Friday, February 25, 2005

Our Relationship.... And Working Together With Extended Family , NF02-555

USD - Extended Family

Sunday, February 20, 2005

Buildings vs Building

A few years ago a man of about 80 years of age, using a walker, came into my neighborhood pub. The moment he walked in the door he had everyone's attention. He was in a frustrated state. Angrily trying to express himself. Quickly, his anger and rambling turned most people off. Others, simply chuckled, at this feisty grumpy old man.

The cause of his anger & frustration was unclear. However, a careful listener pointed out the 80 year old was disappointed in his family. As a result ,I began to listen. The older gentleman kept cursing people who lived in "$500,000.00 homes filled with stuff ". With great passion, the 80 year old kept repeating this refrain.

The rest of the day this passionate refrain stayed with me. That evening I had time to reflect on the larger meaning. What had this man witnessed over his 80 years? What type of home or homes did he have in his life? What stuff did he have in his homes? Of course, I could only guess. However, it is what the refrain meant to me that mattered. It exposed my view that homes are no longer filled with family.

The observation that homes are "just filled with stuff " not people. The refrain took me back to my grandparents home. A large middle class home. Until my parents rented a nearby three family home, we shared the house with my grandparents. It was a modest, but very large home.

When we were not living there, we were frequently visiting. Daily visits, as my grandparents home was just down the street. As a boy I recall the home was filled with my not yet married aunts and uncles. Until her death my great grandmother lived there. Frequent visitors of family, friends and neighbors filled the home. Often there would be shared tasks: gardening, landscaping, painting, canning and the most important task caregiving.

After raising seven children, my grandmother had become a skilled care-giver. My grandfather was the largest beneficiary, as he suffered from heart and lung problems. This was a shared task as well.
As my mom and aunts would take there turn as care-givers. Everyone pitched in when illness struck.

Entertainment was shared as well. Before TV we gathered around the radio together. After TV we gathered around one set in one room. Often entertainment was gathering on the large front porch.

This was a house filled with people.

If family is important, our homes are filled with people. A home is filled with family, friends and neighbors.

Wednesday, February 16, 2005

Connect Family With The Internet

The Internet offers a new opportunity to revitalize and reshape the power of extended family.

Right now, as we use this phenomenal new tool, imagine what is happening and what the possibilities are.

The process of assimilation into the modern world makes new things possible for an older world.

Developing countries with old world style kinship networks are adding the internet to the assimilation process. What does that mean in the immediate global economy? What does it mean for the future?

Look at Usenet groups and the category of culture. Right now if you could examine these groups you would find that preserving old world ways and modernization are taking place at the same time.

After a brief review of this phenomena, I have concluded: the internet with the ability to form communities also has the ability to preserve community.

The ability to preserve community offers new opportunities for the extended family system. Men and women possessing highly developed dynastic instincts and great vision will pass on great benefits to their families.

It is my hope that The Good Sons Club offers an opportunity to develop healthy dynastic instincts and inspire greater vision.

Visit: The Good Sons Club Site

Tuesday, February 15, 2005

Informative & Inspirational

The Good Sons Club has compiled a list of great reading material.

The books offered are carefully selected.

I am sure you will find Inspiration as well as Information.

Your comments & recommendations on book selection are welcome!

Browse The Good Sons Book Club

Monday, February 14, 2005

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Contributor: Historically Incorrect Canoodling

Sunday, February 13, 2005

Sunday Rituals

Sunday is a good day for family rituals. It does not matter if you incorporate religion or not. If your family does something together on Sunday, incorporate family rituals. If you live apart from your family incorporate rituals of your choosing. For example: make letter writing, emails, phone calls , blogging or weekend visits part of your Sunday rituals.

Sunday is a good day to use The Dynamic Family Table as a symbol and tool. Use any table that can accommodate a family setting as a reminder of the principles. The Dynamic Family Table is a base of
Mutual Aid & Support resting on the four legs of
Growth, Unity, Contribution & Longevity.

An idea I like is for those who enjoy arts & crafts, create a table cloth with symbols representing the principles. Maybe create a special table setting representing The Dynamic Family Table. Maybe you have your own family mission statement to use as an inspiration for using symbols.

If symbols and rituals serve a good purpose for our schools, businesses, churches and other associations, then they will serve a good purpose for our families.

Browse: The Good Sons Book Club

Saturday, February 12, 2005

Found A Great Book

William T. O'Hara's Centuries Of Success tells the stories of the world's oldest family firms. Using their case histories Mr. O'Hara draws some very interesting conclusions.

Centuries Of Success is a good example of how history can be taught through the history of enduring families.

Visit The Good Sons Web Site

Wednesday, February 09, 2005

Parenting Programs and Parenting Advice

Parenting and Parenthood Information - Parenthood.com

When Family Is Important. Have An Important Family!

The Good Sons Club advocates a bold view of family issues! The following statement is a good example of this bold view:
When family is important then have an important family!

Fulfillment, is often defined as being part of something larger than one self. Where better to look than in an extended family that sets a goal to grow it’s power, to face adversity & create opportunities for it’s members. A family strengthened by the contributions of its members. A family unified by its leaders. A family aiming to build a long lasting legacy.

Families that own and operate a family business may be more inclined to concern themselves with this issue. This is especially so when the business involves an extended family. In most cases the business founders have set this in motion. However, the same principles can be applied to an extended family made up of individuals with disparate occupations. Also, we can have extended families that tend towards similar professions.

In two of the three above examples, the education and preparation of the young, will benefit the extended family. However, in families where individuals practice disparate occupations the benefits to a wider extended family is often nebulous.

It is in this, the more common case, that a more conscious effort is required to maintain the extended family as a social and economic force for its' own benefit.

Without getting into the more complex issues surrounding this, let us point out, most families are now serving to prepare their children for the benefit of institutions other than their own. While this may bring about noble contributions to a wider community, it does so at a great expense.

Therefore, in the absence of a unified economic purpose, such as shared business interests or common occupational interests, family founders would do well to find mechanisms to build a shared economic purpose. This requires forward thinking in the preparation of wills, estates and financial planning. Most important it requires a conscious effort to think in terms of an extended family.

Surely, this type of thinking is and will continue to be rare.
As a result, true fulfillment is and will continue to be rare.

Find Resources at The Good Sons Book Club

Monday, February 07, 2005

Family Business Experts

In Praise of Nepotism: An Interview with Adam Bellow

Contribution

In May of 1970 I was in the coastal city of Phan Thiet, Binh Thuan Province South Vietnam. Hostilities in the rural areas would often create refugees who would move into the city. One such day, I observed a boy of about six years of age. The boy was walking hurriedly behind a cart. The cart was full of household items. The cart was being pulled by a man, who I imagined to be the boy's father.

I was driving a jeep behind the cart, for the moment indifferent to what I was seeing, then for some reason the boy turned to look at me and my passenger. The boy's young face, eyes filled with fear, took us out of our indifference. Instinctively, the two of us smiled at the boy. Instantly, the look of fear subsided and a boyish grin answered our smiles.

My passenger and I became more fully aware. We were observing a boy who's whole life was being turned upside down. Who knows what he had been through the previous night. All over the city similar little lives were being changed.

The boy turned his attention back to his chore. This boy of six was making sure that the load remained secure. Pacing from side to side behind this cart, the boy was making his effort to contribute to his family's efforts. The boy seemed to treat this chore with extreme importance.

This event has always served to remind me that children need to feel they contribute. Children need to know they can add something to a family. This can become especially so, when a family is experiencing extreme adversity. However small the contribution, the effort to contribute needs to be recognized as something of great importance. Indeed, it is of great importance.

At moments of extreme family difficulty, it is understandable if we forget this. However, adults will do well to prepare not to forget! Adversity, represents an opportunity to teach. An opportunity to lay down a framework of expectation. Expectations that children welcome.

See more at: The Dynamic Family Advocate Web Site

Sunday, February 06, 2005

Contribution To A Wider Community

Good Sons Club advocates that each family member provide economic and social contributions to the family. As Good Sons build powerful families, the result is a major contribution to the wider community. This happens as a natural out-growth of healthy attitudes developed within a family system that works.

As The Good Sons Club presents the case histories of families, the Contribution aspect will be wedded to how this serves both family and community.

See The Good Sons Book Club



Saturday, February 05, 2005

L.E.A.D.E.R.S. Program

David Lansky, business psychologist & Dennis Kessler, family business consultant

Friday, February 04, 2005

National Coalition for Child

Thursday, February 03, 2005

American Family . Your Families. The Generation Gap | PBS

American Family . Your Families. The Generation Gap | PBS

Generations & Perspective on Family

Not long ago I had a conversation with a young man who had just completed law school. This young man shared with me that his ambition was the practice of family law.

In the course of our conversation, I discovered this young man had a much different outlook on family. Different from my outlook and different from my generation's outlook on family.

With a few questions, I discovered this man had no brothers or sisters. The young man had relationships with grandparents that were distant, at least distant from my perspective. After further questioning ,I discovered that aunts and uncles never played any significant role in this mans life. At least, they would not be considered significant roles from my perspective.

In my own life, on one side of the family, cousins were as close to me as brothers and sisters. In the young aspiring lawyer's life cousins were people he never met.

How many young men and women are bringing this type of perspective to professions that service families? How many young Accountants, Doctors , Lawyers, Financial Planners and other professionals will bring a shallow family experience to what they do? Shallow in that extended family experiences are weak or non existent. At least weak from my perspective. Weak in comparison to most of my generation.

When we choose a professional, how often will we consider their outlook on family life? How often will we consider their personal family histories and experiences?

Mary Pipher, Ph.D touches on this in her book The Shelter of Each Other - Rebuilding Our Families. In her book, Doctor Pipher discusses the perspective of most Clinical Psychologist Marriage Counselors and Social Workers.

As Doctor Pipher points out it is not just the lack of personal experience affecting her profession. Professional training affects attitudes about extended family.

Again, when we choose professionals, how often do we consider their assumptions, professional attitudes and personal perspective on family?

To read more see The Good Sons Book Club

Wednesday, February 02, 2005

Introducing The Dynamic Family Table:

The Good Sons Club is not just a random series of thoughts and observations. The Good Sons Club advocates using the concept of The Dynamic Family Table. The Dynamic Family Table is a way of keeping the best principles of the system in mind. Using the every day device of a Family Table to illustrate how each principle fits into a unified whole.

The table device allows for a natural reinforcement of the principles. A teaching tool designed to aid visionary family founders to pass on the principles. A tool that can turn a family gathering into an opportunity for reinforcement of principles. The device can be used both actively and passively.

Imagine Mutual Aid & Support is the table itself resting on the four legs of Growth,Unity, Contribution & Longevity. Around the table are the traditional Roles of Mother, Father Sons, Daughters, Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles Cousins. Extensions of the table allow for additions to the traditional roles, through adoption, second marriages etc. As individuals, we actually play a variety of these roles within the dynamic of our extended family. Blended families also come to the table.

The Good Sons Club advocates reinforcing the leadership roles men should play within the context of extended family. Roles as visionary, as mentors, as care-givers and as contributors to an ever increasing family circle. Always, with the aim of creating the power to take advantage of opportunity and dealing with adversity.

Family case histories will be examined within the concept of The Dynamic Family Table.

Examine the resources of The Good Sons Club


Tuesday, February 01, 2005

The Family Business

The fambiz web site is a great resource for family owned businesses.
The Good Sons Club is on the lookout for tools that assist the family and family owned businesses. We will be looking for interesting stories and helpful tools. All will be aimed at strengthening our ability to create opportunity and deal with adversity within an extended family. The Good Sons Club will be inviting contributions from the members of family owned businesses.