Family

People often stereotype what it is like to be around family members during the holidays. And while I never realized it until recently, a lot of people don't get along with their family.  Some people may read that and think, "duh!" but I grew up in a family where we were really close, so, to me, it is rather an alien concept.

I have three brothers, no sisters, and five cousins. I have always been extremely close with all of my family members and I love being with them.  This Christmas all my brothers and I will be spending Christmas with our parents (and families) and we will try to be together as much as possible, not just on Christmas day when we Have to be together.  We are all very different with unique personalities.  Three of us are Catholic, one is Protestant; three of us majored in history, one in English; three of us are boys, one is a girl; three of us went to Hillsdale, one to West Point; three of us played baseball/softball, one didn't, are we noticing a pattern here?  While we do not have everything in common, we do find that we agree on the really important stuff.  We are all Christians, we are all happily married (and don't believe in divorce), we all love our parents and each other, we all discipline our children, and we all homeschool our kids. The list could go on about our similarities and differences, but the point I am trying to make is that we do not get along because we have everything in common. Our jobs are different, some of our views on parenting are different, some of us watch television and some don't, some can sing and some are tone deaf, but we LOVE to be together.  Do we still occasionally fight? Yes.  Do my brothers still try to just pull my chain? YES! But if we had the choice between being together or being with our dearest friends, we choose our family because we like each other just that much.  And, at least in my case, my best friend is part of my family.

What does this have to do with homemaking?  I want my kids to be as close with their brothers and sisters and cousins as I was with mine.  But that is not something that just happens accidentally.  You have to teach your children how to love their family.  While I fought with my brothers A Lot, I was also taught how to respect them, and how to treat them with kindness.  My father taught my brothers how to protect me and watch out for me, and they always have and always will.  If we just sit by and say, "Oh, they will love each other, they are family"  they might, but not necessarily.  I didn't have to teach my son how to love his sister, but I do need to show him how to treat her with kindness, how to protect her (not sit on her), and how to recognize that "when she hit you, she didn't mean to hurt you, she really loves and admires you."

The type of home that we create, and the culture that we surround our children with, will form how they view family.  I don't want my kids to have an uncle that they have never met, or cousins that they can't name. I want my children to be excited about holidays, just like I am, because that means they will get to be with their grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, brothers, and sisters.  One of the ways that we encourage our kids to love their family is to pray for different family members each night. Also, when Sebastian was younger we made him a photo album with pictures of all his cousins and aunts and uncles in it and we would go through it with him to make sure that he could recognize the family and know which cousins belonged to which aunt and uncle.  If we don't teach our kids that family is important, then they will grow up thinking that it's not.  Love is a choice, and while we can't choose who our family is, we can choose how to love them.