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Secret of Family Work
By Seeing the Everyday | July 12, 2010
ARTICLE SUMMARY
The ever-present work at home can be taken for granted as inherently oppressive, onerous, and conflict based. In “Secret of Family Work,” Dr. Jenet Erickson describes that one of the great secrets of life may be that working beside and for one another is intrinsic to real enjoyment and meaning. She applies Native American cultural studies from Anthropologist Dorothy Lee to describe how family work done together creates patterns of oneness in families and communities and invites the finest in individual exertion and development.
SECRET OF FAMILY WORK
By Jenet Jacob Erickson, Ph.D.
When Anthropologist Dorothy Lee set out to explore the cultures of the Native American and New Guinean tribes, she observed something that both struck and confused her. She saw men, women, and children exerting themselves in learning and performing difficult tasks without any of the typical rewards she had always seen used to generate such motivation. She observed Native American youth being taught and tested in developing remarkable levels of self-discipline and valor to help them find food for their tribes. She observed the Arapesh of New Guinea walking miles with saplings to plant them on the sites of others, hunting only to give all the kill away, giving pigs to relatives who lived long distances away, and going on long walks in the jungle to find things needed by neighbors in building their homes or repairing their farm structures.
What she observed did not fit into her typical Western notions of motivation. Her education had led her to believe that individual motivation was the result of efforts to satisfy personal needs, reduce tension, or respond to an external motivator. Yet here she observed the full engagement of individuals who had been invited rather than motivated to act. They were invited specifically by a sense of connection with their communities—a connection that came with a sense of commitment and responsibility that seemed to invite the best in individual development. What she concluded turned her western notions of motivation upside down: it was the strength of the connection with community, rather than freedom from obligations to community, that enabled individual development to flourish.
Of course this led her to many thoughts about the importance of family love and bonding as a foundation for the connectedness that would enable each individual to flourish. It also led to an understanding of the importance of individuals in families and communities working together and helping one another as a foundation for connectedness. This did not always seem to be the most efficient way to get things done. Yet it was central to the experience of connectedness that would invite the best of individuals.
As Lee watched the Tikopia of the South Pacific exchange mats that had required tremendous effort and time to make, she questioned why they did not just keep the mats the y had made for themselves. Yet in exchanging with one another they gave a piece of their lives—a piece of their very selves. Their efforts and unique artistic expressions became part of the homes of one another, building a sense of connected oneness with their friends and relations.
No wonder then that helping one another in the home and in the community has power to generate an experience of oneness with enhanced exertion and development of the individual. This does not mean of course that children who are asked to help with yard work or the dishes are always delighted to give their best efforts to help out. But the experiences can establish a pattern that invites a sense of personal fulfillment, capacity, and oneness, as well as meaning and joy.
Certainly, much of this has to do with how parents themselves approach the experience of family work and working together. Two descriptions of family work present an interesting contrast. One mother talked about learning to help with family work saying, “I grew up working along with my grandparents down on their knees [harvesting raspberries]. You know, I thought, ‘If they can do it, I can.’ That’s some of my best memories. Actually, all the cousins would come and each row was a quarter of a mile long. And then after, we’d go have picnics in the park.” In her own family, she said, “I try to make [family work] joyful and important and not just something to get over with.”
In contrast, another mother remembered her childhood work experiences this way: “We didn’t like our jobs. We’d cry every day. On Saturdays we’d cry more. It was awful on Saturdays. My mom would decide we were going to rearrange the living room, and so everyone had to come. And when you rearranged you had to clean all the windowsills and take down the blinds and wash everything and it took all day long. That’s why we hated Saturdays. We thought we should be able to just watch cartoons all morning and then do nothing the rest of the day—it was our day off. But my mom didn’t see it as a day off. It was a big work day.”
This mother went on to describe housework with her own children: “[The children] always had household chores. They’ve always had Saturday jobs. They’ve always had work and they’ve just learned how to work.” Then she added, “They don’t like it. They don’t like it at all. There’s no debate. You just do it. We’re not going to negotiate; we just do it.” (Manwaring & Bahr, unpublished manuscript, 2004)
In these two examples family work meant very different things, was organized on different principles, and had different relational outcomes for these two families. The mother who described picking raspberries with her grandparents seemed to experience a connection in working alongside her family members that invited her own desire to contribute and find joy in collaborating with them. It was not her work, or her grandparents’ work. It was their work together, mixed in with the leisure—a natural part of living, loving, and being part of the family.
Creating homes where families eat, work, play, quarrel, celebrate, learn, relax, recover from illness, and care for the young and the elderly is very labor-intensive. These are tasks that do not simply go away if one tires of them. In fact, this work is as unpredictable as it is ever-present. Yet when we see how this work is central to forming the basic bonds of connection, we start to recognize its high value. We can then see how through organizing it in “communal” ways—by working alongside one another; by seeing family work as shared, good, and central to family love and belonging; and by appreciating each one’s contributions to it—we can strengthen relationships and bonding.
It seems almost taken for granted that family work is inherently oppressive, onerous, and conflict based. It may in fact be one of the great secrets of life that working beside and for one another is intrinsic to real enjoyment and meaning. In doing this work together we will discover that we have created the patterns of oneness that so surprised Dorothy Lee. We will find that not only do families and communities thrive in working beside and for one another, but that the oneness that results will also invite the finest in individual exertion and development.
Topics: Research |
July 25th, 2010 at 7:41 am
Wonderful article! *Not* surprising results, tho! I find that the same can be said for home education. When children learn alongside their parents, and see the value and usefulness of learning - it becomes a lifestyle, rather than a dreary 9-3, weekday activity. I find that there will always be a certain amount of resistance; the “trick” is to balance it with enough *good* memories of togetherness so those become both the focus and the consequence.
July 27th, 2010 at 12:09 pm
Dear Pat,
Thank you for sharing your own experience with family work and home education–such important insights.
August 13th, 2010 at 6:51 pm
It is very sad to me that Ms. Lee was “struck and confused” when she observed human beings expressing what she called “remarkable” levels of self-discipline, valor, and selflessness. What is really striking (and disturbing) is that her “western notions” viewed such motivations as remarkable, and the self-centeredness of being motivated only by personal benefit as the norm.
August 19th, 2010 at 12:15 am
I LOVED reading this! This is how I hope my home will begin to function as my little ones get old enough to even pretend to help! :)