DOES OUR FAMILY CARE?


Car salesmen tell us they care. So do our governments, businesses and advertisers. Caring is fashionable and fuzzy.

Gut caring is another matter. It is hard and it is tough. It means we take the focus off ourselves and put it on someone else. It means we take the trouble to understand someone else so that we find a way to show we care - in their perspective and in their world.

No wonder someone invented the phrase “Tough Love”.

Caring is primarily family business. Caring starts when parents have a new infant whose first need is caring. We know the power of caring when we see the terrible disorders in children who have missed it. Caring is the first requirement for parenthood and the foundation of the family.

Caring is so tough that most of us find alternatives to the real stuff. We try busyness, bossiness, noisiness, nosiness, possessiveness and so on. We create these neurotic patterns to avoid the demands of caring - patience, openness, humility and risk.

The family is our best place to let folks help us with our favorite neurotic pattern. It is also the safest place to be vulnerable. In most other places, we put on the “right” face to fit in. These places are usually deficient in caring for reasons of safety. Churches, businesses, schools, clubs and hangouts, each have their own culture. Caring is usually too powerful for these cultures to handle.

Today’s challenge is that these outside cultures have great influence as the family struggles to keep itself together. It is going to take brave new efforts by families to nurture and protect the one ingredient in life that we all need but which seems to be in such short supply.

What’s your view on this FAMILY CHALLENGE, tell us by clicking on the “comment” button found below.