The couple as family–keep talking to keep your family strong

Around the time that we had our first child, Judy and I read a book that said we were a family whether we ever had children – that children don’t make you a family.  The concern, I believe, was that you should not create a child-centered family where the child became the focal point of decisions and control.  Instead, you invite your children into your existing family with its beliefs, preferences, guidelines, traditions, etc.

Last Thanksgiving our eldest was away from us on a school trip.  This spring I took him to look at colleges.  Both events were a reminder that there is a day coming when we will be a family after having had children.  Not that our children won’t be part of our lives once they move out of our home (and not that they will move out of our home as quickly as we now imagine), but Judy and I are a family that needs to continue in the absence of our children as well as in their presence.

To that end, I encourage you to find ways to build regularly occurring communication into your marriage.  Judy and I often run errands, wash dishes, or walk the dog together – whatever it takes to have conversation between the two of us.  Just as many couples only feel that they are a family once they have had children, so many couples feel they are only a family when the children are around.  The couple forgets that the two of them form a family and that they need to build and preserve that family through all stages – before children, while children are in the home, and after children have left the home.

Don’t preserve your family for the sake of the children.  Celebrate your family by choosing to love one another.  Express that love through frequent and intentional conversation.  Keep talking – keep your family strong and healthy.

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