Tag Archives: family

Family Tapestries

I just finished reading The Art of Mending by Elizabeth Berg. I find that novels often tell the truth in a way that textbooks can’t. What I liked about this story was the way it demonstrated the fact that no two of us are raised in the same family–even siblings. Ms. Berg’s novel centers around the vastly different perspectives that a brother and two sisters have on the atmosphere of their childhood home. The book takes the reader down an uncertain path, a guessing game of which sibling is telling the truth, to the final pages of, not just a revelation, but a healing and cleansing. I am deliberately vague here, because I encourage those who are drawn to stories of family dynamics to read this novel without any spoilers.

The novel recalled for me the concept of “the looking-glass self,” a term coined by social psychologist Charles Horton Cooley in 1902. The theory proposes that we shape our self-concepts based on how we think we are perceived by others–especially family members. If we are labeled (especially by a parent) as “the shy one,” “the fussy one,” “the brainy one,” “the plump one,”  “the athletic one,” the pretty one”, then our role in the family is far different from that of our siblings, and, therefore, our family experience is different. Worse, we are likely to buy into those labels and put ourselves in boxes for years. But only if we allow that to happen.

It is exciting to see clients who had come into my office with such low opinions of themselves that they couldn’t even look me in the eye begin to build positive self-images, to discover gifts and talents and psychological muscle. It is not an easy process, or a quick one, but step by step the client grows toward the sun. Like the recluse who became a social leader, the frightened abuse survivor who became a spokeswoman, the slow learner who enrolled in college, the addict who earned a graduate degree. Everyone of these and many more came into the office with a negative label. Everyone of them found the courage to toss it away.

How I learned determination

A small item in the February 16, 2015, issue of Time reported, “Your hands and feet dominate your feeling of overall thermal comfort, so stock up on the gloves and boot liners.” I was instantly transported to memories of Aunt Helen, who died in 1982 at the age of 88. Unschooled, but wise and practical, she would badger us with country wisdom, including the admonition, “Put socks on. When yer feet’s cold, yer cold all over.” She was way ahead of Time.

She was my aunt through marriage, but, thanks to the fertility of my grandmother, who continued to produce babies while her oldest sons were marrying, Aunt Helen was easily old enough to be my grandmother. In my eyes, though, she was ageless. Her gray hair clearly made her ancient. Yet, she eagerly maneuvered with me through barbed wire to explore the neighbor’s cow pastures behind the house, or hiked long miles through the woods beyond Swedesford Road to spend stifling afternoons having picnics at the county park, activities for which my frazzled, diaper- and Pablum-immersed mother could never muster the energy. When my aunt was not catering to my schemes, she ran the family service station, scurrying out in her flowered house dress and red Keds to pump gas into customers’ tanks long before women officially wrestled out their rights to perform “men’s” jobs.

Aunt Helen was vibrant and sassy, and certainly no saint. To the family’s frequent frustration, she was stubborn, single-minded to a fault, and an on-again-off-again alcoholic. But what I learned from her during my summer vacations, as I scrambled to keep up on the daily three mile hikes to the gas station, sweat streaming down my skinny legs, is that accomplishment comes in the doing, not the planning or hoping. I saw the way she named her goal, then tucked her chin and plowed forward like a linebacker, elbowing each obstacle out of her way, moving on, no matter what. That’s one thing I learned from her. That’s what got me through graduate school. Thank you, Aunt Helen.