Family Squabbles

It’s no surprise that 2008’s Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winner for Best New Play was August: Osage County. The play, by Tracy Letts, is about a family engaged in emotional combat—putting the “dys” in function. As a Broadway production it’s entertainment, allowing the audience to be voyeurs into the fictional family’s dramatic horrors. Perhaps some appeal of the play also has to do with the recognition of our own family dynamics under the proscenium arch. Whichever it is, it’s much more satisfying to watch another family go through it than to be doing it oneself, as I am now.

Be it on stage or at home, the question is begged, “Just what does a ‘functional family’ look like, and is that the most fictional family of all?” As children my brother and I fought. He’d lock me out of the house, hide my bike, and sock me in the arm. Up to a certain point I gave as good as I got, but then he grew bigger and I had to resort to a more strategic form of fight. We survived. We continue to survive. My father has been married three times. This third and current partnership has been going strong for 30 some years. This marriage also came with three young children who are now adults. We were never a blended family—the age difference between sets of children was too great. We never lived together in Brady Bunch fashion. Perhaps because we never really had to cohabit it, we’ve always been two separate teams with different experiences, varying values and dissimilar languages. In so many ways, we barely know each other.

At 51, I’ve grown tired and intolerant of senseless squabbles, “He said, she said, and they said.” I find myself embroiled in senselessness now. If within a family, we cannot speak directly and honestly to each other and get along, how is a greater peace possible? Missteps and screw-ups are part and parcel of being human. But I believe it possible to take responsibility, to express sorrow, seek and give forgiveness, to say what we mean, and mean what we say.

My brother and I called each other names. “You stupid fat alpha,” was the worst possible insult. As children we wanted to believe, “Sticks and stones will break my bones but words can never hurt me.” At this age I know many things I didn’t know then. But one thing still holds true: words do in fact hurt…they hurt then and they hurt now. As an adult I feel obligated to take care of my words. From a great teacher I’ve learned the Four Gateways of Speech: Is it necessary? Is it kind? Is it true? Is now the right time?

…An offering for families and peace seekers everywhere!

May the squabbling cease.

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