Read past issues of Love You More News: On Building (Happy) Family Culture:

• 1: On (Conspicuous) Family (Click to read entire issue)

Whether or not we're aware of it, as we raise our children we're creating our own unique family cultures. Some of our families have come together through adoption, others of us have what some people call "conspicuous families" for other reasons -- some of us are parents of children with special needs or multiples or there is some other aspect of our families that grabs the attention of strangers. Those who have subscribed here represent just about every family constellation you can imagine - all are most welcome.

• 2: On Family Dinners and "Food, Glorious Food" (Click to read entire issue)

Many people of faith consider eating together a spiritual act. I have a friend who lived for several years in the Middle East, in Baghdad and Dubai. Last summer, as the two of us ate crusty bread and double-cream blue cheese and drank good Pinot Noir, he told me that the act of eating together, or “breaking bread,” is considered an act of worship for his Muslim friends. In the Middle East, he said, people who are merely acquaintances do not “grab lunch” together. Eating together is too intimate an act to be shared with strangers, too holy somehow.

• 3. On Family Movie Nights (Click to read entire issue)

I rush to it to try to answer a question that too often is asked in my family: "What movie can our family watch together that won't traumatize the littler kids or bore the older ones?" It's tricky, right? How do you enjoy movies with your kids without exposing them to material they're not ready for? What are your favorite movies for, as one of my friends calls it, "Show Night"? I mean, you can't make them watch Caillou forever...can you?

• 4. On Mother's (and Father's) Days (Click to read entire issue)

Was I up for this task? Was four children too many for me to handle? Where were these tears and sometimes almost overwhelming feelings of confusion, anger, and self-doubt coming from?
Those years ago, my friend wrote to me about the idea of the shadow self, or the weaknesses and darkness in ourselves that we hide in order to appear to be a certain thing. (Such as an unfailingly good mother, perhaps?) He encouraged me to bring my complicated feelings out into the open

• 5. Clark Gable, Cary Grant and Fathering (Click to read entire issue)

Would any father give a kid stone when they asked for bread?  What? And what was I to make of that God=Daddy metaphor when I did not think my human father had any interest in me whatsoever?  Had God left me behind, not unlike The Great Gatsby's T.J. Ekleburg...?

• 6. Slow and Steady Summer Days...Once in a While (Click to read entire issue)
  

They are siblings by birth and different from each other in terms of their interests, preferences and the way they deal with intense emotions. I couldn’t imagine that my fourth child would be any different. Like the others, she too would be completely and utterly her own person.

• 7. The Care and Feeding of the Imagination (Click to read entire issue.)

What supplies do you need? Time? Faith? Support from friends? Do you just need to say it out loud - whatever is that dream you want to pursue? Raise your little half pint carton of 2 percent milk and let's toast to the care of the imagination - ours and our children's!

• 8. Happy? Grateful? What's the Right Question to Ask? (Click to read entire issue)

With the arrival of autumn, sometimes we start to grumble. It's almost as though wedecide that we can only be happy when the irises bloom or when the kids are out back playing in the sprinkler. But in my area - and for much of the country - autumn and winter make up a big portion of the year. There will be rain, sleet, snow, winds, chilly weather. For. A. Long. Time. Seasonal Affective Disorder, of course, is real. But for those who don't truly suffer from SAD, but from an attitude of "I'll only be happy when..." I suggest following the flow chart and changing something.



***Subscribe here!