With a couple of holiday parties under our belt and planning underway for a family gathering I have gained a clearer understand of the fuzzy line between function and disfunction. It was crystalized by a conversation I had with a married couple who were sitting at opposite ends of a long table. The woman was doing most of the talking and told us how they both came from large families. I thought my was large at seven siblings. They had eight and nine.
The woman said her family gathered somewhere different every year and they all got along but they had a few ground rules that were established because of previous problems. No one was to talk about politics, religion and another topic that I can’t remember but it was big enough to leave pretty much only the weather. And then she gestured toward the other end of the table. “His family is completely dysfunctional.”
The guy said, “That’s because I told a couple of them that they were full of shit.” And we all laughed.
Leave a comment