Richard A. Goodling - "Rediscovering the Family" (May 14, 1967)

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	(firecracker pops)	0:03
	(pipe organ music)	0:05
-	The Bible contains a number of passages	0:28
	which reassure parents.	0:31
	Passages, such as the Fifth Commandment,	0:34
	which emphasize on the parts of children,	0:38
	obedience and honor, and respect.	0:42
	The Bible also has a way of getting under our skin.	0:47
	And so it is not surprising	0:53
	that we find a number of parentally disturbing passages.	0:56
	In "Matthew", for example, Jesus says,	1:03
	"I have not come to bring peace, but a sword."	1:07
	Or, "I have come to set a man against his father	1:12
	and a daughter against her mother,	1:16
	and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law,	1:20
	and a man's clothes will be those of his own household."	1:24
	I came across a cartoon recently	1:29
	of a young man introducing his fiance to his mother.	1:32
	And she greeted them at the door saying,	1:37
	"How do you do?	1:41
	My son has told me so much about you	1:43
	that I feel I dislike you already."	1:47
	However, we do not do justice	1:53
	to this quotation from "Matthew"	1:56
	if we take it out of context.	1:59
	In the quotation,	2:03
	Jesus emphasizes that blood relationships	2:04
	are of secondary importance	2:07
	to the relationship of discipleship.	2:11
	He asserts that commitment to him	2:15
	and his way of life is to be above every other tie,	2:17
	even that of family.	2:23
	So this passage, taken out of context,	2:26
	may remind us of,	2:29
	but cannot be taken to justify the antagonisms	2:31
	within contemporary family which set member against member.	2:36
	We do need to rediscover the family.	2:43
	There is an awareness that the emotional health	2:47
	of our nation depends upon	2:50
	the emotional health of its families,	2:52
	just as the personal maturity	2:56
	is dependent upon the quality of family life.	2:59
	The family is faced today	3:06
	with loss of its geographical roots.	3:07
	The average American family moves once every five years.	3:12
	The hometown is no longer	3:18
	the psychological anchor point	3:20
	that it once was.	3:23
	Many families consequently live	3:26
	as if we're in a foreign land,	3:28
	nostalgic for the mountains,	3:31
	or the planes, or the shores of its home.	3:34
	The family is faced today	3:41
	with the loss of its interpersonal roots.	3:42
	Frequent moves mean that people must repeatedly	3:46
	give up friendships,	3:50
	and are therefore reluctant	3:52
	to establish strong ties.	3:54
	Moves away from parents and grandparents	3:58
	cut children off from family tradition	4:01
	and family continuity.	4:05
	The family is also faced today	4:09
	with being cut off from its moral	4:11
	and spiritual roots,	4:13
	with transient church membership,	4:15
	with an ever-widening gap between	4:20
	the values of one generation and those of the next.	4:22
	And with conflicting value systems	4:27
	within any one generation.	4:29
	This concern for the significance	4:33
	of family relationships is shared	4:36
	by our colleges and universities.	4:39
	Charles Frankel in a publication entitled	4:43
	"The College and the Student"	4:47
	points out that the family	4:50
	of a student normally regarded a college	4:52
	as its surrogate.	4:56
	Responsible, not only for the student's education,	4:58
	but for his or her physical and moral security.	5:03
	A large part of what the American college	5:09
	has done is unintelligible	5:12
	unless we recognize that it has served	5:15
	and has been asked to serve as stand-in parents.	5:20
	We need help to rediscover the family,	5:27
	but before we can be helped,	5:30
	we need to admit that something is wrong,	5:33
	and it is not easy	5:38
	to admit that all is not well in our families.	5:39
	Harry Sullivan, an outstanding psychiatrist,	5:43
	has written, "If a person tells me his home life is perfect,	5:46
	I take off my glasses,	5:52
	which means that I cannot see him,	5:55
	and I gaze at him and say, extraordinary.	5:58
	I then pass on to some other topic,	6:04
	but I return to this later."	6:07
	Now not every family has a skeleton in its closet.	6:11
	Rather, it may be the routine	6:16
	of the kitchen or the dinner table or the family room,	6:19
	which shames us.	6:22
	Small facets of our family life	6:25
	which do not fit in with a picture that we want to give.	6:28
	But in little ways,	6:33
	our secrets get out, through the kindergarten child	6:35
	who says that daddy makes mommy cry,	6:39
	or through the children's friends	6:45
	who stay overnight and hear our angry words.	6:47
	Those with the highest ideals and the best education	6:51
	are usually the ones most ashamed of their secret behavior,	6:56
	because they are the ones who most expect	7:00
	that they should be able to do better.	7:04
	Sometimes it can be a lifting	7:08
	of a considerable burden	7:11
	to know that no family is faultless.	7:13
	We all have our faults.	7:17
	My colleague and I understood this	7:20
	when he came by my office early on a Saturday morning	7:23
	and said to me with tongue-in-cheek,	7:27
	"Isn't it nice to be able to escape domestic tranquility?"	7:31
	We erect walls	7:39
	not only to keep outsiders from looking	7:40
	in on our family life,	7:43
	we erect walls among members of the family.	7:45
	No man is a hero to his valet,	7:51
	and few are heroes to others within the family.	7:53
	They know us too well.	7:57
	We grow afraid of those with whom we live most closely,	8:00
	and upon whom we depend most deeply.	8:05
	We do not often realize how afraid we are	8:10
	of one another, parents afraid of their children,	8:13
	children afraid of their parents,	8:19
	husbands and wives afraid of each other,	8:23
	children tyrannized their parents	8:26
	with their punishing words, "I don't love you,"	8:28
	or the equally devastating indictment, "You don't love me."	8:32
	Children are also afraid of their parents,	8:36
	afraid they won't care,	8:40
	afraid they won't support them,	8:43
	afraid they won't keep their promises.	8:44
	Husbands and wives are afraid of each other.	8:48
	And each tries to hide the fear behind irritation	8:51
	or cover up irritation	8:55
	with exaggerated expressions of affection.	8:57
	Sometimes we know that our anger hides fear,	9:03
	and that fear points to hurt.	9:09
	And the bitterest anger may hide the deepest hurt.	9:13
	It indicates that we've been most hurt	9:17
	by those we most need.	9:19
	Now, every one of us has difficulty expressing his feelings,	9:23
	and this difficulty robs the family	9:27
	of some of life's most satisfying experiences.	9:30
	We're particularly awkward	9:33
	with our intimate feelings of tenderness and love.	9:35
	To be an adult to a last means to be unemotional,	9:40
	display of affection is all right for young lovers	9:47
	who are not expected to know any better,	9:51
	or made nance for whom everyone feels sorry.	9:54
	And grandmothers who are usually harmless.	9:59
	Paul Tournier in his book,	10:05
	"The Meaning of Persons",	10:06
	says how many married couples no longer know how	10:08
	to tell each other quite simply that they love each other?	10:13
	Even joy is smothered.	10:17
	"Yesterday evening," he writes,	10:19
	"A mother announced to me the engagement	10:21
	of her daughter.	10:23
	You approve of the young man, I ask.	10:26
	Oh, absolutely.	10:28
	Then I hope you flung your arms around her neck	10:31
	and told her so.	10:34
	No, I didn't dare to.	10:36
	I told her it was getting late	10:40
	and she had better go to bed	10:41
	and that we would talk about it some other time.	10:43
	We seemed so afraid	10:47
	of what is most real and deepest within us,	10:50
	yet as more than one psychotherapist has discovered,	10:54
	if one can understand what is most real	10:59
	within his own experience at the deepest personal level	11:02
	of feeling and understanding,	11:07
	it is likely that it is the very element which would,	11:10
	if it were shared or expressed, speak most deeply to others.	11:13
	But we leave unexpressed	11:21
	and unshared our deepest feelings.	11:23
	And the feelings we most regret leaving unexpressed	11:27
	and unshared are those of love.	11:30
	Grief seems most agonizing	11:36
	for those who have lost someone	11:38
	at a time when the last word spoken were those of anger.	11:41
	We cling to so many relationships	11:48
	in the past because some of our deepest feelings	11:50
	were left unexpressed, unshared.	11:53
	Bound as it were to past relationships,	11:58
	we are unable to live freely in the present.	12:01
	Jesus knew how difficult	12:05
	yet how necessary it is to transfer loyalties,	12:08
	to set aside past relationships of child and parent	12:14
	if one is to be free to live as an adult.	12:18
	To rediscover our own families,	12:24
	we must, in the words of Saint Paul,	12:27
	"Put away childish things."	12:29
	Husbands and wives discover that they do not want	12:33
	to give up the protection	12:36
	which a mother or a father affords.	12:38
	Adults discover that they do not want	12:42
	to put away childish images,	12:44
	but that they want to retain	12:46
	the image of a dominating parent or an indulging parent,	12:48
	or I protecting parent, or a tyrannical parent.	12:54
	And parents discover that even if they put away	12:58
	the childish relationships of earlier years,	13:01
	yet they cling nevertheless to certain myths,	13:05
	which prevent their children	13:09
	from becoming parents to themselves.	13:11
	There are three such myths,	13:16
	which are particularly binding,	13:17
	the myth of innocence forever,	13:19
	the myth of obedience forever,	13:22
	and the myth of intimacy forever.	13:26
	The myth of innocence forever says	13:30
	that children can be protected forever.	13:33
	The same is to be a favorite myth	13:36
	of parents who have found life difficult, even cruel,	13:39
	so they want to raise hot house children,	13:44
	but hot house children like hot house plants	13:48
	must be sheltered forever.	13:52
	The myth of innocence forever	13:56
	is the myth of the Garden of Eden,	13:58
	with Adam and Eve living within the bosom	14:01
	of God with no cares,	14:04
	but with no freedom and responsibility.	14:06
	Thank heaven for the fall.	14:11
	My fall was upward, not downward,	14:15
	for it marked the movement towards freedom	14:18
	and what is freedom except the capacity for choice?	14:20
	And the movement toward responsibility,	14:24
	for what is responsibility	14:27
	except the ability to anticipate	14:29
	and live with the consequences of one's choices?	14:32
	The myth of obedience forever says	14:38
	that children can be guided forever,	14:40
	but only parents who expect to live forever	14:43
	should have perfectly obedient children.	14:46
	Disobedience is a normal part of childhood.	14:50
	I do not mean disobedience as a persistent, angry,	14:54
	destructive disregard for rules and regulations.	14:58
	I mean disobedience	15:03
	which represents the child's assertion	15:04
	of his strength and individuality.	15:07
	Grab an infant by the arm and hold him	15:11
	so he cannot move and you will feel him struggle,	15:13
	and rightfully so, against restraint.	15:16
	And you will hear his cries of rage.	15:20
	Hold on to him and keep him from going	15:24
	where he is able to go,	15:26
	and you will arouse his resentment and not his obedience.	15:29
	Likewise, demands for obedience may overshadow	15:34
	the more important lessons in personal responsibility.	15:37
	Only the person who is free	15:43
	to disobey his parents can become his own parent.	15:45
	Psychologically, the passage referred	15:52
	to earlier is sound, to become a parent	15:54
	to yourself may mean you must be at odds	15:57
	if you're a mother and father.	16:00
	The myth of intimacy forever says	16:04
	that we will never be separated from others.	16:06
	The family is the place for the first experience	16:10
	of intimacy.	16:13
	Intimacy is the deepest human need,	16:15
	the need to have a genuine, warm,	16:19
	responsive relationship.	16:23
	And what a thrill it is	16:25
	to see the infant's first response	16:28
	in affection to affection.	16:30
	But parents cannot hold on to their children forever.	16:35
	The child must widen his range	16:39
	of intimacy to include other children and other adults.	16:41
	And the intimacy gained in infancy	16:45
	and childhood seems to be lost	16:48
	for a time between parents and child in early adolescence.	16:50
	Perhaps it is because parents' efforts	16:57
	to discipline the adolescent for adulthood,	17:00
	which is approaching rapidly,	17:04
	leaves little room for intimacy.	17:07
	Clean up your room,	17:10
	do your homework.	17:11
	Perhaps it is because adolescence is a time of rebellion	17:13
	if individuality and uniqueness is to be protected.	17:16
	Perhaps it is because adolescence	17:21
	is a time for developing sexuality with its secrets.	17:23
	But then intimacy is regained in dating,	17:29
	and courtship and marriage,	17:32
	when suddenly walls of isolation are broken down	17:33
	and love is heightened by a new sense of shared experience.	17:37
	And the intimacy lost with one's parents	17:42
	may be regained through one's children	17:48
	and their grandchildren.	17:52
	How parents and husbands and wives	17:56
	might envy the young adults' ability	18:00
	and opportunity to fall in love.	18:04
	Unfortunately, parents and husbands	18:09
	and wives have arrived at two fatal assumptions.	18:11
	One is that they know all there	18:15
	is to know about one another,	18:17
	there's nothing left to discover,	18:20
	and many a married person imagines	18:23
	that he knows all there is to know about his mate.	18:25
	He has lost the loving curiosity	18:29
	he had while he was still only engaged to be married.	18:31
	The other fatal assumption	18:36
	is that the decision to be married	18:38
	was made once and for all.	18:39
	So now married couples feel trapped.	18:42
	The truth of the matter is that probably nine out	18:47
	of 10 couples would make the same decision again,	18:49
	and should be making that decision every day.	18:55
	The decision to be married	18:59
	is a process,	19:01
	with repeated opportunities to propose and to accept.	19:02
	But we're more apt to be heard saying no	19:07
	in order to retaliate when we're hurt.	19:10
	What we really want to say is yes.	19:13
	Otis Maxfield, former pastor of First Community Church	19:18
	in Columbus, Ohio,	19:22
	and now director of the American Foundation	19:23
	of Religion and Psychiatry tells	19:27
	the case of a young married graduate student	19:29
	who became disenchanted with his wife	19:31
	and fell in love with another girl.	19:34
	But the love affair soon blew up,	19:37
	and the young man came to himself	19:40
	and realized that his marital problem had at its basis	19:42
	his conflicting needs for his wife	19:48
	to be both a wife and a mother to him.	19:50
	When he got in touch with his wife who had, in the meantime,	19:54
	gone home to her parents,	19:59
	she told him tearfully that she couldn't come back,	20:01
	that it was all over.	20:04
	And that furthermore,	20:06
	having been terribly hurt and feeling quite helpless	20:08
	and worthless,	20:11
	she had had a casual affair with an older man	20:13
	and was now four months pregnant.	20:15
	Determined to save his marriage,	20:19
	the young man took his wife with him	20:21
	to the church counseling center.	20:23
	And together they discovered that neither	20:25
	of them was blameless,	20:27
	that each had been disloyal to the other.	20:30
	And that the love once possible was possible again.	20:33
	When the baby was born,	20:40
	the couple brought him to First Community Church	20:42
	to be baptized.	20:46
	The young man asked to offer the prayer	20:48
	after the baptizing,	20:52
	and three of the sentences used in the prayer stand out.	20:55
	Dear Lord, we are so glad that in spite of our wickedness,	21:02
	all of us have a possibility for goodness.	21:07
	I'm so glad that parenthood	21:12
	is a set of relationships,	21:15
	more than the accident of flesh and blood.	21:17
	I am so glad that love reveals	21:23
	and does not conceal.	21:27
	Perhaps these sentences from the young man's prayer	21:31
	may help you rediscover your family.	21:34
	Innocence forever is a myth.	21:39
	Neither we nor others are perfect	21:41
	or without fault.	21:43
	Obedience forever is a myth.	21:47
	We do not always love, honor, and cherish.	21:49
	Intimacy, forever, is a myth.	21:54
	We know the isolation of fear and anger.	21:56
	But may those in our families hear us say quite simply,	22:02
	I know we have our faults.	22:08
	Forgive me as I forgive you.	22:11
	I know we have our moments of fear and anger,	22:15
	but let us know also our moments of love.	22:18
	Dear Lord, we are so glad that in spite of our wickedness,	22:34
	all of us have a possibility for goodness.	22:38
	I'm so glad that parenthood	22:43
	is a set of relationships more than the accident	22:45
	of flesh and blood.	22:48
	I am so glad that love reveals	22:51
	and does not conceal.	22:54
	And now may the trust,	22:58
	which is faith abide,	22:59
	may the anticipation which is hope abide.	23:02
	May the affection which is love abide.	23:06
	May these three abide in our families this day, and always.	23:10
	(inspiring Gospel music)	23:24

Item Info

Title:

Richard A. Goodling - "Rediscovering the Family" (May 14, 1967)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4vm46z8f

Date:

May 14, 1967

Speaker:

Goodling, Richard A.

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Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0383
ref5969_zsu
uachapelsermaud
duke:628303
dcrau002377
ark:/87924/r4vm46z8f
3d6be210-abea-4310-bd4b-1e0ed2f1b53f

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Richard A. Goodling - "Rediscovering the Family" (May 14, 1967)

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1. Richard A. Goodling - "Rediscovering the Family" (May 14, 1967)

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