My Family System

My family is like a Paleo Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake. Simple, and only containing four ingredients: bananas, eggs, cocoa powder, and peanut butter. My Father is like the bananas. He is the foundation of our family, he provides the basic needs, and he sweetens our home with his constant sense of humor. My mother is like the eggs. She binds our family together with her love, knowledge, and tender spirit. She also helps us rise to our potential by encouraging us to live the gospel of Jesus Christ. I’m like the cocoa powder, I add powerful and enjoyable flavor to my family. I also can be a little bitter sometimes because of my bipolar disorder. My brother is like the peanut butter. He also acts as a binder, he adds a gentle and complimentary flavor to my cocoa powder, and he often smooths things over during arguments and heated discussions.

            As with any cake or muffin recipe it starts with the wet ingredients, or the bananas and the eggs. Just as a family always starts with a mother and a father. My mother and father experienced some significant hardships when they were first married. They lost their first three children through stillbirths, and also went through several miscarriages. This was like the cutting blades of the blender tearing into their hearts and their marriage. However because of their strong resolve and the way they held fast to the gospel, those trying events acted as an emulsifier for their marriage.

They continued to strengthen that bond until their twelfth year of marriage when they welcomed me into their family. My brother and I did not come naturally into our family through birth, just like cocoa powder and peanut butter don’t come from an egg or a banana. We were adopted by and sealed to our parents as babies. This allowed us to have a unique relationship with our parents. Our parents were very open with us about our adoption and when we were young always sought for ways to teach us about adoption and what it meant. As we aged and came to understand the doctrine of eternal families we gained an even more powerful testimony of the sealing power. This was like the second mixing with the blender to blend all the ingredients together.

As my brother and I grew up our family went through more stresses and crises. This was like the baking of the cake in the oven. In the oven of being a teenager, my mother and I often battled it out adding more heat to the fire. Part of the heat was due to my undiagnosed bipolar disorder, which has greatly affected my family. But over time and with the decision to have us kids go into homeschool, my mother and I strengthened our relationship and now we enjoy a wonderful bond that is meaningful and close.

My brother and I were always close as children because there were only the two of us, all we had was each other. My brother would often rely on me and/or my mother for seemingly everything. As we approached our teens we started to distance ourselves just a little bit, and my brother began to assert himself more. Because he started to assert himself more, I learned to mellow out and let him make the decisions sometimes. Over time that has developed into a mature and deep relationship between the two of us. Much like how chocolate and peanut butter go so well together. Before I went off to school and then got married we were inseparable. Now that I’m gone my brother has started asserting his independence with my parents just as he did with me. My dad and my brother have also been strengthening their relationship due to the encouragement of my mother.

During the heat of my teenage years my father and I didn’t enjoy a close relationship. It might have been due to our conflicting personalities, or because I didn’t really take the chance to really get to know him, I just assumed I knew him. However now we have a relatively close relationship that is growing closer over time. Most of the change in our relationship is due to the paradigm shift I had one day when I was talking with my mom. I realized that my dad does everything for our family. That is why he is the banana, or the foundation of our family. He works so hard for us to have everything we need. He also tries so hard to fulfill his callings and be an example of a righteous priesthood holder. I realized he does love all of us, he just shows it differently.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is like the parchment paper that is between our family and the hot bread pan of the world. It keeps us from burning and getting stuck in the world. Our relationships have been bettered because of the understanding that the gospel gives us. Our love for each other has grown as we’ve all grown in the gospel. We also grow closer as we help each other live it.

I’ve realized after comparing my family to this strange cake recipe that I want my future family to be just as strange as my family of origin. I also see the importance of hardships in early marriage. I want them because I know that they will strengthen my relationship with my husband, just like it strengthened my parent’s relationship. In fact I am very confident my parents will never get a divorce because of the relationship they forged during those first hard twelve years. I know that as my husband and I learn to rely on each other early in our marriage we will have a solid foundation to build the rest of our family on. I also want to stress the importance of eternal families in my future family just as my parents did for us. I valued my family and the relationships I had with them because of this foundational knowledge. When my daughters reach their teenage years I want to have patience with them and still continue to do things that will strengthen our relationship even though we might fight often. In fact it’s even more important to strengthen those relationships because they will become the strongest because we will have to work for it. I want to make sure my children develop good relationships with each other. Through allowing them plenty of time to play together while they are young, just like my brother and I were able to develop our relationship. I also want to encourage my husband to go on one-on-one “dates” with our children so they get the chance to really know their father. I want my future family to be different and unique to us but I don’t want it to change to drastically from my family of origin. My parents did the very best they could and they have been pretty successful.