …. including religion. Although, my father and sister have also since left the faith. But regardless of where I now stand and what my current beliefs are, I did manage to carry-on many positive practices that were rooted in the church and practiced by my then-completely religious family. And while I still found myself holding on to some bias and judgment and a restricted view of the world, I'm learning to overcome that.
We all have unhealthy examples set for us and the sources or reasons behind them vary. But by hearing people's stories, seeking out different perspectives and being willing to accept that lessons can be learned from so many different places, I have learned how to shed a lot of that bias and yet still hold on to the goodness that came from a religious household.
The same way I learned from my parents to befriend the unusual, to play with my children and be to silly, to appreciate the community of a family meal, to be charitable to those in need and to appreciate the things I have … my children can learn from me. And my hope is that they learn their lessons not just from me, from any source they can.
The world is full of lessons we can learn and opportunities to improve …. regardless of where they come from. If I can learn from the addict, the prisoner and the fallen, then I can learn from the Christian. I am thankful for many of the lessons my parents and my church taught me. I am thankful that they taught me to fight for and believe in my family. I am thankful that given their limited resources, they sure as hell did try to create an intact and happy family. The church and it's teachings are full of good lessons to learn from, even if you don't buy into the whole package, even if you're a non-believer.
