Life Purpose Help - Is Family/children A Toxic Value?

[ajs]

I am in the middle of the Life Purpose Course and have came up with a list of values, one of which is Family.  All of the other values I have chosen feel right but Family is troubling me.  I chose Family as I feel raising my children well is important to me.

 

The problem I have is I seem to recall Leo commenting somewhere, possibly in his other content that you should make your life purpose about what is important to you and not let obligations such as family get in the way in finding and pursuing your life purpose.

 

I feel if I did not have children I probably would not have chosen family, but I do and they are a high priority in my life.  If feel chosing Family as a value will make a big difference in the final outcome and cannot tell if my motivation for choosing family is positively or negatively driven.

 

So how can I deal with this deal with this.  Should I remove Family as one of my top values or keep it?  What do others with family think about this?

[Arman]

Consciously choosing your family to be one of your primary values is not a problem in and of itself. In fact, I think it is beautiful.

I think Leo's comments are concerning circumstances in which you are wanting to pursue your life purpose or primary values, but your family is standing in the way. Are they standing in the way? 

It is possible for family to be part of life purpose. Even the primary focus. 

Doesn't sound to me like your children or your family are currently an issue for you? It sounds less like family is an issue, and more that a deeply held belief about family, or your role in relation to them that may be a sticking point. 

 

Edited December 15, 2016 by Arman

[Lynnel]

@ajs Family is not a value , it's something you value. It's not the same as justice or beauty. Women are often conditionned to take care of the family and sometimes too easily tend to find their purpose there. The problem is that anything that includes other individuals cannot make you happy or fulfilled in itself. Concerning life purpose although you can never not include other people simply because you are in a society, it would seem clever to me not to build the whole thing based on 3 people who could die any day. 

Either way I'm off topic. Family is not a value

[vizual]

I don't have a family of my own but I think having Family as a value is great. And it can definitely be part of your Life Purpose. 

Imagine a child that grows up in a household with two parents who are always working full time, and where the parents are more concerned with their jobs than the cohesion of the family. Versus someone who have loving parents and do everything they can to raise their children so that they can grow up to be loving and good human beings. I'd argue that in the second case the children are more likely to be a positive factor in this world, all due to the love of the parents. I'm not saying it has to be that way though.

But family is underrated in my opinion. It's too easy to take it for granted and if you feel you are inclined to put high value on family you should do it. Do not let some self help guru shame you into putting less effort into family and instead put it in some stupid career. You should do the things you feel you can put the most love into. If that is a career, fine, if that is family, also fine.

[SFRL]

On 12/15/2016 at 3:39 AM, ajs said:

I am in the middle of the Life Purpose Course and have came up with a list of values, one of which is Family.  All of the other values I have chosen feel right but Family is troubling me.  I chose Family as I feel raising my children well is important to me.

 

The problem I have is I seem to recall Leo commenting somewhere, possibly in his other content that you should make your life purpose about what is important to you and not let obligations such as family get in the way in finding and pursuing your life purpose.

 

I feel if I did not have children I probably would not have chosen family, but I do and they are a high priority in my life.  If feel chosing Family as a value will make a big difference in the final outcome and cannot tell if my motivation for choosing family is positively or negatively driven.

 

So how can I deal with this deal with this.  Should I remove Family as one of my top values or keep it?  What do others with family think about this?

The problem I see with making family your priority is that it's bound to make for codependent relationships. 

I am starting to believe that the majority of people's problems are because of codependency issues. 

People will choose their career paths based on their parents expectations, etc, etc. All to get the approval and not disapproval from their parents. More often then not those choices are not truly their own. 

The first relationship anyone has is with their parents. When children get raised much of it is done by giving rewards and handing out punishment. So the message kids grow up with is you NEED to be like this or you get no reward/get punished (rejected). We live in a codependent society because from the day we get born that's all we know. This goes on when the kid goes to school. Kid HAS to be like this/answer like that or the kid will get low grades. Kid answers desirably kid gets good grades. Now the kid gets older and wants to go study. Kid chooses study the parents approve of kid gets money. Kid chooses the wrong study in the parents eyes they won't give the kid money. So the message throughout life is you NEED to be like this to receive love, approval, money, anything else. 

So this love often it's a conditional love. And it's also an investment by the parents initially and later by the child as well. The parents invest their resources in the kid and the kid should reflect what they NEED it to be. And the kid invests time and effort to become that what it's parents desire so it gets the love it NEEDS. 

When kids become the life purpose that means all resources go into the kids. Part of the resources go into the kids regardless as it should. They are a responsibility and they need these resources initially. The point is the parents should not condition the kids in such a way that the parents NEED something back. If the kids become the life purpose then all resources go into the kid. 

Now if you put all resources into something and it's your life purpose then you will strongly identify with it and expect a return of your investments. Leading to codependent relationships if relationships are your life purpose. 

Then later when the kid is older and it goes to form relationships with others outside the family and school institution all it knows is the dynamic of a codependent relationship. 

Also if your kids are your life purpose then what else do you have to give them other then giving them shelter, food, money and some manners and some education? Nothing else because you had no life purpose. 

So how I think you should deal with it is go after your life purpose, and value your family. Make yourself happy outside your family so that you can give more love then you have to receive. 

 

 

Edited December 18, 2016 by STC

[ajs]

Thanks for the thoughts everyone.

 

Just thought I'd let you know after careful consideration I decided to remove family as one of my values.  I think the value of connection is more appropriate and includes the essense of what is important to me in relation to my children.  Doing it this way makes my children feel less of an obligation and more of a positive force in relation to my life purpose.