A reset moment for family life

My husband Richard and I started thinking about recording conversations about family life some time before the coronavirus lockdown because we were concerned about how family life has been deprioritised. We’ve been parents for almost three decades now and over that time, as lives have become busier, as the internet has driven us deeper into our own individual worlds, and as more parents have wrestled with the twin pressures of caring and careers, family time has been short-changed. Even when families do spend time together, people are often distracted. We’ve all seen parents and children dining out at a restaurant, everyone on their phones, hardly talking. This slipping away from each other has come at a price: we may have more comfortable lives than previous generations but many people are not happier. The ‘always on’ generation desperately craves a strong foundation, but feels stressed and isolated, parents feel confused by the pace of change, mental health problems are commonplace with no real lasting solutions on offer. The modern message is: all is relative, nothing is certain, everything is in flux and we cannot do much about it. This is disastrous for both young people and their parents; in a chaotic, fast-changing world, we need family more than ever before. 

Since then, of course, the coronavirus crisis has forced many families to spend time together. It’s not exactly what we had in mind (obviously!) and brings lots of new stresses and strains, but it’s also a chance for families to reconnect, to talk more, to hang out and have meals together, to build stronger relationships and rebalance lives. You might be longing for things to ‘return to normal’ but lots will and should change – including realising we need work out how to equip ourselves and our children with the mindset and strength to cope with the challenges like the one we’re living through now. 

For a start, our compulsory family-together-time is showing us that we don’t have to be so busy. That lots of company meetings are a waste of time, that for many jobs, work can be done productively at home (and schooling too, though combining both IS a big challenge), that we can create our own entertainment as a family – games, favourite TV shows, old films, cooking together, washing up together, taking our once-a-day permitted exercise together. It may take time to find a rhythm, to find a good balance between work and family, and there are many anxieties around money and jobs as well as health and wellbeing, but this strange time provides us with the opportunity to reset for the longer term. 

In our own family, partly because we’ve had so many children (nine) over a long time, we’ve realised that the strong family unit, with routines, traditions and lots of conversation, is critical for all of us. We’ve experienced some tough times in our marriage, when we’ve felt overwhelmed, when our relationship has come under strain, when money has been very tight and when we’ve been particularly anxious.  With hindsight, those times have been really key in helping us to appreciate that we can take steps, even small ones towards a better situation, even if we might feel trapped. Our podcast explores many of the pressures - the reality – of family life and how we have learned to face into the ongoing extraordinary changes and unpredictability of our world. We haven’t sought to shield our children from what’s going on around us; instead we have consciously tried to instil in them the capacity to think for themselves, with an awareness of their own ability to control their decisions. We have set out to deliberately counteract the reactive stance they see all around them, where people respond to events like corks on a choppy sea. We have taught them to be centred, to question the consensus rather than to be swayed, to listen but not to compromise or succumb, to have a sense of purpose hardwired into them. 

They are then - hopefully - able to go out into the world and flourish, as individuals and in their own families and communities. Of course, we still face lots of ‘issues’ and certainly don’t have all the answers. We are not academics or child psychologists. But with nine children, we have certainly had plenty of practical experience! Our children are obviously individuals, but we’ve seen many common threads, and over the years we have seen how many small actions and words add up to something strong and lasting, a structure that helps all family members overcome the inevitable challenges of doubt, exhaustion and fear. 

There are ten episodes in the first series, a short introduction followed by programmes devoted to different aspects of family life. We explore issues such as the importance of male role models and cover everything from nutrition to returning to work after having a baby. We share our personal stories, not shying away from anything we’ve faced and continue to face, as a couple and individually. Our podcasts are recorded at home, real life rather than manufactured. Our son-in-law Benjamin Clementine, has kindly written the music and helped us with the production (thank you Benjamin); he then decided to interview us both when he wanted to challenge some of the things we were saying. 

We believe that a happy family – and happy family members – is important for a happier world. The family had been devalued precisely at the time we needed it most – now is our chance to change that. It’s not easy – but achieving a worthwhile ambition is rarely straightforward.  

In series two we plan to focus on those areas that prove most interesting to listeners and to draw in other perspectives.  Please join us and give us your feedback, questions and ideas for topics you’d like us to cover at [email protected] or visit our website, www.britfamilymorrissey.orgfor more information.