Roles and Boundaries within the Family

Hello and happy weekend! I am excited to get to talk today about some things that we discussed in class this week including the roles we all play within our families and also healthy boundaries. My hope is that in reading this, you can think of some ways to improve your own family relations and set healthy boundaries in your relationships. 

To start off, I want to discuss roles within the family. In The Family Proclamation, we are taught about these roles.

"The family is ordained of God. Marriage between man and woman is essential to His eternal plan. Children are entitled to birth within the bonds of matrimony, and to be reared by a father and a mother who honor marital vows with complete fidelity. Happiness in family life is most likely to be achieved when founded upon the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ. Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities. By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families. Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children. In these sacred responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners. Disability, death, or other circumstances may necessitate individual adaptation." 

Our Heavenly Parents have observed and seen what the best systems for a family are and what the ideal roles for mothers and fathers should be. As the proclamation states, it is by "divine design." I truly believe that our Heavenly Parents know what is best for us and always have our best interest in mind, which is why I also would like to point out the sentence that states how circumstances may necessitate individual adaptation. I'm sure that there are many of us who have grown up without these ideal roles for mothers and fathers in our families. Whether it is from disability, death, divorce or even things like different ambitions, previous life experiences, and even preference of roles that may bring adaptations to parental roles. In my own experience, adaptations had to be made because of my family circumstance. My parents divorced when I was about 11 and that changed the roles within our family. Although things have gotten better and balanced out over the years, those were strenuous times for my parents and also for my siblings and I. 

Within our families, we each play a different role. Some of these roles include peacemaker, tension reliever/ comedic relief, parental roles, and others. Think about yourself and your siblings, what were the roles you all played? For me, growing up with four brothers I was always like a second mom and even more so when my parents divorced, and I felt a greater need to take care of my brothers. Two of my younger brothers play the role of comedians and tension relievers. It's interesting to me to see how we all bring something to the table in our families. We all have some role to play or feel the need to take on certain roles. I think that this is what helps our families to run smoothly and make it a well-functioning and successful family. It can look different for everyone, but the system of family and the structure it brings is so important and can teach us so many things. When we are unified as a family and we all rely on one another and do our parts, we can be strengthened and will be able to make it through obstacles that come our way in this life. 

I also wanted to talk about healthy boundaries within the family and in our relationships. Boundaries are important for any kind of relationship whether it is familial or not. There are three types that I would like to point out and describe: 

1. Picture a house with a wall and barbed wire around it, it seems uninviting and hard to get through to

2. Now picture a house with no fence, no wall, nothing stopping people from coming in. There are footprints everywhere because people walk all over the yard as they please.

3. Now picture a house with a white picket fence and a gate. 

Which one seems more inviting? I think we can all agree that the third is. Our boundaries should not be ones that scare others off, or are non-existent and allow others to take advantage of us, but they should be ones that protect us and also allow us to let others in. When we set these healthy boundaries, we can feel a greater joy and peace in our relationships.

-Olivia