dmitrik to the best future.

 Of all the relationships in our lives those with our family are the most difficult to manage with equanimity. So why do we have more problems interacting with family members than with strangers? Well, firstly family members know us with all our faults and imperfections. they know our arrogance, our fears and foibles and our reaction to certain stimuli. Maybe at times, they even use these stimuli to manipulate us. Our family members have seen us at our best and at our worst. They are difficult to deceive. They know us. They see through our “face for the world”. We all have rules by which we live and the rules that govern our relationship with our family are a set apart. What do you expect from your family? Do you expect the television version of happy families? Were we expected to believe that this way is the best? Unfortunately, I think many did. A family is made up of a number of individuals each having his or her own rules as to how a family should act. Fathers and mothers make rules for their children. They model their own behavior on these rules, and expect their children to follow them. In turn the children develop their own rules, usually based on the model set by the parents. But what happens when others are introduced into this tight knit family unit – son marries, daughter becomes engaged to be married. Here are more people with their own rules, values, faults and imperfections (although the faults and imperfections may not be immediately obvious). Then grandchildren are born. Their parents set rules and boundaries by which they will raise their children and on which they expect their children to base their own lives. In today’s world, where many families have both parents working, grandparents are having an increasing influence on grandchildren’s lives. They then have to juggle their own rules and values with those of the children’s parents. I suggest this is not always easy. And as the grandchildren grow and set their own rules and values the mix becomes even more complicated.