Healthy Family, Healthy Community

I read a chapter today in The Intentional Family: Simple Rituals to Strengthen Family Ties about community rituals. The author, William Doherty, says that families badly need a community of extended family, friends, religious fellowships, neighborhoods, and other social organizations. In recent years observers of American society have concluded that weakening of community ties lies at the heart of family and other social ills. More and more therapists have also discovered the importance of community connections for the well-being of families: that American individualism and separateness can result in family instability. Family health and community health are interwoven. Doherty informs us that over the past several decades, "families have become increasingly more isolated from their networks of support, moving from highly interdependent farming communities to urban neighborhood communities, where people knew that names of every adult and child on their block, to suburban enclaves without sidewalks where it is rare that people know the names of neighbors three houses down the block." Gordon Neufeld agrees that the dissolution of extended family and community support have contributed to our culture of peer-oriented kids.

The idea of community gatherings and connection resonates deep inside me. The few memories I have of block parties and family gatherings from my childhood stand out clear for me. I think back with fondness to the times in high school where I met weekly with a group of adult women and girls my age. My experiences of having sleepovers with my best friend and her whole family taught me the joy of family togetherness. I enjoy my college memories of potlucks, social and religious clubs, the group of young married couples from church Matt and I met with once a week for food and sharing. Not to mention that when my appendix ruptured and I was in the hospital for a week and out of work for 3 months, our church got together and gave us money to pay our bills. Since we've had kids, though, and moved to a new town in a suburban setting, we have become more and more isolated. We are busy with work and family time, kids need to be home to for naptime and bedtime, and frankly, we have so little energy from our everyday lives that planning activities with others seems draining. Sound familiar to anyone?

I want more for myself and my children. Thankfully we do live near Matt's parents and siblings (though mine are across the country in opposite directions) but finding opportunities to be involved in our larger community has been a challenge for us. Doherty recommends making a commitment to creating community. He recommends doing service rituals like volunteering as a family or throwing a neighborhood block party, and he believes "the most widely available source of family rituals of community is a church, synagogue, or mosque." Religious communities offer weekly rituals of connection with a larger, often multi-generational, group of people; families who are members of religious institutions are more active in nonreligious groups and organizations; and religious congregations support families with marriage, parenting, divorce, death, and other important transitions. He also recommends finding a religious community that meets our needs and beliefs, that there are congregations out there flexible enough to, say, be open to homosexual parents, or other alternative communities that can be found or created.

We've been looking for a spiritual home on and off for a couple of years, and today I feel a renewed sense of purpose for settling on a church. I want my kids and family to be supported by my community, I want friends and fun, I want to get outside my box and look for community outside the internet (I imagine what my internet community must be like for my daughter: it looks like mom staring at the computer!!), I want to know my neighbors. I also am going to keep the block party idea in my mind and bring it up with some neighbors over the next months. That sounds like a really fun and healthy experience. Community, here we come!


Related links/posts:
Community Engaged Parent Education
The Intentional Family
Our Children Are Our Best Teachers
Eating Locally?