Far From Perfect....

You used to see them every day. They used to be the people that everyone admired. Their son was the captain of the football team and their daughter was the cheerleading captain. Dad worked from 9 to 5 Monday through Friday, and Mom made Turkey for dinner and Apple Pie for desert. "The Perfect Family", the family that everyone wanted to be in.

We often see other people's families in very different eye's than we see our own. We see the Mom that makes fresh baked cookies every week. We see milk that is delivered to their door step. We see the kids with 4.0 grade point averages. We may even see the Dad coming home from work to a hot meal and a back rub by his ever devoted wife. Maybe our best friend is the Cheerleading Captain. Maybe we work with the Dad. Whatever part we have in one of the family member's lives we still see the "Roses that grow by the door step."

But there are things that we dont see. Like when the daughter ends up pregnant at 16 or when the son is heavy into drugs or alchohol abuse. We can't see the mom being abused by her husband or the dad being laid off of work. Althought this is a worst case scenario, it is a good example of the things that we dont see because we dont want to see. also the other people dont want to have us see the imperfections in their perfect lives. They can sweep it under the carpet. As do all families. We all have things to hide. THe question here is, do you hide your problems and never solve them or do you display it for all to see.

Alice Hoffman's Essay "The Perfect Family" tells us what it was like fifty years ago, and how every family was portrayed as. "When I was growing up in the 50's there was only one sort of family, the one we watched on television every day. Right in front of us, in black and white, was everything we needed to know about family values: the neat patch of lawn, the apple tree, the mother who never once raised her voice, the three lovely children: a Princess, a Kitten, a Bud and, always, the father who knew best." She knew then that all of the families were not perfect. However that is how all people saw other families. WHen her parents got a divorce, their problems were not as easily hidden. She shares that "I did not meet another child of divorced parents until 10 years later when I went off the college."

It is said now that one in two marriages will end in either divorce or a legal separation. Our world is no longer seemingly perfect. We have mothers that