Communication - How am I supposed to know, if you don't tell me?

I have this intense need to plan things. In fact, if you ask my husband, he would probably say that I over plan things. Fortunately for him as well, I have never subscribed to the silly notion that a husband must know what I am thinking/wanting because I am his wife. If I need/want something, I say it. Also if I am thinking about something pertaining to our future, I say it. We might be months away from being able to make a decision, but I am looking over the possible outcomes and asking for his opinion on how he thinks we should handle it.

One of our areas of discussion has included our goals for our family. (Jonathan and I used Destinations - I will include information about Destinations at the end of the blog). The two of us sat down together and discussed our personal views on Academia, Social Interactions, Physical Care and Overall goals that are important but might not fit into any specific category. Given that it is most likely that my husband and I will both be over the age of 30 when we have children, our goals are likely to change, based on additional experience, education and relationships we have developed since 2006. However as I am looking over our goals again today, I see that our values haven't changed, the tools we use to get there, and our priorities are most likely to change.

Learning more about the mindsets behind poverty experiences, middle-class experience and wealthy experiences, means that I might suggest to my husband we look more closely at manners, discipline, and planning for the long term. Both of us have come from some form of low-income experiences, mine primarily situational, meaning in my case, I experienced poverty, but lived in poverty with middle-class values on discipline/destiny, education and time. I want to make sure that we teach our children how to better themselves in the world (achievement, self-governance and education focused), and pray we don't fall into the self-destructive mindsets of poverty (drama, gossip, unable to change the future, lack of discipline). However, I am off on several tangents....

Here is our list.

1. Personal walk with God
2. Character
3. Sustain and maintain relationships
4. Love of learning
5. Take care of self
6. Learn to Think
7. Creativity.

Why do I share our personal goals? Because how can anyone support us if they don't know what the goals in our life are? Its easy to become bitter and angry with specific people in our personal lives (parents, siblings, in-laws, best friends)when they don't support the goals that we want. However the responsibility for demonstrating to those same people how to support lies within the person. It is only in communicating those goals, that others can come along side, support and join the team, even if by sharing stories, or telling jokes to ease the stress.

I meet with a lot of families that are burdened with the need to care for their own needs, and those of their children. I am always amazed at how quickly the comments turn to, "well if they don't... then I will cut them off and they will never see the children again." How tragic!! Especially if a comment or two showing that person how to support them could ease tension tremendously. It is within our world-view to think that the way I do things is the best and only way that something should be done. Disagreements are then a tug-of-war, a power struggle over who is right. When the focus is on how to best support the family, the relationship, the marriage, it is no longer about power, who wins or loses, but how to help each person, each family unit get to their goals.

Church families draw together people from different backgrounds, with different mindsets on how to interact with the world, and set up new areas of disagreement. Only problem is, since different backgrounds guarantee conflict, most often the conversations/disagreements aren't over what the other person thinks it is. Unless you know the rules of poverty or middle class or wealth, you won't have the information to connect relationally.



Destinations - Individually Tailored Curriculum By Ed Dickerson and Gail Showman
http://showcase.netins.net/web/nurture/RealQnA.html edickers@netins.net