Although we no longer live in Rexburg, Idaho I am still taking classes online. This semester started earlier this month and I am taking a Family Relations class as part of my cluster. This week we read a chapter about Family System Theories and then had to write a paper and come up with a analogy or metaphor that described our family. I was thinking and thinking and thinking finally came up with something and I wanted to share it here on my blog. I hope that you all enjoy the analogy that I came up with.
My Family System
My family is very much like my sewing room. I would say that I am the sewing machine and my husband is the serger. Our children are the beautiful creations that we make together. As in the family systems theory everything that happens in the sewing room affects everything else. The sewing machine and the serger compliment each other on every item that they sew together but they can also sew entire items without the assistance of the other machine. However, each machine does affect every piece of material that goes passed the needle. They cannot go through unchanged.
My family is actually very close. We move a lot and because of this we stay very close together. In my sewing room I have an L shaped table and the sewing machine is on one side and the serger on the other side. They are equals at that table. They work hard together but both are better at certain things than others. Both machines are used for different tasks, and depending on what type of seam or stitch is required will determine which machine will be used more or less. This is much like my husband and I in our home. He works to provide for our family and I stay home with our children. Our daughters spend the majority of their time in my company, as do most of the things that I sew. However, when my husband gets home from work he plays and spends time teaching and just plain spending time with our daughters before they go to bed. The time spent with each piece of material will determine how it turns out in the end as is how our children are.
The other things in my sewing room are tools. I have oodles of thread and needles, rulers, seam rippers, measuring tapes, instructional books, patterns, etc. Each of these items could be considered something in our life. The instructional books and patterns are like our parents. We learned from them as we grew up and we can still ask them for ideas and instructions for our marriage and how to be better parents. The thread, needles and other tools that are used are our friends, members of the community and our other family members. All the tools are there to be used to not only create beautifully sewn items but to help the sewing machine and serger run smoothly.
As you look at our family you might consider us very enmeshed, upon first glance. We spend most of our time together. This is because we move around a lot and have to make new friends every time we move, which we do. Both of us feel very close to each other and our children but we also enjoy spending time with other people. We both feel that we need to spend good quality time with each other and our children, often. My husband spends all day at work and just likes to come home and spend time with family. When we spend time with others it is generally as a family. I feel that we are flexibly cohesive because although we spend a lot of time as a family we are very flexible when things come up or we as a family or individuals are invited to go do things with other people.
One of the things that we both work very hard to do is communicate to each other. My sewing machine has an LED screen that communicates very well what stitch I’m on and when I have problems. Although my serger doesn’t have an LED screen it doesn’t hesitate to tell me when there are problems. My husband and I are both return missionaries and spent time doing companion inventories every week and although we no longer do that weekly with each other we try very hard to communicate anything and everything. We spend a lot of time together driving from one place to the next which leaves lots of time for talking.
My family is so much like my sewing room and I had never thought of it that way. My husband and I are trying very hard to create beautifully sewn items by loving and respecting each other and trying to be the best examples we can to our children. We have wonderful examples from our parents and we have discussed what we want to integrate into our family from our childhoods. My serger and sewing machine can either work together to create beautifully or work against each other and create a mess. We know what we are striving for and that is a balanced family where we can be who we are and feel comfortable with one another as we grown.
