Rules of Life and Family

Rules.

Every society has them. Every society needs them. Since Bible times, people have governed rules for us to follow. If you’ve read the book, Lord of the Flies by William Golding, you know that in order to function, society needs to have rules. In both cases, there are always people who just won’t follow the rules given to them.

In the Bible, Moses received the 10 commandments to give to the people, only to find that the people had made a golden calf in the time he was gone. Moses is so angry of the sins of the people that he smashes the stones that the commandments were on and later makes new stones for the commandments to replace the ones he broke. In the Lord of the Flies, Ralph makes very simple rules to help the boys, but the boys never actually do them and run off on there own. And in today's society, rules are broken . . .  we’ll just say a lot.

But not all rules are spoken or written.

Society has rules that you follow, without you even knowing or realizing that they’re there. Most of the time, they are just facts of life. These rules are known as social norms. Social norms are informal understandings that govern the behavior of members of a society. Some of these social norms can include whispering in a library or letting people have their “space bubble”. For boys, the social norm is to leave one urinal empty between you and someone else. Many times for our children we genderize what they play with which then teaches them about gender social norms. For example, we give girls dolls to play with and are typically more gentle when we play with them. We give boys trucks and wrestle with them. But every culture and society has there own social norms. In some countries, it is the social norm to burp after you have eaten. Here in the U.S if you do that, there’d better be an “excuse me” after that burp. Many times we learn about these rules or social norms by either breaking the rule or by observing the people around us.

Just as societies have there own social norms, families too have unspoken lists of acceptable/unacceptable behaviors. In these “family rules”, we too learn the rules or norms by either observing or breaking them. For example, a common unspoken family rule is not asking mom for something if she’s mad. You have probably learned this rule by either breaking the rule or observing another sibling breaking the rule. No one ever said that it was a rule, but it’s a rule all the same. In my family, a rule we have is that the toilet paper has to be over, not under. Do not be the person who puts on under! Why it’s a rule? I have no clue, but it a family rule all the same.

Many times in families, we are so used to our family rules that it seems normal to us. But if you bring in an outsider, they might not think it is so normal after all. On my mom’s side, when we have a family gathering, whether its the 4 of July, or Thanksgiving, or Christmas, we always make a ton of food so everyone can thirds if they wanted it. It’s one of our unspoken family rules. But on my dad’s side when they get together, there is exactly enough food for everyone to have a certain amount. His family rules seemed so normal to him that when to a dinner on my mom’s side, he was in shock of how much food there was. This simply goes to show that every family is different.

When someone breaks the unspoken rule, how do they know that they broke it? They get feedback. Now this feedback isn’t always spoken. Much of the time you get, the look. DUN DUN DAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You know what I’m talking about. Say you're in church with your little brother. The speaker just keeps going on and on and on about some boring topic, say kindness. You look over at your brother, who’s just . . . sitting there. If that’s not annoying enough, he has one of your favorite snacks and you just realized how hungry you are. Your parents say you're too big for snacks in church, but there's your little brother who has the audacity to eat your favorite snack in front of you. This has to be stopped. So, nonchalantly, you reach over and snatch the snack right out of your brother's grubby little hands. Your brother starts to cry and you just know what's coming next. You try to diffuse the situation by giving the snack back, and miraculously it calms your brother down. You start to count your lucky stars, but then you feel a chill in the air. You don’t want to, but you have to look over anyway. You slowly turn your head towards your mother, and she’s giving you the look. That’s it! With that single look, you know you're grounded until forever. You look at the clock and realize that only a minute has gone by.

Ok, maybe it’s not that dramatic, but you get the point. Feedback is how the family rules are kept so the family doesn't start to fall apart. When you’re living with someone else, whether it be a spouse or a roommate, you create your own sets of family rules. You mix together your own family rules with their family rules until you get the new family rules. But it doesn’t just happen automatically, it takes trial and error. But it also takes communication. If something is bothering you, you have to tell that person and not just keep it bottled up or they will never know what's bothering you. Whether your upset about the dishes in some way, or about the cleaning, or about anything else, the person your living with can’t read your mind let along know about your own family rules.  Communication is the key. If we take just a little bit of time to simply communicate, we will have a much more peaceful home and family.

What are some of your family rules? Any funny stories about when you realized you broke a family rule? Let me know in the comments!