People inside the family circle make unconditional commitments to be there for each other, no matter what.
I am talking about a real family. I am talking about the family feeling that managers whip at the office. The way they do, for instance, at Delta Airlines, where the Delta Family Feeling is a corporate slogan meant to stimulate a chummy attitude among the people who work there.
In her book DIVORCING THE CORPORATION, Jacqueline Plumez cites managers of fortunes 500 companies as saying things such as this: "I love my company. They are the family I turn to when I'm in trouble." And she notes that one of the keys to getting on Fortune's list of the One Hundred Best Companies to Work For is to "make people feel that they are part of a...family."
The quickest way to tell the difference between the boss at Delta and a parent at home is to imagine this scenario. A man gets a form letter telling him that his services to the family are no longer needed. Good-bye, enjoy your severance pay. But he takes the letter to his supervisor and tearfully whines "You can't do this to me; I'm family." The supervisor pats him on the shoulder in fatherly fashion, but answers,"No, you used to be a family. Now you are fired."
In committed families nobody gets fired.
Mothers and fathers cannot unparent themselves. Not the way a husband can unhusband himself. Or the way a friend can stop being a friend. A father may chuck his daughter out of the house, he might dispossess a child of an inheritance, he can refuse to accept phone calls from a wandering rebel. But he cannot make the child into a nonchild of his. The bonding is permanent. And the commitment is meant to match.
Not everyone who helps to make a child can make a parent's commitment. Now and then two people are led by tragic necessity to allow other people to make the commitment, to be the parents of their child. Real life does not always fit the mold of nature. But the exception only highlights the basic reality about every family: a family is created when a commitment is made, not when a baby is born.
Blood does not make a family. Nobody in my immediate family is blood kin to any of the others. But we are a family. It is unconditional commitment that turns us into a family.
What do I mean by unconditional?
I mean that no child needs to meet a certain standard to qualify for his parent's commitment. When a new parent says to a baby, "I am the person who will be there for you," there is no fine print that qualifies the promises. No committed parent ever say, "I'll be there for you as long as you measure up to my expectations." When we accept a child as ours, we say, in effect, "Nothing you could ever do and nothing you could ever become could disqualify you from my commitment."
There is no other commitment like this one for unconditional. It is truly a "no matter what" relationship, as close to God's commitment as we can get-and what a gift it is!
The "no matter what" No deductibles. No matter that he or she is destined to be a pain in the neck. No matter that the best of parents sometimes end up murmuring that their children are not exactly what they had in mind when they prayed for some fruit from the family tree.
Our daughters may choose values we despise and may despise values we cherish. Our sons may worship strange deities, of whom we have never heard. They may fail at most things they try or not try much of anything. One may fall deep into depression and one may fly high on drugs. We may almost die of fear for them, choke on our anger at them, weep at the pain they suffer, and go broke trying to pay their way.
No matter. Our commitment is for the kind of forever that gives a child permanent membership in our caring ensemble of people we call a family.
Let's have a coffee
Hari
Enjoy reading...Blessing
Actually family are the best. Personally, my family are my first priority