Family Systems

     Everyone has the family clown, peacemaker, homebody, blacksheep, perfect child etc. It truly makes for an interesting environment. In my family relations class this week we learned about family systems. We learned how everyone has a role in the family. Each role contributes to making the family system function. We also learned how without each role the system would not function properly.
     I spent lots of time reflecting on my own family and how our system functions. My little brother would be considered the baby of the family and everyone loves to spoil him. My younger sister is the middle child and would be considered the independent one. I am the oldest and the oldest brother. I am considered the peacemaker and protector of the family. We all however are very funny children so the funny child role award goes to all of us! Together as the children subsystem the comedy is never ending. I absolutely love my siblings. My dad would have been considered the enforcer and my mom in my eyes was considered the "cool" mom. She always loved to spoil us and just loved us so genuinely. There was a perfect balance between my mom and dad as our parents. In our family it was very easy to see everyone playing their role. When someone in my family wasn't playing their role or when there was contention among any of us there was a disruption in our family system. And like any other family we had our fair share of sibling fights or arguments with our parents. Its all part of life.
      As we all grew older, we all tried more and more to not only manage our own family role but we wanted to help one another. As I continue to think about my family and how our system ran I think about how it would have ran had one of us just left or abandoned our family role. It would not have been the same. There would have been something missing. Something that would have placed a depression on the family. We have relied so heavily on another throughout life that we became the most loyal of teams. Learning about family systems really made me appreciate my family more and because of this I will pass this onto my future family!