I’ve been giving much thought to the Thrive Talk I’ll be delivering on May 9 at the Main Library Veterans Room from 7 to 8:30 p.m. It’s one thing to find a topic that will offer people something useful and meaningful. Trying to come up with a title that immediately captures the attention of people to set aside time to attend is something else.
I came up with “Parenting to Create Peace, Love and Understanding – In Your Family and Our World.” I’ve decided to offer this talk because of how I see the world today. The present cultural narrative is that of fear, mistrust, hatred, indecency, vulgarity, the dehumanizing of the other, and a sense of hopelessness. What needs to be done is so overwhelming that one doesn’t have a clue where to begin or what to do. We can all feel insignificant.
I’ll be talking about some very concrete things you can do to start making a difference immediately. And you won’t have to go far. It all begins in the family, which is the seed of all communities. It’s the first community that we all live in.
If you view the family from an anthropological perspective, you will see that all families are a culture unto themselves. It’s a micro-society that family members together create and live in. After working with families for over 45 years, I can very clearly see the interactive dynamics that foster struggle, conflict, and disharmony as well as those that foster peace, love and understanding.
I see how families struggle. I see the way people treat each other when upset, angry, hurt, disappointed, etc. I see the way people struggle to regain trust. I see how people behave when they want to be heard but feel ignored, judged or dismissed. I see what people do when they know they are right and the other is wrong. The healthiest of families struggle with all of this.
It has become so clear to me how these dynamics of family struggle are very much characteristic of the struggles we see in our society. The most important take-away from this talk will be to live with a more conscious awareness of your role in creating a more peaceful world.
A key focus is recognizing that who we are as a family will have impact on who we are as a culture. We need to recognize more clearly that what happens in families is what happens in the world. We’re talking about generational change that begins with our generation. By creating a peaceful family, you will be contributing to a better world.
For more information contact: Amanda Lopez, Alopez@thrivecc.org
Steve Parker, LMFT, is a licensed marriage and family therapist in Oak Park and a member of the program development committee for Thrive community mental health center.