Top
Free Shipping On Orders Over $35!
Get Rewarded for Ordering Your Textbooks! Enroll Now
Customer Reviews Read Reviews
Write a Review
| Prologue | vii | ||||
| Part I: Leman'S Initial Observation: the Real World is not Family Friendly | |||||
|
3 | (18) | |||
|
|||||
|
21 | (24) | |||
|
|||||
|
45 | (26) | |||
|
|||||
| Part II: Leman's First Law: to Keep Your Family Together, Always Put Your Marriage First | |||||
|
71 | (20) | |||
|
|||||
|
91 | (22) | |||
|
|||||
|
113 | (16) | |||
|
|||||
|
129 | (26) | |||
|
|||||
| Part III: Leman'S Second Law: to Keep Your Balance as Parents, Always be Ready to Pull the Rug out from Under Them | |||||
|
155 | (26) | |||
|
|||||
|
181 | (24) | |||
|
|||||
|
205 | (22) | |||
|
|||||
|
227 | (22) | |||
|
|||||
|
249 | (24) | |||
|
|||||
|
273 | (28) | |||
|
|||||
| Epilogue: There's Just One More Thing | 301 | (8) | |||
| Worthwhile Reading | 309 | (4) | |||
| Endnotes | 313 |
The New copy of this book will include any supplemental materials advertised. Please check the title of the book to determine if it should include any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.
The Used, Rental and eBook copies of this book are not guaranteed to include any supplemental materials. Typically, only the book itself is included. This is true even if the title states it includes any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.
Can Your Family Beat the Odds?
IT'S A WORLD THAT IS NOT FAMILY FRIENDLY
"The odds are definitely against the average family."
I mutter these words every day as I drive home from my office after counseling:
ò a couple about to separate because she had found a very explicit letter from his "new friend";
ò a sixteen-year-old who had tried to commit suicide because her parents "didn't care";
ò a single mother at the end of her rope because two of her four kids (all of them under twelve) are on drugs.
And that's just a typical morning shift! As I look at my counseling caseload, I can see that the red-throated warblesnipe is not really our most endangered species. The family is. If you doubt this, all you have to do is look at what the odds keep saying:
Today, researchers estimate that about half of all marriages will end in divorce, and about a third of all babies are born to unwed mothers.
The odds say that most couples about to get married will be married about eleven years-less than the life of their washer, dryer, or refrigerator.
The odds say that you and your kids will be approached by drug pushers, or at least by peers who want you and your family to light up and be part of the fun.
The odds say that if you have two or three kids, at least one will be a "powerful little buzzard" whose behavioral problems may threaten to drive you crazy.
The odds say that in your family, Mom is already working or will choose to go to work in the near future. And when Mom works, she is an odds-on favorite to become stressed out while she tries to have and do it all.
The Epidemic of Dysfunctionalism
There are many causes for the family's turmoil today. The media constantly reports the tragedies of divorce, delinquency, inadequate education, and unwanted pregnancies. Crime is on the increase, often connected to alcohol and drug abuse. Clinical terms like dysfunctional family, codependency, enabling, toxic parents , and ACOA (Adult Children of Alcoholics) have become standard vocabulary. In fact, from the number of articles and books written on these subjects, it looks as if we have an epidemic of dysfunctionalism and codependency on our hands.
The best definition I have seen of codependency simply says: "An addiction to people, behaviors, or things." According to the Minirth-Meier Clinic, the term codependent has been around for several decades now, originating with efforts to help alcoholics and their families. The best known of any of these organizations or movements is Alcoholics Anonymous (AA).
As AA began having some success working with problem drinkers, it made an interesting discovery. As soon as it man-aged to get an alcoholic to stop drinking, his or her family would often come apart at the seams. As AA workers sought the reason, they learned that just as the alcoholic had been de-pendent on his alcohol, his family had been dependent on helping him with his alcoholism. They had adjusted their en-tire lives to dealing with the alcoholic's habits, and they didn't know how to function without this problem in their midst. In other words, they became dysfunctional (unable to function normally), caught in a vicious circle of codependency.
I know the epidemic of dysfunctionalism is real-inside the church as well as outside-because I work constantly with families who have been infected by its deadly virus, and not all of them are involved with alcohol. A wide range of problems creates and affects dysfunctional families, including physical and emotional abuse, infidelity, eating disorders, sexual ad-diction, and incest.
One easily overlooked but every bit as devastating addiction that ruins many marriages is workaholism. Until recent years, husbands were the major culprits, but now more and more wives are falling into the same trap. Yes, "We've come a long way baby," and now women are increasingly complaining of stress disorders such as ulcers, anxiety attacks, and heart problems.
The impact of "recreational drugs" alone is monumental. I regularly see the results of the use of cocaine sitting right be-fore me in my office. These people aren't sniffling, bleary-eyed, ragged junkies, fresh out of the alleys of New York or some other asphalt jungle. They are bright, articulate community leaders, people with good jobs and responsible positions in major businesses.
I've had to restructure my vocabulary and interview techniques. Rather than ask a patient, "Have you ever taken drugs?" I now ask, "When did you start doing coke?" And then I hear the sad story again. It was supposed to be just a little recreational fun, I'm told, but now it's a major priority-in some cases, the major priority in that person's life. And his or her family? They come in a very distant second.
Recently, a mother of four small children sat in my office and told me what it was like to be married to a man who had become a heavy user of cocaine. She had taken a job as a waitress to help support the family while her husband, a sales representative for a major firm, had gone through "intervention treatment" twice. She described him as a "nice guy but very compulsive." Coke had taken over his life, and he was now abusing not only the drug, but her and the children as well. Theirs is only one case of the many I see that confirms that abuse of cocaine and other drugs cuts across all economic lines.
How Did Families Get into This Mess?
The question I am always seeking to answer is "Why?" "Why does a family become dysfunctional and even codependent?" And right along with that, "Why are a lot of other families at the brink of having the same kinds of problems?"
All the handles or labels, such as codependency and dysfunctional , are useful in describing the problems affecting families, but I am just old-fashioned enough to reduce these problems to some pretty basic causes and effects.
At the top of my list of basic causes is what I call "perplexing priorities." One major reason the families of our nation are in trouble is that moms and dads are not really putting each other, or the family, first .
Oh, they like to tell me they are. I've had many husbands and fathers explain that they are out there breaking their necks, backs, and other parts of their anatomy sixty and seventy hours a week for "Marge and the kids." And I have plenty of wives tell me that, though they'd prefer to be at home with the children, "unless I work, we can't cover all the payments."
I don't doubt the sincerity of my clients for a moment. The consumer society in which we live bombards the family twenty-four hours a day with "Buy, buy, buy, buy now! Pay later." Having it all sounded good, but a lot of people discovered that "having it all" can be very expensive, as well as time-consuming and energy-draining. By the time the eighties ended, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous was ready to be re-placed by what Art Levine called Lifestyles of the Tired and Obscure .
As we moved into the nineties, many families began to realize that "having it all" was a fantasy. They discovered that "just staying even" is a real challenge. I don't think it's any co-incidence that in 1990, the rate of bankruptcies reached an all-time high.
Fighting the economic battles takes two paychecks in many families. In the majority of families I see, the "working mom" is a definite reality. Gone are Harriet Nelson and June Cleaver, the perfectly groomed mothers of 1950s TV fame. I'm not sure Harriet and June ever existed in the real world, but they do symbolize a bygone era when Momspent her days on the home front instead of at the office.
I sympathize with working moms because I deal with so many of them. And I'm also concerned about what our present way of life in American society is doing to the family as it draws so many women into the workplace for whatever reason.
I'm not much for quoting statistics, but the numbers on working women have to leap up and hit anybody between the eyes. In the early 1930s, fewer than 20 percent of the women in the United States worked outside the home. By the year 2000, 59.9 percent of married women with children under the age of six were marching off every morning, briefcase in hand, to help bring home the bacon. That means leaving little Kyle or Katie at home with a sitter (if they're lucky) or, more likely, at the lo-cal kiddy kennel (that is, child-care service or agency).
Not long ago, I talked with an upwardly mobile couple whose three-year-old son was having problems at preschool. Both parents worked in important administrative positions, and they dropped their child off at the preschool at 7:30 every morning, not picking him up until 5:45 at night. They came to see me because the little boy had begun striking out at other children, pushing them down, and, in general, causing a lot of disruption for the preschool staff.
"We are trying to work on his facial expressions," the mother started to explain.
"Excuse me," I interrupted. "What do you mean by facial expressions ?"
"We try to help him know there are really two faces-a positive face and a sober, sad face."
"What about all the other faces and expressions we see on little children?" I asked.
They both gave me a blank look. Didn't I understand that they were trying to help their little boy accentuate the positive? they seemed to ask. These parents meant well, but they had lost touch with their child. They were making him follow every bit as tough a schedule as they did-ten hours a day, five days a week. In my opinion, a three-year-old can handle pre-school two days a week, perhaps three hours a morning. Any-thing beyond that and I'm not surprised by acting-out behavior-hitting, pushing, or worse.
I realize that in some cases-particularly when single parents have to work-leaving the child with extended care is the only choice. In the case of this acting-out three-year-old, however, the parents were able to make other arrangements and cut down the preschool time for their little boy. His behavior improved almost immediately.
We Have Liberated Mom, but to What?
In case you are thinking that working wives and mothers are a rather recent phenomenon, you should realize that back in 1975, Dr. Urie Bronfenbrenner, a leading family authority, reported that between 1947 and 1975, the number of working wives rose from 6.5 million to 19.8 million-a 205 percent in-crease! Bronfenbrenner called this development "one of the most significant economic facts of our time." He also noted that this increase in working women "began before the so-called women's liberation movement and has unquestionably brought many new opportunities and greater satisfaction to numerous wives and mothers. But it has also had a major impact on American child-rearing."
It's interesting to note that Dr. Bronfenbrenner made this masterful understatement more than twenty-five years ago , before the goal of "having it all" really came into vogue. Yes, we have liberated Mom, but to what? True, she is no longer barefoot, pregnant, and chained to the kitchen. Now we might find her clad in Gucci shoes and putting off having children in order to pursue her career as she works her way up to the boardroom, then runs to catch the next shuttle to Boston. Or even more likely, she's wearing Reeboks, manning the checkout counter at Kmart, and letting shoppers know about the next "blue light special."
The census bureau reports that one-fourth of the nation's working wives now earn more than their husbands. Eight million wives are primary breadwinners today, compared with six million in 1981 and four million in 1977. Some two million earn at least twice as much as their husbands. Harvard University economist Dr. David E. Bloom has said: "It's a fact the higher the woman's earnings, the higher the chance of divorce."
Statistics like these aren't conclusive proof of anything, but the evidence is there: When the woman leaves home to go to work, either out of expediency or out of a drive for a more fulfilling career, there is a price that must be paid. More to the point, there are new pressures that must be dealt with, and that is what this book attempts to do-help families deal with those pressures rather than just drift with the tide that has caught millions in its grip. Yes, two-paycheck families may be the norm because economic times are tough-but while we're busy paying the bills, what about the family itself ? How can we rethink our attitudes, goals, and values to ensure the family's security and survival?
The Rootlessness of the Nuclear Family
Another major reason for our perplexing priorities that often goes unnoticed or unrecognized today is the typical rootless-ness of the American family. The term nuclear family has been around now for a long time. It simply means a family with a nucleus consisting of Mom, Dad, and the kids who have little or no contact with their grandparents, aunts, uncles, or cousins. In many cases, all these extended family members live hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away-"back East some-where"-from the single family unit that has established its little nuclear nest in the West.
The move from east to west is exactly what happened in my own family's case. I grew up in the small community of Williamsville, New York, not too far from Buffalo, in western New York State. My father was one of four Leman brothers-Irish immigrants who all grew up in Buffalo, dirt poor, with only an eighth-grade education. My mother, a Norwegian, came from an immigrant family of nine that had also settled in the New York area. At one time, I had thirteen aunts and uncles and 108 first and second cousins!
We didn't get together every weekend, but we got together enough to keep everyone aware that there was tremendous support, interest, and concern in the Leman clan. For Thanksgiving and Christmas, it would usually be just our immediate family, with only fourteen to sixteen people. But on a birthday or a special anniversary, there could easily be fifty to sixty people in our backyard, and on the special "family re-union" days, we topped one hundred.
Not only did I draw strength from our overloaded family photo album, but I also had the privilege of growing up in a community where people actually talked to and trusted one another. Neighbors would come over to borrow sugar, milk, or maybe just an egg. People came out at night and talked from porch to porch, or perhaps they met at the back fence to chat.
There was something about being part of all that that's difficult to explain, except perhaps with words like stability, integrity, balance -and spiritual values. I chafed under my mother's insistence that we march down to the little Covenant church every Sunday.
Continues...
Excerpted from Keeping Your Family Strong in a World Gone Wrong by Kevin Leman Copyright © 2002 by Dr. Kevin Leman
Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Need Help? Copyright © 1999-2024