Spotlight: Family Values

So, which family values are important in your lives?  Unity, honesty and respect... these are the values I treasure most.

Thanksgiving Day and Christmas were, and still are,  always cherished holidays in my family.  It has been our long-standing tradition to celebrate in a family member's house.  Lately, it has been in my eldest sister's house where my mother lives too.  Celebrations would always be potluck and they would always turn out to be big feasts that everyone enjoyed.  These events made it possible for all the members of our family to bond and get together.  Even though we live in different states and countries, these holidays make us all feel close together, united as one big happy family.

I have been in many situations wherein I made the wrong decisions.  I felt that my friends may not have been totally honest with me because they were scared to hurt my feelings.  My family, on the other hand, had always confronted me with these wrong decisions and had urged me to consider them and learn from them so that I will not repeat these mistakes.   I knew that whenever I was in doubt, I could always seek their opinions and guidance.  They had always kept me grounded.

An equally important value is our respect for each other in the family.  We may not totally agree with some decisions, but we all understand that we lead different lives and our situations may not always be similar to each other.  We assure each other of our support and tell each one how we love them and that we will always be there for them if they will need us... in any way.

I have three boys and my husband and I have made sure that they all grew up with these family values.   Now that they are on their own, I am assured that these values will help them in their relationships with friends and relatives.

There may be misunderstandings, quarrels, even prolonged disagreements among members of the family.  But there is one thing I am most certain of -- the values we share will make us all become better forces of society.  With good family values, the generations ahead of us are assured of a good foundation for their own families.

Unity, honesty and respect… keep it in the family.