Create Patchwork Family For A Lifetime Of Support

Families are becoming more and more important as the safety nets fall apart. Independence is great until you lose your marriage or your job. Family relationships can make all the difference when times are hard.

But families are harder to create or hold together than they once were because now they are built on friendship and shared experience instead of blood and institutions.

When I worked with teenage runaways, we talked about the three families we all have now: the one you are born into, the one that raises you and the one you choose for yourself. There was no choice on the first; you were lucky, unlucky or it was a mixed bag. The second was a combination of first family, neighbors, friends, caretakers, teachers or foster folks.

The most important, the teenagers decided, was the third family, the one you choose yourself. You could keep some of the first family, some of the second and carefully choose the rest. They thought it was very important to think about trust and respect and values. They thought it was important whom you chose to live with or hang out with. They didn’t want any more “accidental relatives.” They wanted a good lifetime family.

We all have to learn, now, how to create our own lifetime family out of the past, the present and the future. Our families may not look like a Norman Rockwell picture, but they can love, support and be there for us just the same. For many of us, our patchwork family will be better and stronger than the “real” one we once wished we had.

Dear Jennifer: Since the late 1970s I have thought that everything you have written was just for me. Of course, many other people have thought the same thing. That is one of the elements that makes you the sweet success that you are today.

So, OK, you can’t cook. I doubt that; you just don’t want to take the time for it. I just had a dinner failure. The meal was undercooked because I was too excited and couldn’t miss a minute of the conversation and camaraderie. Thank goodness I had my sister bring the dessert!

Anyway, I don’t think we can blame it on the English, Jennifer. I have fond memories of traveling in England and found the food terrific. My advice: Stick to a simple menu you know well. Glad you are back from vacation. Where did you go? - Sharon

Dear Sharon: How many people do you think are like us, hopefully enough to support this column?

Your analysis is right, it’s all a matter of priorities or strategy. I always think I have to make everything interesting, even food, when basics would be just fine. I used to have a basic, “third date” meal I cooked. I would invite the man for dinner and always cook swordfish with pine nuts, asparagus, pasta, Caesar salad (no anchovies) and ice cream. It worked, but I feel guilty serving it now that I’m married. I’ll work up another formula, and my friends will understand and be less afraid.

My mother went to her DBE meeting after the cooking column and the Daughters of the British Empire were not all amused. It’s good you pointed out my unfair rationale for my failures. It’s not the British; it’s me.

Thank you for the good advice.

I didn’t go anywhere but my garden on my vacation because I travel so much with my work. I just pulled weeds, dabbled in the pond, rolled in the grass with our new puppy, Woofie, and went for walks with friends. - Jennifer

Dear Jennifer: As one of the self-appointed anointed you should enjoy the enclosed article by the great Thomas Sowell (Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution; the article from the July 1995 National Review is titled “The Vision of the Anointed; the Left and Social Policy”), beside whose brilliance you pale. - Bud

Dear Bud: Why are conservatives always so cranky? Why not just send the article? I always appreciate reading articles other people find interesting. Why fill the envelope with insults? It sure says more about your state of mind than mine. Columnists write all over the political map, and none of us, as far as I know, is anointed. I could also give you an exceedingly long list of people whose intelligence far exceeds mine, but it seems like a waste of time.

Send me your articles but not your fear. - Jennifer

xxxx

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Jennifer James The Spokesman-Review