One by one, they all filed into the kitchen for the family meeting. My oldest hopped onto the counter. His gangly legs dangled past the knobs on the cabinet doors below. Bouncing on his toes, the youngest stretched his arms as high as he could — the universal baby language for “pick-me-up.” I automatically lifted him. He felt twice as heavy the day before. At least, it seemed like yesterday. All of a sudden, his face didn’t look like my pudgy baby with the button nose. Instead, a full-blown toddler had taken his place. As he settled into my lap, wrapped in my arms, I looked around the room at all the faces. Curiosity framed eight pairs of big, Robinson-blue eyes. We filled the entire kitchen of that old farmhouse.
“It’s time to take a vote,” I announced.
Before I could say what we were actually voting on, squeals of delight slipped out of the girls. It’s always fun when you’re little and someone counts your vote — on anything.
“Okay,” I continued. “Daddy and I want to know… who wants Mommy to have another baby?”
All hands immediately shot into the air. The little guy on my lap raised both of his, and now all the girls were giggling.
“Well then, it’s settled. Mommy’s going to have a baby.”
“When?”
“At the end of the summer.”
The entire room erupted with cheers. The big girls hugged each other, and the two boys started jumping up and down making boy-noises. The older kids narrowed their eyes and studied us. Their suspicion was plainly written all over their faces– “Wait a minute, I don’t think that’s how it works…”
Their dad shot a smile and a wink their way.
Our children were always excited about welcoming a new member. To them growing a family took nothing more than an announcement.
However, building a strong family takes more than simply adding children. It takes these three vital elements.
1. Lose Yourself.
We married young — really young.
We had a plan. We wanted to have our children while we were young enough to enjoy them and still smart enough to do it right. After all, our parents didn’t really understand — obviously they were too old to know anything.
Neither of us came from a large or particularly happy family. Mine, broken from divorce, his marred by death — but I had heard stories.
My mother came from a family of six children. She often told tales of growing up poor in the 1930s. She spoke of childhood games, swinging on old tires hanging from trees, and giggling under the covers when they were supposed to be sleeping.
In spite of the hard times, my mother painted a picture of a family she grew up in, the one I wanted to create.
In the process of creating this vision of what childhood and family could be, I discovered something. I learned that contrary to popular belief, life isn’t all about finding yourself — it’s about losing yourself. The foundation for strong family relationships begins with laying down your life for one another, or, simply put, loving someone else more than yourself.
2. Build On the Hard Times… They Are Often the Best.
When my oldest daughter had her first baby, she slipped into motherhood like a pair of old faded jeans — smooth and comfortable. That is, right up to the minute she had to take her baby to the hospital. She looked at me with heartbroken eyes and said with half a smile,
“This parenthood thing is all fun and games until someone gets hurt”
Life comes with pain.
You’re not going to get through the years of building a strong family without struggle. Hard times will come in one form or another.
We all know this is a fact of life, yet, deep down we tend to believe we shouldn’t have hurts or hardship in our lives. Just as the years pass by as seasons, so does your family have seasons of its own. Some are full of laughter and sunshine; then the rain comes.
When the winds of life blow against you they will strengthen you if you let them. The way to do that is to determine that in those times, you will hold on to each other the tightest.
Sometimes life only seems hard. Then, once it’s past, you can see clearly it was needed to change your direction. You have little control, if any, over what happens to you in life. But what you can control is how you will respond to it.
It may be the toughest to get through, but the hardest ground is the best foundation to build on.
3. Learn to Dance With Contentment
The pursuit of happiness is elusive within the context of building a family.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not the happiness — it’s the pursuit. One of the most common mistakes young families make is to overlook the simple joys.
The early years of a growing family are fleeting. If we are too busy chasing what we think will make us happy, we forget to invest in the real things that bring us joy.
The little known secret is that happiness has a shy twin sister — her name is Contentment. It doesn’t matter how big or small your family is, or whatever season of life you’re in. If you choose to dance with Contentment, happiness will follow your lead.
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