A Different Way to Think about Parentiing

Passing It On —Best of Meridian

by Stefinee Esplin Pinnegar
The story we are living is the story our children will tell.
I met Neighbor Rosicky for the first time when I was twenty-one. I still see myself lying on my bed in my college dorm room reading my American Lit assignment and being transformed by his story. It was about a family who lived on the prairie during a drought so severe and temperatures so hot that their entire corn harvest was lost.

Rosicky, the father, had more reason to despair than I could comprehend at that time in my short and relatively prosperous life. Instead, he walked out of his parched fields, killed some chickens, and gathered his children to celebrate the Fourth of July. "No crop this year," Rosicky said when his wife asked him about the corn. "That’s why we’re having a picnic. We might as well enjoy what we got." The mother-narrator of the story then commented, "An’ that’s how your father behaved, when all the neighbours was so discouraged they couldn’t look you in the face. An’ we enjoyed ourselves that year, poor as we was, an’ our neighbours wasn’t a bit better off for bein’ miserable." I admired Rosicky and wanted to be like him.

Whether we’re conscious of it or not, our lives reveal a story that will later be told by the people who know us, live with us, work with us. In particular, who we are with our families day-to-day becomes a narrative that reaches into future generations as surely as fairy tales have been passed from mother to daughter and father to son for centuries. I’ve learned that there is power in pondering how this narrative is shaping up as it happens, particularly as a parent, because someday my children are going to tell their children what growing up was like for them. If I want my children to tell happy or spiritual or profound stories about our family life, then our family must live those stories first so that there is something to tell.

Shaping Events That Will One Day Be Told
As with Neighbour Rosicky, living a lasting, positive narrative is often a matter of taking what comes and making the best of it. Recently, I heard about a young woman whose parents did not approve of her fiancé. They kicked her out of their home and refused to participate in her wedding. At some point, these parents—one day to be grandparents—will want to reclaim their child. They can apologize. They can repent. But they can never be present at their daughter’s wedding. In the telling of the story of her marriage, no matter how softened, the parents will always be absent.

In contrast, when my aunt eloped with my uncle, they called home to tell her parents. Grandfather was a gardener at the St. George temple and the phone rang there as well as at home. He picked up the receiver at the temple as my grandmother simultaneously picked it up at home. When Grandma heard the news, she began to make a critical response. My grandfather interrupted with, "Now Flo." Then to his children he said, "Come on home and we’ll talk about it."

Some stories of life are told more than others. We ask each other about weddings, baptisms, and other benchmarks that happen only once. We tell each other about firsts—first dates, first kisses, first pregnancies. A friend of mine dashed from a temple ceremony that ran late to her wedding reception to find that her roommate misunderstood where to bring the bridesmaid dresses. The bride and her mother simply handed each girl a bouquet and placed them in the greeting line as if the jeans they were wearing were part of the plan. Within half an hour, the dresses arrived. What might have become a story of embarrassment and accusation, even the story of "the ruined wedding reception," became a humorous footnote within a cherished memory. Many times we have a choice in these matters. I don’t want my daughter’s story of her first date to include a long, loud, bitter dispute with me, no matter how unhappy I might be with the clothing she chooses to wear or the person she is going out with.

The Power of Traditions
Some stories, family traditions for instance, are retold in actions rather than in words. I know where each family grave is at the cemeteries in St. George and Orderville, Utah. I know that we must always put flowers on Aunt Tillie Windsor’s grave because she had no children and Aunt Anna promised her we always would. I know the stories that accompany each grave, and I feel the commitment to care for them, because I have lived the family tradition of "taking flowers to the cemetery for Memorial Day"with my mother and her sisters since I was a small child.

Once in Relief Society, the teacher asked for family traditions built around watching General Conference on television. One young woman described with enthusiasm how her family woke up and got dressed in church clothes while her mother played hymns on the piano. During Conference, they sat quietly on chairs and watched the speakers while her father commented on what was said. Between sessions, they ate a nice dinner her mother had prepared the evening before and talked about what they had heard. She said, "I want to create memories just like mine for my children. I love General Conference."

Then I had a chance to comment. I described how we all slept in until a few minutes before the first session started, then came into the living room in our pajamas and laid on the floor in front of the television. We ate cold cereal for breakfast and munched on treats like M&M’s while we watched. Our cousins usually came, so we laughed a lot while my parents and aunts and uncles told family stories about experiences with general authorities. We helped Mom fix a big lunch because we could listen while we cooked. Between sessions, we played board games with our cousins, but they left before the second session started, so it was a lot calmer. We often dozed off while Mom and Dad talked seriously about things they heard. "I love Conference," I said, "and I want my children to love it, too." Though very different from one another, both celebrations successfully transmitted a love for General Conference to the next generation.

Living Small Celebrations That Become Big Memories
Some traditions, like roast beef on Sunday or daily family prayer, occur so often that one memory collapses into another until only a pattern remains as a warm place in a child’s heart. When I was growing up in St. George, our family got up early on Saturday mornings so we could get our work done and still have lots of time to visit and play. At about 10:00am, we dropped whatever we were doing and went to Aunt Anna’s or Aunt Maggie’s, or they would come to our house. We fixed drinks in glasses with lemon and ice and propped up our feet while my mother and her sisters visited. No more than thirty minutes later, we scampered home again to finish our work. On long, lonesome Saturday mornings, after I left home and was living far away in Indiana, I often called my mother or one of the aunts at exactly 10:00am. Even when I didn’t, I was comforted knowing that my mother and her sisters were gathered and that they would mention me.

Such minor, ongoing "celebrations" become critical links between generations. These are the times we think to share family stories and personal stories. When we remember these "typical" times, we remember the people who shared them with us, and we are reminded of who we are, what we stand for, and what it means to share love with others. Something as small as a glass of water and a good chat on the back porch with my daughter every Tuesday night while my husband and son are at Karate classes becomes an oasis of comfort when life is filled with trials or stress. If we’re careful not to turn them into occasions for preaching, a weekly "rite" during a trip to piano lessons or the grocery store can greatly enrich the narrative we are living with our children. Routines that might otherwise be part of the drudgery and stress become loving rituals that infuse much joy into our lives.

Once our family was accompanying an older faculty member to a special event at the university where my husband and I work. I noticed Fred’s respect and tenderness in caring for this gentleman—waiting patiently for him to get into our truck, reaching across him to hook the seatbelt, making sure his coat wouldn’t get caught in the door before closing it. I thought, "I hope people treat me like this when I am old." I suddenly realized the privilege of serving someone in this way with my children along. They would know how to treat me because they were observing how their father treated our friend.

Thus, "living the narrative" may mean sacrificing to attend family gatherings, not just because "it is good to get together with family," but for the pattern of living that becomes visible to our children. If I want my grown children to come home and visit, to be pleasant during those visits, and to judge my crotchety behavior kindly, then that is how I must live our family story with them. This may be particularly true in families which do not already have that kind of heritage.

We may not be able to control completely the events that our families experience. But like Neighbour Rosicky, we can control our response to those events. We can shape them differently. By carefully attending to the moments our children share with us now, we can influence the lasting narrative of their childhood. In fact, whether we think of our actions as part of a story or not, family relationships become stronger and more pleasant when we pay attention to the details of living with others. In other words, the story of life is richer when we live it right the first time.