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October 2008 netPsychologist.com Newsletter
Tools and Tips For Success With Your "Global" Family
  Have you heard it?
Have you been listening? The buzz word in the media is "global". And this is not only recently with the concern over global economy. Global has been in our consciousness for some time.

We think we know what this concept means, as in world wide. Roget's Thesaurus puts it this way: "So pervasive and all-inclusive as to exist in or affect the whole world." So, global means something like; "The common cold affected everyone in my family and we all had a bad cold at the same time." The news these days is about economies world wide struggling with similar concerns and circumstances all at the same time.

What the idea of "global" protects us from is the possible idea that the world economies are interconnected, the consideration that this is not only a worldwide affair but that it is systemic. The economies of the world form an interrelated network and what affects one part of the system can and does affect other parts of the network. That is a reality different from, "I am me and you are you and we really don't have a reciprocal effect on each other."

My family is a system and if one member gets a cold, others in the family played roles in that and the member with the cold will play a role as to how other members relate to the possibility of them getting a cold or not.

What makes it so difficult for us to think and function with systemic awareness? Some possibilities:

  1. We have not been taught the benefits of thinking this way.
  2. Our culture still has a rugged individualistic, I-can-go-it-alone value.
  3. It's too complicated to think this way.
  4. We do not look at the facts of modern day life with an open mind.

 

With regard to the later, #4, how else to explain the current financial markets and worldwide economic situation if not by some explanation of interconnectedness, let alone systemic connection? Ah, coincidences. That's what this is, mere coincidence? OK, but I don't think that explains very well how come the world is functioning these days the way it is.

If we do take the "coincidence" approach to explanation, it leaves us hopelessly out of control to prevent this in the future. We are at the mercy of more coincidence with no good explanation of what we can do about it. This kind of explanation is rather superstitious.

I will leave further discussion of points 1-3 for another time. For now, give it some thought: No one is to blame. We are all doing the best we can, under the circumstances, with what we have to work with. No single event or behavior is the cause of another. Rather, life events and personal or family happenings are multi-factoral. Life is a systemic web made up of many contributions, including yours and mine.

How American Kids Made A Contribution To The Economic Melt-down.
    Frugal Family, Ready or Not! xmas cut
Here's a great example of how everyone in a system contributes, one way or the other, to what happens in that system, in this case our family economy.

We taught our children to ask for what they want. They do, as expected. We the parents, have all the control over the family money and how it is spend, right? So, the kids ask and we say "No." We have our reasons. We explain those reason, hopefully in age appropriate ways, and hope the kids will buy our reasons.

But, wait not so fast. The kids have their reasons, too. And lots of emotion behind those reasons. (You've heard them: "Everyone else is." - "I'm tired of the old ones." -"I'm so embarrassed in that thing."- "You're mean and I don't love you.") Slammed doors and pouting can work, too. We, the parents give in ("Oh, well, where's the credit card?") and the kids get what they want, which reinforces their strength in preparation for the next power struggle with us.

And so it goes for years. We raise entitled and indulged offspring, but we could afford it and it was easier than the fights. One's children should have the best. Our kids don't understand what "living beyond one's means", national or personal, means. The means they live within are all they know, thanks to us. Why wouldn't they resist any challenge to the status quo as they know and expect it to be?

Can you see the part the kids played? Oh, sure we made our contributions, and so did the children's grandparents and our bosses and the media and our politicians who did not want to say "No!" to us adult voters anymore than we wanted to say "No!" to our children. And China with money to lend did not want to say "No!" to our request for loans any more than the Arabs with oil to sell wanted to say "No!" to Exxon and Mobil. So it goes in systemic reality. Everyone has a part in the outcomes.

Looking at it all this way, seems silly and useless to count blame. Read Jan Hoffman's article "The Frugal Teenager, Ready or Not" for a glimpse into how some families, as systems, are struggling to make adaptations and changes to financial realities.

 
 
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