Some Family Reunions Bring Us Back To Who We Are No Longer

Sometimes family home evenings can make us feel like we are someone we are no longer or never were.  In the eyes of our parents, maybe we are still that indecisive child or that rebellious teenager “answer”. Sometimes, for our parents, we are still the same children we were in the past, even when we are independent adults.

It is often said that there is no greater storm than the one that breaks out at classic family gatherings on vacation or Christmas, for example. However, as we already know, there are families of all colors and flavors. There are those in which harmony, respect and good humor reign, and there are also those in which resentment remains stuck like little thorns in these rigid and non-functional bonds that steal your breath and torment.

However, far beyond considering these realities as something specific, there is a phenomenon behind this that is not talked about much. Nowadays, due to the economic crisis, it is common that many young people who had conquered their independence find themselves with no other alternative but to return to live in their parents’ house.

Frequently, the feeling of failure in the professional field is sometimes added to the fact of having to take on a role that had already been left behind. A role sometimes built by family dynamics and that has little to do with the person we are today.

The family and its unconscious constructions

For our parents, uncles or grandparents, a part of our childhood remains present. We somehow remained the middle brother, who spent all day imitating the older brother and envying the younger brother’s benefits. It may even be that in your memory the memory of what they called “a bad mood” is still alive because we were so defiant, uncontrollable and angry.

When in fact, maybe it was this temperament that led us to be who we are today : proactive, creative and dynamic people, qualities that give us great satisfaction. Characteristics that in the past we saw as negative due to constant comments from our parents, asking us to “change”, to “improve” until little by little we realized that we didn’t have to do this. Because they weren’t defects, they were true virtues.

However, and this happens very often, when returning home or going to family gatherings, all you have to do is say or do something and we hear again things like “but since you are inflexible, what personality do you have…where did you come from?” .

Almost without knowing how, we return to the role of the past, the role of rebellious or conformist child. The achievements of the present don’t matter, just as it doesn’t matter how proud we are of ourselves because in many family nuclei there is an unconscious tendency to ascribe to their members their past roles, that self-constructed position by our parents.

This type of event that is so common actually has a very interesting explanation. In a study at the University of Illinois it was explained that within a family system almost nothing works independently.

A thing, no doubt, very complex when we sometimes find ourselves in the situation of having to return home because of financial or personal problems.

At family home evenings, we should act like the adults we are today

Sometimes it is enough to walk through the door of the family home to feel that we are back in the past. In some situations this situation is pleasant, even comforting. However, for many people, family home evenings involve resuming unresolved conflicts, reliving differences that have turned oceans away, or even retaking a role they had already left behind.

• We must try not to fall into this trap. The best way to return to this family nucleus is to be who we are now: mature adults, adults with a life story of their own, with absorbed learning, with virtues and qualities.
• This is how we can face those prejudices and even those archetypes that our parents created at a certain point: Luís is the sportsman, Carmen is the rebel, Alberto is the one who was beaten at school and who needed to be defended.
• However, it could be that Luis has written hidden poems all his life and that today he wants to be the owner of a library. It could be that Carmen was a little rebellious and felt very irritated for a good part of her youth. What’s more, it could be that Alberto, that skinny boy who was chased at recess, is now taking the exam to be a policeman.

What we were or what others believed we were in the past has little to do with who we are today, and this must be understood by the people who are part of our social environment. It is in our hands to make them see and realize this, avoiding assuming again the role that our family expects and being able, thus, to change the patterns of the past that only generate dissatisfaction.