Family Camp 2006
Saturday Evening—Conversation
How many of you have your cell phones with you? How many of you have a blackberry, pager, Motorola Q on you? How many of you actually brought a laptop to Family Camp this weekend? If you did, we are suffering from “collective techno-neurosis.” While we are on vacation, we are unable to disconnect from our work or normal routines. An article in the SF Chronicle says, 73.9% of employees admit to contacting the office or colleagues while on vacation. Close to half (47.3%) say they do some work when they’re away. Americans have lost their knack for getting away, kicking back and chilling out on some stretch of sandy beach or perhaps the last long weekend of summer!
The Labor Day Weekend is historically the last vacation holiday before we return to work and school. Before returning to FCBC, this weekend was actually a real holiday for me. Now it’s work. But it doesn’t have to be work for you.
Instead of being wired or wirelessly connected to your work, let’s put away those techno-gadgets for the next 48 hours and spend this time with your families and friends.
Be Subject to One Another
With Dr. Chuck out of commission, I’m the pitch-hitter this weekend. We asked him to talk about “improving communication,” so he selected the Ephesians 5:21 passage, “Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.” Besides the problematic aspects of this section of Ephesians, this particular verse is very egalitarian.
“Be subject to one another,” is so radical that it is difficult to understand. It means “give full authority and obedience to each other.” Thus complete submission and vulnerability to the other is the norm. Power is never held by the “I” but is always ceded to the “other.” Self-sufficiency, personal autonomy, and independence are hereby excluded. Each person cedes power to whoever is the other. You always have power over me, and I over you.
In the rest of this Ephesians section, we see the writer not being as egalitarian as it appears in this one verse. He says that there is unequal authority between wives and husbands, children and fathers, and slaves and masters. Suggested here is that inasmuch that we have Christ is the head of the church, we also have these human relationships that show the ordering of life.
One way that we can model “be subject to one another,” is having a conversation. We don’t talk enough. When we talk with the other, we give each other equal time to share.
Role-Play
Mother and Son (with an iPod in his ear) try to have a conversation. While they are doing this, a number of interruptions impinge on their conversation preventing them to talk:
House phones rings
Mother’s cell phone rings
Son’s cell phone rings
Dad calls over that dinner is ready
Mother worries about what’s for dinner
Son glances over to watch what’s on TV
Mother thinks about work
Son’s friend drops by
Son worries about his homework
Sister interrupts
What else interrupts us from having a good conversation?
Zeldin’s Conversation
Conversation, How Talk Can Change Our Lives by Theodore Zeldin. Zeldin makes the point that conversation is not just about conveying information or sharing emotions, not just a way of putting ideas into people’s heads. Rather, conversation is a meeting of minds with different memories and habits. When minds meet, they don’t just exchange facts, they transform them, reshape them, draw different implications from them, engage in new trains of thought.
How many of you think that your family conversations are boring? Here’s a 17 year old boy talking about conversation at home:
“I feel patronized in every conversation with my parents. They think they’re
superior. They treat me at a low intellectual level. I have much better conversations with my friends. So I don’t really put in the effort for a real conversation at home. Dad never listens. Mom has to take center stage without being interrupted. I think it’s legitimate to interrupt: it shows interest. It’s better with my friends because they treat me as a peer, and they get impassioned about things, which parents don’t. A conversation should be fueled by the passion that we have for the subject.”
It just happens that this boy’s mother, a councilwoman, a lawyer and formerly a teacher is starving to have a conversation with her son.
History of family conversations:
Plenty of fathers enjoy terrifying their family into silence.
The film director, Ang Lee makes one of his characters say, “We worry for each other, and that makes us a family.” They don’t talk very much.
The Japanese film Family Life shows conversation in terminal decline, with the children having nothing to say to their parents.
In Brazil, traditional dance and song are preferred ways of expressing feelings which could not be mentioned in conversation.
Traditionally, good talk at meals is a rarity. In Elizabethan England, meals were eaten in silence. Chinese etiquette books say you should not talk at meals. The Italians say, “Talk is not at the table, but for the piazza.” The ancient Greeks separated dining from the entertainment afterward. In Indonesian homes, there is no dining room; each member of the family comes to collect a plate of food in his own time, and retires to eat alone.
Ways to improve family dinner conversations:
Cooking more exotically expands conversations.
Invite people who are from different backgrounds to dinner. In Jamaica, they have a system by which the locals invite foreign tourists for a meal, just for the pleasure of meeting strangers. We have lost this kind of family hospitality, which once existed all over the world. The Bible says, “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”
Children contribute enormously to family conversations. Children are far more able and eager to think abstractly than adults generally recognize. A three-year old was able to have this wonderful exchange, after watching his father eat a banana:
“You don’t like bananas, do you Steve?” said the father.
“No,” replied Steve. “If you were me you wouldn’t like bananas either.” After a pause for reflection, he added, “Then who would be the daddy?”
This is a good philosophical question. You could have a good conversation about that.
Family originally included not only kin but also servants—people from different classes which enhanced conversations. When a family travels to another country, we can converse with strangers with different cultures and traditions.
Let’s Have a Conversation (Newsprint)
Get into your family groups. Identify one memory that you have for today. Make sure that everyone gets the chance to share even the children.
Something that happened coming to camp
Doing something while here—swimming, eating, getting settled in your rooms
Share what you would like to happen this weekend as a family
Sunday Morning Schedule
After worship, this year there will be four groups for adults:
Being Grandparents (Don Ng) Grandparents
Words of Wisdom for New Parents (Diana Lee, David Louie, Butch Chan)
New Parents
Love Languages—Interpersonal Relationships (Nelson Wong)
Single Adults/Married Couples
Home Economics—Managing the Home (Lea Wong) Newly Married Couples
You don’t have to attend as a couple; sign-up based on your interests.
Monday Morning Schedule
The Price of Privilege by Madeline Levine looks at how parental pressure and material advantage are creating a generation of disconnected and deeply unhappy kids.
Close in prayer
Monday Morning—The Price of Privilege
The Price of Privilege by Madeline Levine, a psychologist in Marin County writes a new book that examines how over-involved parenting style creates a generation of kids with an impaired sense of self.
Levine works with families in an upper-middle-class suburban community with concerned, educated, and involved parents who have exceedingly high expectations for their children. Since there are not many Asian American families in Marin County, we can suspect that we are talking about largely white families. However, the description of the families that she works with sounds very familiar with Asian American families as well.
In spite of parental concern and economic advantage, many of her adolescent patients suffer from readily apparent emotional disorders: addictions, anxiety disorders, depression, eating disorders, and assorted self-destructive behaviors. Others are perplexingly and persistently unhappy. In light of all of these assets and resources, Levine wonders why these young people are unhappy. Parents with resources can “afford” to spend more time worrying about their children’s performance and sizing up competition.
Question: As a parent, identify the ways that you are involved with your children (driving to sports/activities, doing homework, equipping them with cell phones, clothes shopping for them, screening their friends, cooking meals, making their schedules, taking them to the doctors, choosing college, etc.)
Levine discovered that when parents are overly involved or intervening with their child, as opposed to supporting their child’s attempts to problem solve, the parents interfere with the most important task of childhood and adolescence: the development of a sense of self. We call this: autonomy or independence. As a child go about forging a “sense of self,” the child learn to manage increasingly complex personal and interpersonal challenges. We seem to believe that if involvement is good, then over-involvement must be better.
For instance, “Mommy is so proud that I can tie my shoelaces all by myself,” is the pleased statement of a youngster who has been allowed the opportunity to master a difficult task on her own, knowing that her mother is also pleased by her growing competence and independence.
Similarly, the adolescent who says, “I decided that it was more important to work things out with my best friend than study for my geometry quiz. My Mom might not agree, but I think she’ll understand,” is also honing a sense of self by taking up the challenge of making a decision in the face of competing personal, academic and parental expectations.
Clearly we don’t want a 10 year old to still not know how to tie a shoelace. But in the example of the teenager, the stakes are higher—academics, peer choices, drugs, sex, etc.) that parents are far more likely to chime in: “You can talk to your friend after the test. It’s important to keep up your grades.” The fact that the stakes are higher is all the more reason to provide teenagers with as many opportunities as possible to make their own decisions and learn from the consequences.
We are overly concerned with “the bottom line,” with how our children “do” rather than with who our children “are.” We need to look at our own parenting skills so that our own personal needs as persons don’t adversely affect our ability to raise our children. When we “bleed” in front of our children, we rob them of the home where they can develop their own talents, concerns, and aspirations. Support is about the needs of the child, intrusion is about the need of the parent.
Honor Your Father and Mother
In Ephesians 6:1-4, we read, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother” this is the first commandment with a promise: “so that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.” And, fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”
The writer quotes from the Fifth Commandment (Exod. 20:12) to reinforce the reason for obedience to parents. This is not an argument that if we obey our parents then there will be a provision for you or your parents to live long in their old age. Rather, the reason for this commandment is from a divine promise. God will bless you for your obedience. We don’t love or submit because we can calculate those acts to be prudent; we love and submit because God’s love lives in such deeds and because God acts to bless us when we do.
For verse 6:4, we read, “And fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” We notice here that “fathers” are singled out to reflect the male orientation of that society. But what is most interesting is in the Colossians version of this verse (3:21), it reads, “Fathers, do not provoke your children, or they may lose heart.” The CEV version reads, “Parents, don’t be hard on your children. If you are, they might give up.” This is a wonderful and insightful warning that children who are provoked can lose heart. That children are addressed in the second person and are treated as moral agents, capable of Christian moral action, is seen by most historians as quite unusual in a world that has so little comment about the moral independence of children. This is probably the Christian conviction of the equal worth of all human life is surfacing here in a gentle way.
The Ephesians verse reminds the fathers of the need for instruction and discipline. Such advice fits with the importance of correct knowledge and correct behavior that assumes that children are significant to become disciples of Jesus.
Small Group Discussions (Newsprint)
Find another set of parents to be a small group of 4. Discuss the following:
1. Do you believe that you may be overly involved in your children’s lives that may be preventing them from developing an authentic sense of self? Name some of these involvements.
2. Writer and minister, Robert Fulghum wrote, “Don’t worry that children never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you.” How might you change your parenting style to become a better example for the children in your life?
3. What is one thing from this weekend that you can take home and use?
Feedback
Share any further thoughts. Share one thing from this weekend that you can take home and use.
Close in prayer.