Browsing Tag: learning

I have learned that there are many things that are taught in a family that both the parents and the children are unaware of that are being taught.  I grew up in Southern California away from extended family.  My mother had a brother, who lived with us, and a mother who we often didn’t know where she was and my mother didn’t know her father.  There was very little contact with extended family, no phone calls, no visits-they generally were not part of our lives.  The interesting thing is that my brothers and sister and I do not maintain contact with each other.  We love each other and when we’re together we have a great time but somehow it never occurs to us to call each other just to chat or to keep in touch or to invite someone over for dinner. My husband just shakes his head at me because he can’t comprehend not maintaining contact with loved ones.  He has weekly phone calls with his brothers and sisters and when his parents were alive he called them almost daily “just to check in.”  Fortunately, our children had their father’s example of staying in touch with his extended family, because they call and visit with each other daily.  It took me a long time to figure out why it never occurs to me to call my family, and it’s not that I don’t think about them and it’s not that I don’t love them.  It just never enters my thinking to call when I have news of something good or bad.  And since I rarely hear from my brothers or sister I am assuming that it doesn’t occur to them either.  It takes an event, like a wedding or a birthday or holiday for us to connect, just like it did when I was growing up, and I remember going to a relative’s house for Thanksgiving once.  And when we’re together it’s great and I love them and we always say we need to get together more and we mean it but then we go home to our subtle learning and don’t call each other.  Recognition is one of the first steps to change and maybe it’s time for me to change.