Family Culture

I have been thinking recently about our "family culture". I ponder what that means and how one goes about defining it and then creating it.

My remaining energies are than focused on how one maintains it. I have noticed that the ever fluctuating nature of my days makes it very difficult to say, we will do this activity on this day at this time. Very often, I keep a list of things that we enjoy doing and then we select one or the other depending on mood, weather or funds available.
When it comes to adventures outside of the home, or even those inside, this doesn't bother me that much. When it comes to activities such as individual prayers or scripture study, it perturbs me greatly.

I want my family culture to be one of gospel learning and "sticktoitiveness". Yet, in that focus and dedication, I want compassion and flexibility. I don't what children so focused on reading the scriptures that they can't stop to help or give needed comfort. We can't say, "oh, I'll put my arm around you when I've finished this chapter!", to me, that defeats the purpose of reading in the first place!

For me, living the gospel is a first generation experience, and it is indeed like learning a new language. I take comfort in the following:
" To learn a new language is not easy. For one thing, you will always speak with an accent. ...But for your children, it will be their native tongue!" Dr. Haim Ginott

"Be one who nurtures and builds. Be one who has an understanding and a forgiving heart, who looks for the best in people. Leave people better than you found them” Marvin J. Ashton

I seek after these things. There does indeed seem to be an ever-elusive "secret". I constantly sense that if I could just find out that secret, understand it and implement it then all my worries or problems would be over. Somewhere deep down, I know that this cannot be true, nothing is ever that easy if it is worth obtaining, yet, I know I am missing something fundemental - indeed a key that needs to be turned in my understanding and subsequently in my life, once turned the struggle would seem less harsh, less tumultuous, less repetative and one could return to the key as if to an anchor.

Perhaps, it is not in the family culture that I sense a lack, but in myself. For, the longer I am a mother, the more intensly I realise that "mothers, are the heart of the home, and the heart of the home is where the pulse of the home is." If the mother lacks, then so does the home.

In my case, the pondering about that issue could go on ad infinitum and can be the topic for another posting!