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The Family Conference

by Alan C. Fox 4 Comments

 

PatternsPersist-PeopleToolsWhen I was seven or eight my father started holding “the family conference.”  The primary purpose was to talk about and resolve family grievances which inevitably arise. For example, my little brother David often ate the last of the peanut butter and didn’t leave any for my lunch.

At each family conference, if possible, we would take action to solve whatever problems were discussed. We met in the living room. I can still see my father sitting in the big stuffed chair in the corner, smoking his pipe, with me and my little brother on the sofa next to him, and my mother in her chair on the other side of the room.

The rules were:

  1. Any family member could call a family conference, which was normally held within a day or two of the request.
  2. Any of us could speak for as long as we wanted to, without interruption.  I frequently cried when describing my problem, but everyone else waited for me to compose myself.  No one could interrupt or directly argue.
  3. The conference lasted for as long as it needed to, until everyone had been heard on any subject they wanted to talk about.
  4. There was no “blaming” allowed, and there was usually an attempt to resolve each problem by all family members agreeing on a solution, often after a compromise was reached.

I found “The Family Conference” to be very helpful, even though I usually didn’t think of my best arguments until the next morning.

I was a sensitive kid.  I cried when I was frustrated, which was often. These conferences made me feel safe to be myself—first crying, and finally expressing my needs and opinions.  Even if my problem wasn’t solved every time, I felt much better after the conference because both of my parents had taken the time to sit and listen to what I had to say.  In other words, I felt that they heard me.  The process also seemed more democratic than parental dictatorship which is the governing process for many families.

Family-communication-peopletoolsSo parents, if you aren’t already doing so, I encourage you to starting holding family conferences. It will involve your children in running your family on a more egalitarian basis, preparing them to be better parents for your grandchildren. This is one form of glue that does hold families together. It teaches your children to use their words, rather than their fists.  It also encourages direct communication, rather than having children hide their feelings, or communicate only with friends.  Shouldn’t family members be best friends and look out for each other?

I think so.

Alan

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Snip

by Alan C. Fox 0 Comments

snip-peopletoolsMany years ago I read a book by Harry Brown entitled How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World. The essence of his advice was that when a relationship is over you should let it go and create room in your life for the next relationship that, for him, was always better.

I don’t believe that the next relationship, or next anything, is always better than the last, though it certainly has that possibility. I do believe that, just as in a tropical rainforest, unless a tall tree falls its tiny successor will never be bathed in full sunlight and grow. In other words, you have to make room for your future.

If your current life and relationships are perfect, please visit another of my blogs and come back to this one if and when you need it. However, if you would like to create space or sunlight for a new experience or person (read about my 80% solution), then perhaps you should “snip” from your life that which is not working for you.

In the 1970s, heyday of “encounter groups,” a Louise joined our ongoing group. She was forty-five years old and had held the same job for twenty-five years. She had hated her job for many years. The rest of us suggested that she simply quit, but for most of us that is much easier said than done.

When you snip a job or person from your life, you are left to encounter the fearsome black hole of the unknown. But that’s just part of the process. You have to take a leap of faith, or you might consider the modified snip.  It’s like back in school when you would swing on the playground rings. You always had to grab the next ring before you let go of the last one. That is where two hands are useful. Louise from the encounter group ultimately resolved her fear by looking for and finding a different and better job before she quit the one she was so unhappy with.

One of my favorite pieces of writing advice is to “Kill your darlings.” A word, a thought, a paragraph, or an entire chapter— each may be beautiful and the best you’ve ever written, but if it doesn’t belong, doesn’t add to the total work, then it must be snipped. This concept has been especially difficult for me to use in my own writing, not because I love all of my darlings, but because I don’t like to waste anything. I have invested time and thought to write each sentence. When I throw anything out I grumble to myself that I have wasted my time. Then I remember that all the time I have spent in the past is really just a “sunk cost” and I snip!

Snip-sunshiine-peopletoolsI’d like to end with another story from my encounter group. One fine day a woman in our group named Karen called all four of the men she was dating, and ended each relationship. This was quite a day’s work. The Big Snip. But Karen had decided that she wanted to find a more meaningful and committed relationship and by eliminating the men who did not fit the bill (one of whom was my brother) she certainly created a lot of space to find the one right person.

I encourage you to do the same. If it isn’t working in your life (be it a relationship, a job, or a favorite article of clothing), then snip it out to make room for something which may work, or fit you, better.

Alan

 

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Dear Rodgers and Hammerstein

by Alan C. Fox 0 Comments

 

red rose isolated on the white backgroundI’m writing to thank you for The King and I, which I attended a few hours ago at the Lincoln Center in New York City.  The performance was outstanding, with terrific acting, great directing, and a wonderful orchestra.  Of course, all of this was in performance of your beautiful words and music.

I first saw The King and I sixty-odd years ago when I was a teenager.  My father treated my mom, my little brother, and me to balcony seats. I was transfixed, just as I was tonight, not only by your songs, but also by your characters and story. Your musical was even more moving than I recalled.

Just as each of us is trapped when we reach a certain age, the king himself is ensnared between his inescapable life experience on the one hand, and his early dreams, challenged by the demands of a real and continually changing world, on the other, a world which seems very different when viewed through the lens of enough experience.

For example, when I was young the two-way radio watch was a fiction, born of a dream, on the wrist of Dick Tracy, a cartoon detective.  Now that fantasy is real, a two-way wrist cellphone which also displays your heart rate.

Every love story is personal and, for that reason, intensely private, as it exists solely between two human beings.  Anna, a teacher, and the King certainly loved each other, but faced inescapable difficulty, separated, as they were, by position, culture, and gender.  Of course after the final curtain, when the entire audience rose in a standing ovation for the orchestra and cast, I felt I had been an eyewitness—a participant, if you will—, to, or in, an unlikely love story with twists, turns, and ultimately, a poignant realization at the King’s death and Anna’s departure.  Like the two of them, I have found love in my life, but mine, as theirs, has been far-removed from the fairy tale ending of “happily ever after.”

Back in my hotel room I’m thinking that our dreams naturally pull us toward love, toward fulfilment, while our own limitations and a constantly encroaching world are barriers that none of us can fully overcome.  In your words tonight, “No man is as good a king as he can be.”

King-And-I-Stage-PeopleToolsI know you never heard of personal computers, the internet, or Wikipedia, which contains an entry about you that says, “Their musical theatre writing partnership has been called the greatest of the 20th century.”  But I will tell you from my own experience that your musical Sound of Music is one of the best-loved movies of all time, and each summer plays to a packed house of more than fifteen thousand people at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles.  I wish you could see the thousands of pinpoints of light from cellphones waving in unison, as we sing along with your song Edelweiss, performed larger than life on the big screen.

I hope you were happy . . . no, elated at the success of your work.  Had I created even one of your musicals, notably including The King and I, I would be entirely satisfied . . . no, thrilled . . . with my career.

I would continue, but it’s past midnight and I have an early morning appointment to do something not nearly as important, or fulfilling, as seeing and hearing your masterpiece this evening.

Rodgers and Hammerstein, you did good.

Thank you.  And love,

Alan

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