Even Your Baggage has Baggage

What makes a family?

Lots of confusion that somehow gets managed…..  Every family has confusion, unhappiness, adjustment, baggage & more baggage. 

And as my husband, Andy says, even your baggage has baggage. But isn’t that life? 

Our expectations of how our childhood should have been are sometimes quite inflated.  Our expectations of our parents or any other adult in our lives somehow becomes our focus.  My mom or dad should have done this or that or something else better.  That’s why I am such a mess today.  It is because of____________.  

Guess what, that’s an excuse.  What if there were no excuses in the world?  What if there was no word for an excuse? 

What if there were no word for retire? 

If there were no word for retire, no one would retire.  So, if there was no word for the excuse, what would we do?  You got it.  Stop making excuses. 

So, the one thing I tried to do as a parent was to make myself out to be as bad as possible.  I am joking here, but what I really mean is that it is important to teach your children that you don’t have all of the answers; you are a work in progress, just as they are. 

Teach Your Children

You are here to teach your children, and at the same time, listen and learn from your children.  Being a parent doesn’t mean you have all of the answers. 

It would be similar to being a good leader, identifying the problems, gathering the information, analyzing the data, and coming up with the appropriate solution based on the information. And that is NOT complicated. 

No Doesn’t Mean No…..

I know my husband had a hard time understanding why no did not mean no to me.  Being in sales, I understand that no means you need more information. 

If a customer says no to an opportunity or product, and you know the customer will benefit, that tells me the customer needs more information, or I did a poor job of qualifying the customer.

As parents, sometimes we say no because it is easier.  I taught my children that if they could give me a good reason to say yes, then the answer is yes. 

They would come back with all of the reasons that the answer should have been yes.  And I would change my response.

Illegal, Immoral, or Potentially Dangerous

There is a second part; what they wanted to do could not be connected to anything that would be illegal, immoral, or potentially dangerous.  And if it did not fall into those areas, then the answer would be yes.

We Created A Family

When Andy and I got married, we had ALOT of complications.  And the 2nd biggest argument we had was over children.  The first was cigarette smoking. 

The one thing we did right was Sunday Dinner.  This was an opportunity for everyone, grandparents, parents, sisters, brothers, children, and good family friends, to come together on Sunday, enjoy Sunday dinner, and be a part of the family.

As the children have grown up and moved on, our family dinners are much smaller, but we still have Sunday dinners.

Here is the point, most people want to keep a family together. 

When you create a family, you create something that you want to last for life.  Relationships that are loving and caring.  In second marriages, the divorce rate is higher than in first marriages. 

It is a lot harder to break up a family, especially the 2nd time around. 

So, we created a family.

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This song is one of my favorites.  While it has little to do with our “2nd family,” it is about a 2nd family.  I listen to this story and can hear my Father saying, “Some folks got it real rough.”

 I’d say Daddy Frank and Family had it “Real Rough.”

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The Back Story

 This Sunday’s story comes from some time in the mid-2000s.  I asked Andy for permission to share this story, ha.  I asked him to read the story before I decided to publish it, and he recalled that “no doesn’t always mean no, it means you need more information,”  which gives me a huge smile.  

While my children never called Andy “Dad,” he truly is their Father in every sense of the word. 

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What to Write About?  – Writing Prompts

Family life

Whether it is your first, 2^nd or 3^rd marriage, tell a story of a time you learn something that has stayed with you for years

Something you learned and used to this day, for example, the 3 Rules – if it is illegal, immoral, or potentially dangerous, don’t do it.

How you created a family

Maybe, the hardships of being a step-parent and a positive experience

Whatever was the first thing that popped into your head.