Raising a Family: Living on Planet Parenthood

by Jeanne Elium, Don Elium

It's now time to turn your attention to an entirely new concept of family. . . .The new responsibility of children equals an exponential explosion of daily mounds of laundry, bushels of shopping for food and other stuff, preparing many meals for a diverse range of tastes, cleaning up after it all, chauffeuring people to and fro, planning events and schedules, maintaining the care of a pet or two. Then factor in time to yourself, time with your friends, romance with your partner, personal goals or interests—how will you ever juggle all this? The key is to approach the family not as a set of separate individuals pulling in twelve different directions, but as members within a group who all really do want to arrive together at the same destination.The Eliums teach us how to distinguish between the service-oriented environment of work, where energy is focused on a single goal or outcome, and the care-oriented environment of family, where there are multiple issues that need attention. When faced with conflict you will learn to ask, "What does this group of people need, including me?"—a questioning process known as FamilyMind.

259 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1997