Query #7 - Home and Family
How can we make our homes places of love and hospitality? What different expectations do we hold for women and men, boys and girls? How can we bring more equality into our relationships?How do we develop and maintain lines of communication?
In what ways do we share our deepest experiences, struggles, concerns and beliefs with our children and others, yet encourage them to develop their potential as the Spirit leads them? What place do we make in our daily lives for meditation, spiritual renewal and reading of inspirational literature, such as the Bible?
How does our Meeting support families of all kinds?
The sense of the Meeting was that if a home is loving, a logical extension of that home would be to reach out, to invite others in. Sometimes we do not extend that invitation for fear that our homes might not be clean enough or proper enough or in some other way not up to the standards of those we allow in.
But that comes at times when we lose sight of the fact that we are our homes, not our houses. When we welcome others into our homes, we welcome them into our lives.
Families sometimes struggle to find time to communicate, and parents are constantly trying to ensure they treat the children equally. Hanging out together, eating as a unit, making time to share dreams and thoughts – all are important to strong families. It takes a conscious effort.
There should be no forbidden topics in our family discussions. Many of our members grew up in old school families where the children were shielded from unpleasantries and disagreements. This attitude and practice often led to unrealistic expectations for the children as they reached adulthood and in the long run did them an injustice. Similarly, many of our members come from spiritual/religious backgrounds outside of Quakerism.
Having rejected those old religious practices and beliefs, there is a temptation to shield our children from them. But that, too, may be counterproductive for a base in any religion, if nothing else, is a rock from which a person can push off from.
In sharing beliefs, it is the sense of the Meeting that more important than telling what you believe in is sharing a healthy attitude and an inquisitive mind. More than talk, we should teach by example.