Comments on: Family scripts

By: emmaleem

emmaleem — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 04:09:15 +0000

As the oldest, it’s been hard for me to allow my siblings’ scripts to change. When they were in high school, I used to read their papers and help them revise. Suddenly in college, poof! they either no longer wanted my help, and found my tendency to overadvise annoying, whereas before they treated me like a sage. I miss being the sage. But I am learning, slowly, to bite my tongue.

I find my own script coming out with extended family, or, much much worse, people from high school: it’s like I’m back in high school sometimes, where the only thing I’m good at is school. People expected me to go places and do stuff, and I don’t know that my life now lives up to what they thought it would be.

By: Melinda

Melinda — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 20:23:04 +0000

My family doesn’t have a set script. When most of us were in our late teens/early 20s, the folks moved cross-country. That disrupted all patterns. Then siblings started moving to different states. More disruption. All but one sibling have returned to the home state now, and we’ve all been getting reacquainted. Some things don’t change, like my brother’s weird sense of humor. But we don’t have a script because of those 15 years of living so far apart from each other. In fact, the other day I was laughing with my sister about how if anyone had told her as a teenager that she’d be the one to like family parties and I wouldn’t, we wouldn’t have believed them. Our roles have changed a lot.

By: bossy

bossy — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 19:21:53 +0000

I have steadfastly refused to play my part in the family script for a few Christmas’s now, and have caused great upheaval in our clan. I’m supposed to be the one in charge and bossy and all those first child roles, but I’ve refused. I’ve offered my help, but haven’t made any overtures to be in charge of ANYTHING.

It’s been a bit stressful for everyone, especially if they were hoping to just get to show up at a party without planning any of it. If I were more compassionate, I’d just sit back and accept my role quietly, to bring peace back to the universe. Maybe next year.

By: Angie

Angie — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 18:56:05 +0000

This year my BIL was making fun of my husband for being a “tree hugging liberal.” That was probably true, back when he was in college. These days DH has 5.5 kids, drives a gas hog SUV and votes Republican most of the time. But facts can be too complicated to muddy the waters of family relationships.

By: Sue

Sue — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 16:16:28 +0000

Oh, family roles. Definitely, we have the “funny one” (not me), the “tempermental one,” the “rebel” – but I think we are gradually, GRADUALLY starting to let go of those misconceptions and starting to accept each other as adults. Because people DO grow past the person they were at fifteen, thank goodness. And it’s been nice to see, in the past couple of years, that my family is finally starting to acknowledge that.

By the way Heather – we rotate the Joseph and Mary roles every year. ;>

By: Dalene

Dalene — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 15:10:57 +0000

About ten years ago I had made plans to spend the day observing the legislature in session at SLC. My mother actually asked me over the phone “Who is driving?” I was speechless.

Mothers do worry and the older my kids get the more I see there is to worry about, but I hope I can use a little discretion in the outward display of my worry. Either that or try to stay too busy to worry obsessively.

As for scripts, I completely agree with Michelle. With an awareness and effort we can make rewrites when necessary. There is a lot of resistance to it for sure, but it can be done.

By: Michelle

Michelle — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 01:44:04 +0000

This is taking me back to my FamSci class from my major-flipping days at BYU….

I think every family has scripts. I’m not yet convinced we always have to perpetuate them, though. Must we ‘fall into our roles’ when we gather with our family of origin? Sometimes that is good, but other times…. I think sometimes awareness of them might help us consider trying to change them, when possible, when they are unhealthy or unnecessary.

By: s'mee

s'mee — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 01:38:54 +0000

Yes. Family roles seem to be made in stone. As long as I live some people will only see me as a certain age or position in the family, which is both good and bad. Same with hubby.

As far as the phone calls goes, I think of it more as considerations than obligations. Hubby always calls home each night prior to leaving from his office, just to let me know he’s on the road. We always inform each other of our itineraries for the day, just in case, and we in turn inform our parents when we “jet set”. We would love to know the same from our now adult children. Children, however, are resistant to “revealing all” once they leave the roost. sigh, perhaps when they have young of their own they will get the whole “just in case” scenario.

On that Christmas play: Maybe it’s time to assign roles by who is youngest? i.e. Oldest children up to ___ age are Mary and Joseph. ___ is the Angel, ___ is Shepard, and on down the line to the younger ones, who know and hope their turn at the top roles will come with age.

By: Barb

Barb — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 23:11:11 +0000

One of my parents likes me to be what I call “monkey girl.” I refuse to give my rendition of a skit from “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” now. I have matured past that. I also try to avoid giving my true life story of how I graduated with honors after many years and was gainfully emplyoyed selling pens although it so greatly amuses my parent. Despite all of my idiosyncracies and problems, I feel like I fit into my family pretty well on the ocassions that we get together. I do like to entertain, but with my own original scripts. And I like to make conversation with everybody.

By: Barb

Barb — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 22:51:07 +0000

Lonely sister, I am sorry to hear that you feel invisible. Some people are so much better than being thoughful than others. We had some guests for the first time this year who were the dad of my cousin’s husband and also uncle(his dad’s brother). While my cousin and her husband are almost always with us on the holidays, we usually do not have people outside of the family. My mom had huge reservations especially as our kitchen badly needs remoldeling etc. It ended up turning out really well. We had some good conversations. They seemed to enjoy our traditions. And they loved watching the little ones open gifts. I hope that you get a chance to have the warmth of others in future celebrations. Surely, your script is not “invisible.” People sometimes have no idea how left out you may feel. I am not saying that is a good excuse. I see you! I wish there was something more I could do. I hope it gets better in the Year to Come for you.