Defining tradition as an “inherited pattern of belief or behavior”, I have come to the conclusion that one of my favorite family “traditions”, or behavioral trait that I have inherited through my family over time, is the concept of ‘see a need, fill a need’. I have heard this phrase said over and over again by my parents throughout my life and while at times it seemed frustrating or annoying, I now emulate that very phrase in just about everything I do.
In an online journal written regarding the effects family culture has on the foundation of the family, organization ‘Council on Foundations’ suggests,”Growing up, their assumptions about what is right and wrong often reflect the beliefs, values and traditions of their family culture. Most take for granted their family’s ways, and they carry into adulthood numerous attitudes and behaviors acquired in childhood.”(Ross, 2022) As explained, the culture of our family influences us as not only children, but also teens and adults. I especially remember many times as a teen when I was able to recognize our values through the culture of my family as I helped with housework, yardwork, and big projects with my family and learned the important principle of hard work.
Growing up, my family has always been really good at showing each other we love each other through service or quality time, but the concept of actually verbally expressing love or physically showing it has been a considerably foreign concept for us. I had no problems with this and I guess I accepted it as our family’s “culture”, but it has been crazy to see the aspect of showing love in our family change over time. A time where I saw these values of hard work, ‘see a need, fill a need’, and expressing love all come alive was during a specific challenge we faced in our family.
Throughout my life I’ve noticed that there is typically only one or two family members at a time to really struggle with something and rely heavily on the family for help, but during this given time, almost every single one of us was struggling with some sort of trial. It became difficult to navigate how to help one another when we were each so clouded with our own personal struggles. Over the course of those several months, I watched my family change and mold in ways I had never seen before. We were saying “I love you”, hugging each other, intentionally spending more time at home to support each other, and overall just being very attentive to recognizing one another’s emotional needs and filling them in any way we could. We encompassed our family motto of “we can do hard things” and rooted our family culture more deeply as we proved the values and beliefs we had established so many years ago still stood true. I grew closer and closer to each member of my family as I was able to truly understand that the family is the most important unit of society and my family is the most important thing to me.
Over time, I have recognized our family motto’s of ‘seeing’ and ‘filling’ needs, hard work, and love as the essence of our family culture. Whether housework, yardwork, community service, or even just being good friends to each other, I have come to appreciate this loving culture of genuine support in my home. This is the culture I would like to possess in my future home and family because I believe it strengthened us all as individuals and united us as a family and helped us be more aware of how we can fill the needs we see in the world.
Love, Lily
Sources:
Ross, N. (2022, May 31). The effects of family culture on Family Foundations. Council on Foundations. Retrieved October 5, 2022, from https://cof.org/content/effects-family-culture-family-foundations
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