Privacy is worse than gossip.

Gossip is endemic, and it gets in the way of what we need to do. My mother is the expert at dealing with this — and it will pass to one of my sisters in due course. The Pro Photographer does the networking naturally and easily. It’s not as easy for the inhabitants of Casa Pukeko: not only are we male, but we are introverts.

The trouble is that we need a team, and that requires that you spend time on sorting out the network. No man is an island not even a pirate.

Think of a cobweb.. every strand connected to every other strand, but there are matrixes where many strands come together. The strands are maintained by regular conversation. “How are you?” “How are the kids?” “Oh, Great Aunt Sue has lumbago? Terrible.” But if you don’t do that maintenance, the strands dry up. And suddenly you realize that you haven’t heard from that friend (or relative!) for ten years. And maybe someone you cared about died – and you missed the funeral. Or someone was sick, or needed help… and you could have helped, but you didn’t know.

This used to be women’s work. And yes, I’ll get this right out front: Some part of its ruination is how easy it is for social conduit maintenance to slide into gossip. That’s (my mother tells me) what goes wrong in small towns… everyone knows everyone’s business and has an opinion. If you don’t want to slide into gossip, it’s easy enough to ask yourself, “Can I help X with this issue, and if so, has God made it my business to do so?” If not, do the socially appropriate thing and return to your muttons. (In other words: Drop a sympathy card in the mail, bake a casserole, show up with some flowers or a kitchen appliance, say congratulations… you get the idea). Having enough to do of your own does prevent many a sin – it might not be Biblical, but idle hands ARE the devil’s playground. Worse still, an idle mind.

Returning to the personal: This is something I’m stepping up to, a skill I’m reluctantly learning. My mom is the Grand Central Station of information for my family, but she’s in her 70s. I *could* be in direct contact with my cousins, it’s not that I don’t like them. I do, quite a lot. My husband has an enormous family. We used to let his mom be GCS … but she’s been gone to Glory these 14 years. We have a wide circle of friends. And I love each and every one of them. So then, if they are going to feel loved, I have to stay in contact.

And it’s not just my job as a middle-aged woman to do this! It’s also my job as counselor/encourager. If the people in my various circles have drifted off, then they won’t feel comfortable coming and finding me when they need a shoulder. This is particularly important for those who don’t know Christ. How can I give them whatever words God has for them, how can I show them God in my life, how can I be a blessing to them… if they don’t feel free to come talk to me?

Well, the relationship network takes maintaining. For the last few years I have had a couple of weeks holiday not with family — and even then I had some family with me. The ability to go on long walks and drives and get those photos that are stunning eludes. As if it is romantic illusion: I got the photos I’ve be using this week on a family walk. With a cellphone.

Yes a sealion. With a cellphone. From 3m (the animal is wild: one does not get that close)
Yes a sealion. With a cellphone. From 3m (the animal is wild: one does not get that close)

But these networks are needed. Without them we lose tolerance, we miss correction, and your young lose training, employment, guidance and stability. As Alte pointed out, back in 2009: it is worth noting that I would be far too geeky (and pale) to fit into her family.

In big families, women are expected to know how to cook and bake, and men are expected to know how to grill and “fix things”.  The houses are generally large, to accommodate the many visitors and overnight guests. Many of the women (especially those with young children) are full-time homemakers, and most of the men are well-educated and gainfully employed. The women tend to be loud and outspoken, while the men tend to be easy-going and occasionally stern. Everyone has a great sense of humor. They need it in a family of this size.

Unemployment is quickly handled (often through family contacts), illegitimacy is rare, and divorce is a catastrophic event that throws the entire extended family into spasms of apoplexy. Custody battles are full-family affairs, as grandmothers and aunts wring their hands in fear that they’ll be cut off from the kids.

Quirkiness is accepted, but truly deviant behavior isn’t. The men police the men, and the women police the women. This alleviates marital strain, as it’s no longer the husband who needs to inform his wife that she’s still carrying a bit too much “baby fat”, or that she’s being a nag. Her aunts are eager to take over that role. And unfaithful husbands are quickly pulled aside and given a “talking to” from the other men. Extended families depend upon stability, so marital discord is a threat to everyone, and treated as such. There’s very little privacy in such a family, but there’s also little loneliness. The single folk are included in all of the festivities and eagerly awaited at gatherings, the disabled are actively included, and the elders are treated with honor.

The children are at ease in the large group, and seem to profit from it. Getting together with their cousins, and being smothered with adult attention, appears to foster their social abilities. Cousins are often passed around, as circumstances dictate. It’s not unusual for a niece to live at her uncle’s house for a while, and I’ve lived in three of them over the years, sometimes only on weekends. We also had two cousins stay with us for a few years each. Overnight or weekly stays at a relative’s house are frequent. Spending so much time with so many different people breeds tolerance, and results in children who are better prepared for the vagaries and mutual sacrifices called for in marriage. There’s a common-sense viewpoint on human behavior, especially between the genders and generations.

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One of the commentators on that essay pointed out that privacy used to be discounted because privacy allowed deviance and prevented correction, and that our modern worship of privacy is bad for us: to which Alte replied that most of her friends think her family is old-fashioned and stifling, and do not understand why her family make her content.

(I can hear Hollenhund saying that the woman is neurotic. Man needs to read his Austen: this description of Alte’s family would describe the gentry in the Georgian era.)

When we talk about autonomy I read that as anomie: being isolated from all: alone, with no correction and no control. Which is bad for us all. Even us introverts. Even at the risk of gossip.

One Comment

  1. Jenny said:

    LOL, we’ve spent the last month living with relatives and cousins while we wait for our new home to close. We definitely learn to be tolerant and how to change the rules according to where we are.

    August 4, 2015

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