Fruits of the Family Tree

I was eavesdropping on three ladies in the produce section a couple of days ago - not for gossip, mind you.  For something waaaay more important than that: secret family recipes!  Mmmmmm.  Two of the ladies proved to be sisters and were somewhere between Queen Latifah and Nell Carter, closer to Nell than the Queen.  They were telling their “Sweet Potato” secrets to the third lady who was about an eigth of their size.  I didn’t bother listening to her.  At one point, one of the sisters said, “Mama always said to salt the water first, I don’t know why.  But that’s just always how we’ve done it.”  After  figured that I’d gotten the information I needed, I left the avocados (you can only pretend to be scouring over avocados for so long).  When I was leaving I heard the other sister saying something about calories then she said, “But in our family, we don’t worry about calories - we never have.” Their laughter filled the section as my cart and I made our way to the next stop.

Two things struck me that day - for one, I’d have crawled over glass to eat a meal their mother had made.  From the sounds of it, this lady makes food that God would allow at His table.

The other thing that struck me went even deeper than my stomach.  I’ve been thinking about it quite a bit, too.  Family.

I’m all about family, of course.  And even on their worst of worst days, I wouldn’t take a billion dollars for any member of mine.  In fact, I’d lay my life down for any of them.  However, this isn’t a post about the beauty of family or about how we should treasure our family….we know family’s a beautiful thing and we know we should treasure them.  While this would be a perfect time of year to put the word Family up on the pedestal, I’d prefer to keep the word down at eye level so we can take a really, really good look at it.

Think for a minute about things you do that are solely the result of a ”We’ve always done it that way” philosophy.  Some things that fall under this heading are more than just acceptable…they’re beautiful.  A lot of family traditions should be kept alive and thriving.  They’re a tribute to those who’ve come and gone before us, a perfect way to keep their memories alive.  Around the holidays, that’s especially important! 

We celebrate our holidays the way we do because that’s the way we’ve always done it.  If your family always ate their Thanksgiving Day meal in the afternoon, you probably do the same.  If they ate it in the evening, that’s probably when your own family can be found gathered around the table.  We keep these traditions alive without really even thinking about it.

But what about the other things that are often passed down within families? The fruits of the family tree that may not be as sweet as other fruits are.  Every now and then someone will be strong enough to break a long-standing bad habit, but for the most part, we just fall in line without giving it a second thought.  It’s just the way we’ve always done it. 

Of course, not all less than desirable things in our lives are the result of family or environment - sometimes we overachieve and come up with fresh stuff all on our own.  For example, I’m a lousy driver. Flat out lousy.  But no one else in my family was, they were all quite good at it.  They never backed over “Slow, Children are Playing” signs, never hit mailboxes, never ran up on curbs, never wrecked 3 different cars (Oddly enough, only one was my fault.  I swear.), never got speeding tickets, never hit the Sonic drive-up menu….  All excitement of my own making. However, if we thought about it, we’d be amazed at how many things we didn’t come up with solely on our own.

In varying degrees of “bad for you,” below are a few undesirable family fruits:

• Smoking.  One of the worst things you can do for and to yourself and those around you.  I’m not sure about where you live, but here in Kentucky smoking is rampant. And the reason is that it’s been that way for generations.  Young people see their entire families smoking, so they begin to smoke (at an alarmingly early age). Everyone in their little world does it, so it must be the thing to do, right?  If someone would ever stop in the middle of lighting up and ask themselves if they really want to keep poisoning themselves, maybe, just maybe, they’d decide to take the healthier road.
• Gossiping.  Some families seem to gossip more than others. When they gather around the kitchen table, their wheels start turning.  They look around the table to see who’s there and who isn’t - after all, you don’t want to shred someone to ribbons who’s in attendance!  “Did you see what she was wearing when she was wearing what she was wearing where she wore it?  Oh, gawwwdd.  I’d never…“  Sadly, I guess all some people have to talk about is other people, but they never wear it well. If one would ever stop mid “She’s just so stup—” and ask themselves if they really want to finish the thought or if they’re just doing what’s always been done, maybe, just maybe, they’d decide to take the higher road.
• Negativity.  We’ve all met them, the negative Nelly’s of the world! They don’t like this church, they don’t like that restaurant, they can’t stand this neighbor, they hate that co-worker…..you can’t go to that school, you can’t major in that subject, you can’t believe that…you can’t believe this.  What an annoying lot the negative Nelly’s are!  Frankly I’d take the gossips over them anyday.  At least the gossips are happy in their sport, right?  My dad had a theory about the Nelly’s - he said they’re actually happiest when they’re in the middle of their “Life and everything in it sucks…” rantings.  I always wondered if they’d ever tried any other approach.  It’s another trait that seems to often be passed down in families.  In the same way that you can see a mother and daughter in a store and recognize the similarities, you can recognize traits like negativity. It shows in the “Nothing’s right about any of this…” scowl.  If mid-scowl a Negative Nelly would lighten the heck up, she/he might find life on the Positive Parkway to be much happier.
• Racism. One of my most hated things in the world - I can’t even tell you how much I hate racism.  Far nastier than gossiping or negativity - even -isms can be something that’s passed down within generations.  A lot of people have vile, bigoted feelings toward others that, if they stopped long enough to think about it, have no basis whatsover. They feel the way they feel because those before them felt the way they felt.  If they’d realize that they have nothing to base their ugliness on, they’d find that an internal makeover will make their world a lot more beautiful.

Even things like when we go to bed, when we get up, where we work, our aspirations and goals, our diet, etc. can be attributed to family and to “That’s just how we’ve always done it.“  Think about it when you get a chance.  Are there things in your life that you know fall under this category?  If these things are getting in the way of you being who you want to be and living how you want to live - there’s no better time to turn the tables on them than right now.

Breaking with traditions that are less than desirable not only frees you from thier ill effects, it frees your children.  And theirs.  And theirs….  Consider it investing in cooler grandchildren.