Day 27 The Perfect Mom Project

Yesterday, I ran into an old friend. It was great to see her and spend some time catching up on what has been happening in both of our lives. As she shared with me some particularly upsetting news, she added that this news was because she had such a dysfunctional family. She actually said this a couple of times and it got me thinking. Is it possible that we all have dysfunctional families?

I know that I have written in the past about my fear that our family suffers from dysfunction. If my friend feels that way and I feel that way, who else feels that way? Could it be that we are all just a study in what can go wrong in a family? I have shared my life story with friends in the past and they have been amazed that I am the person that I am today. They view my life as unusual and ponder why I turned out to be what they consider normal. I find this funny, because I have never considered myself normal.

I remember when my oldest daughter came home from her first semester of college. We were sitting on the couch and she was telling me all about the dorm life and the people she was meeting there. I was just so proud and happy, I had my first child in college. The moment was somewhat tarnished when she looked at me and said " You know Mom we are not the Cleavers"! Excuse me? When had I ever lead her to believe that that was what we were, or that that was even a goal of ours. I am pretty sure I knew we were not the Cleavers, because I was staying up nights worrying about our dysfunction. Then I started to wonder who she had met up there and why they made our family look less wonderful to my daughter. At that point I was not sure if college really was a good idea!

Over all I think that every family has a little closet full of kookiness. Some of us are better at hiding it then others. I sincerely do not care if our kookiness hangs out, apparently once you get to college the charade is up anyway. I do know that last night my youngest girls came bounding in from the high school football game, laughing and talking and sharing stories about the fun they had there. They never mentioned that we were from a dysfunctional family or that we might not stand the test of some TV family. I could not help but look across the table and think that if this is dysfunction then I kind of like it!