You need to realize that when you start a family, it’s not just about you. It’s nice to keep family traditions, but there is another person involved, and they are bringing baggage to the new family unit, too. Your new unit is not faulty or in any way defective, if your new family is not a carbon copy of the one you grew up in.
Tradition can be nice, or it can impede the creation of the new. I’ve had male friends who had struggles because their home lives as children had been in male-dominated households. You know, father is always right; even when he’s wrong. Despite my dad being quite Latin, the home life was balanced. My father and mother took joint counsel and shared everything from cooking to laundry. I took that tradition with me. I never really understood why anyone would want the burden of shouldering all the responsibilities for a family alone.
Other things were left by the wayside. Our family was dedicated and staunch New Yorkers. Not me. I see myself as a New Englander; the thread that held me to New York City was slender and snapped easily. It opened the world up for me and for the family I later created with my very Yankee wife.
The new family developed as a melding. A bit of my family, and a bit of hers. the result was ours. Which was exacty as it should have been.
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I, too, saw a more equitable division of labour in my family, as well as healthy ways to deal with conflict/disagreements and I would say that I carried that into my family. I agree with you that some traditions are worth carrying on but it is healthy to forge some new ones in a new family unit.
I think we both agree. You are forming a new social unit. Thanks, Heather!
I was definitely raised in a family where “father is always right, even when he’s wrong.” My dad AND my mom insisted that this was the correct way to be a family. I rejected that, of course. The other thing I changed was to improve communication between kid and parents. I was raised that children should be seen and not heard – or better yet, out of sight out of mind. My child was raised to tell me how they feel, what is going on, what is good, what is bad, etc. and then I really tried to respond in a healthy way.
My dad was always right, except when my mother told him he was wrong. Believe it or not, it was a system that worked for them. We did pretty much as you did; independent thinking kids.