Guessing at normal

Yesterday I encountered a difficulty common to people who were raised in disturbed families. When Mom and Dad are overwhelmed by the demands of life, their child not infrequently gets parked in front of the TV for long hours. Kids may also seek asylum on the computer, playing video games, in movies or books. For the TV kid the Waltons, Huxtables, Ingalls or Cleavers become their adopted fantasy family. Their TV family shows them an idealized way a family functions and those images of a "normal" family get mentally filed away. The kid knows they don't want to replicate what they see Mom and Dad doing, and amazingly many of them succeed in avoiding their parent's mistakes. But what to do instead? If your family of origin modeled insanity, how does one know what constitutes a healthy family, a loving relationship or a decent life?

The woman I saw yesterday unconsiously drew upon her TV fantasy family, the Ingalls from The Little House on the Prairie series; however real husbands can't compete with ever-wise Pa Ingalls nor are real kids as precociously cute or adorably naughty as TV kids. When today's reality crashes up against her old fantasy, the chronic frustration from her early unmet dependency needs gets replayed and revived within her current family.

The complaint yesterday was her anger over the times their family dinner was interrupted by long business calls to her husband. She worked hard to make a nice dinner and all too frequently, she'd sit fuming as her husband's dinner grew cold while he'd conduct business over the phone. Now Pa Ingalls never would have acted like that or if he did, he'd apologize later to Ma. This woman's mother worked nights so pleasant family dinners were largely missing from her childhood. What she didn't see was that her husband is self-employed and has built a successful business amidst very stiff competition. If he doesn't take a call from a customer, he might lose out to another firm. She admitted he never objected to her and the kids going ahead and eating. So the solution was to keep a plate warm for him if the call went on too long. It was suggested that she use this opportunity to teach her kids saying something along the lines of "This is why your Dad is so respected in his field. He always goes the extra mile." I recall seeing a T-shirt once that read "Normal is a setting on the dryer". I like that.