It was the children that finally gave me the strength to pull through. I realized that if I didn’t get my act together, not only was I going down the tubes but I would be taking four precious people with me. And so they were my real motivation, the reason for my conscious choice.
I began to realize that I needed a new vision. We were no longer a “traditional” family. And since our family no longer “looked” the same—it no longer looked like the family we had been and had thought we were always going to be—I needed to change the “look.”
So we talked together about this new family structure. We made some fundamental decisions. It was okay if we went to church meetings or to school plays. We were missing an integral part—there was no denying that—but that was okay. We could still do the good things. We could still have the values, the principles, the happy things in life almost as well.
I had to come to a place with my own personal feelings about the children’s dad where I could value his goodness and still allow those things I didn’t agree with. I didn’t want to forgive him. I didn’t want to allow the children to go with him and do things with him. But my higher conscience, my better self, told me that that kind of attitude wasn’t going to work out in the end. I knew that my hatred and anger would eat away at me and destroy my family. And so I prayed for courage. I prayed for the desire to want to do what was right, because if I could at least want to do it, then it wouldn’t be so hard.
It wasn’t easy. There were times when I was so angry I actually wanted to kill the man—especially when his choices kept hurting the children. But over the years I was able to work through my anger, and I finally reached the point where I could care for this man almost like a brother. I began to look at him not as my former husband, not as the father of my children, but as a man who made some really tragic mistakes.
Now each of the children has had crises with their dad, and each has come to the point of letting go of having the dad he or she had always wanted and envisioned. They’ve all come to the point where they can value the goodness and still allow him to have his imperfections that are so painful. They know now that they have to deal with their dad as he is, not how they wish he would be, because he’s not that person—not now, maybe never.
What helped us most was in coming up with a new end in mind. We created a new vision of what our family would be.
In both of these situations, notice the power this sense of shared vision and values had in keeping the family focused and together—even in the midst of challenge. That’s the power of a family mission statement. It literally becomes the DNA of family life. It’s like the chromosomal structure inside each cell of the body that represents the blueprint for the operation of the entire body. Because of this DNA, every cell is, in a sense, a hologram of the entire body. And the DNA defines not only the function of that cell but also how it relates to every other cell as well.
Creating shared vision creates deep bonding, a sense of unity in purpose, a deep, burning “yes!” that is so powerful, so cohesive, so motivating that it literally pulls people together with a purpose strong enough to transcend the obstacles, the challenges of daily living, the negative scripting of the past, and even the accumulated baggage of the present.
“Love” Is a Commitment
Now why does a family mission statement have that kind of power? A forty-three-year-old woman who married for the first time said this:
To me the family mission statement gives a practical, concrete, and doable aspect to what love really is. Love is certainly the roses and the dinners out and the romantic vacations. But it’s also the hugs and the bathrobes and getting the morning paper for each other or making the coffee or feeding the guinea pigs. It’s in the details as well as the symphony.
I think the mission statement is a way of making that commitment real. And I think the process of doing it can be as valuable as the ultimate product, because it’s the working together to create that vision and make it real that defines and refines and grows love.
A wife and mother in a blended family shared this:
I think the difference in having a family mission statement is that you have a set of rules or principles that commit you, that don’t make it easy for you to cop out. Had I had this kind of grounding, I probably would have dealt with my first relationship differently. There just wasn’t a sense of shared vision and commitment that I could put my arms around and say, “Why should I stay in this marriage? What can I do to make it work?” Instead it was, “I’ve had it. I’m done. I’m out of here.” And it was over. There was never that sense of real commitment to a common vision.
But things are different now. Take my relationship with Bonnie, for example. She’s not my “stepdaughter,” she’s my daughter. The only “steps” we have in our family are out the back door and up to the second floor. We made an agreement: “There are no steps in this family. We are all one. We were all created equal. We all have equal say in this family. Whether you are here full-time or part-time is insignificant.”
With our personalities and our working styles, I think it would be very easy for a family like ours to disintegrate, to become dysfunctional. But this sense of shared vision has given us the strength and commitment to stay together as a family, to act like a family, to be a family.
Again, remember: Love is a verb. It’s also a commitment. A family mission statement makes explicit what that commitment means.
As we observed in Habit 1, the most fundamental promises we make to other human beings are those we make to the members of our family—in our marriage vows, in our implicit promises to care for and nurture our children. Through a family mission statement you can let your children know that you are totally committed to them, that you have been from the very moment of their birth or adoption, that the bond has never been broken and never will be broken, and that nothing can happen that will ever break it. You can say to them, “My commitment is not a function of your behavior or attitude or commitment to me. It is total and complete. My love will always be there. You will always be in my heart. I will never betray you. I will never leave you. I will always be true to you no matter what you do. This is something I want you to know, and I will continue to tell you this through both my words and my actions. My commitment is total, and my love is unconditional.”
When children feel this level of commitment—and when it’s communicated consistently through words and actions—they are then willing to live with limits, to accept responsibility and be accountable for their actions. But when the price has not been paid in making the deep decisions that are contained in these mission statements, parents can easily be uprooted by the social forces and by the pressures they will continually get against taking the responsible course, moving toward interdependency, maintaining standards in the home, and carrying out agreed upon consequences.
Creating a family mission statement enables you and your family to examine, clarify, and renew those promises—and to keep them constantly before you so that those commitments become written in your mind and your heart, and affect the way you live your life every day.
Strengthening the Extended Family
As you can tell from the stories we’ve shared, family mission statements provide strength and direction for families of every configuration: two-parent families, single-parent families, blended families, and so on. They can also provide purpose and strength to relationships in the extended and intergenerational family as well. One husband and father said this:
As I worked on a personal mission statement, one important thing that emerged was how I felt about my extended family—about my brother and my sisters and their children. I remember as a child watching some of the major wars between my mom and dad. There were times when my dad broke everything in the house—just threw everything he could find, shattering things against walls. It seemed that there were hundreds of nights that my mom would stand at the window crying. And that really left some impressions on me.