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Seven Pillars of a Happy Home was originally shared on LinkedIn as Part Two of a two-part series on the home. Part One on this site can be found here.
This is part two of a two-part mini-series on the home. In Part One – Home is Where the Hard Is: Seven Deadly Sins that Kill Harmony in the Home, we got the bad news out of the way. Now, for the good news!
We are looking for elements of a happy home that can be applied to all of the relationships therein, whether husband/wife, parent/child, sibling, or step-children/siblings.
I think I found them.
First, I confess to loving alliteration. Second, I affirm that I would have chosen words and the concepts they convey no matter what letter they start with.
Courage
Dateline: July 15 2004, DFW International Airport, Terminal D
My wife and I are all but shaking with apprehension and sadness. Our daughter Ashley, 25, the mother of our first (and only at the time) grandson Ty David (six months old), hugs us goodbye while we shower Ty with kisses. They will tear themselves free of our clinging embraces and disappear down the corridor to board a plane bound for Germany. They will fly to Frankfurt, gather their baggage, board a train, and go on to the US Air Force base in Ramstein…in a foreign country…where they speak a foreign language…a young American mom and her baby boy, all alone.
As apprehensive as we are, Ashley is that confident.
“Don’t worry, Dad,” she says to me. “You built me for this.”
I know she was a little fearful, too. She was a young woman with an infant child headed for a part of the world she had never seen to build a life there with her little family.
Courage is not the absence of fear but the willingness to face your fears – to take on your fears. It takes courage to walk the aisle and take the hand of the person you love and promise fidelity, and loyalty, and to give your best to that person in all weathers, all circumstances, in sickness and health, in success and adversity, until death you do part. It takes courage to face an uncertain future together. It takes courage to parent children in an unkind and unforgiving world.
Think about the word “encourage.” We know what it means, but do we forget that it has “courage” at its root? When a couple encourages one another, they give each other courage. When a parent encourages a child, they give their strength to that child, they give that child courage.
“Discourage” has the opposite effect.
Confidence
Courage breeds confidence and confidence instills courage.
Why Confidence Matters
Confidence helps us feel ready for life’s experiences. When we’re confident, we’re more likely to move forward with people and opportunities “” not back away from them. And if things don’t work out at first, confidence helps us try again.
It’s the opposite when confidence is low. People who are low on confidence might be less likely to try new things or reach out to new people. If they fail at something the first time, they might be less likely to try again. A lack of confidence can hold people back from reaching their full potential.
-kidhealth.com
What makes a wife confident in her husband, a husband confident in his wife, and children confident in their parents? Consistency! (Which we will deal with next.)
However, there is another element of confidence: when you “take someone into your confidence.”
In more than four decades of marriage, I have never worried whether my wife would keep in confidence the sensitive things I shared with her. She may or may not agree with an opinion or idea or she may take issue with my behavior. She will not, however, seek a bus to throw me under. She will not recruit others to her cause to change my mind or influence my decision if it means betraying my confidence.
That gives me that other form of confidence.
Consistency
Confidence in someone is directly related to their consistency. Knowing what to expect either raises or lowers your confidence, depending on what you know about them.
Erratic behavior can be debilitating and unsettling in the home. I do not mean one should be boring. Just consistent, even if that consistency is unpredictability.
A widow once told me this about her husband: “He always kept me guessing.”
She had a twinkle in her eye.
She captured in that statement that the essence of his consistency was in his being a good sort of unpredictable.
Confirmation
You could use the word validation or even affirmation here and do no damage to our meaning.
confirm verb con·firm kÉ™n-ˈfÉ™rm confirmed; confirming; confirms transitive verb 1 : to give approval to : RATIFY confirm a treaty 2 : to make firm or firmer : STRENGTHEN confirm one’s resolve
Oxford Dictionay
Few things are more important than confirmation from someone you love and admire. The accolades of the world are diminished by the refusal of a parent, a spouse, or another loved one to confirm your accomplishment…or your importance to them.
Lonesome Dove is my all-time favorite television series, based on the novel by the same name, written by the late, great storyteller, Larry McMurtry.
In the story, Woodrow Call, a former Texas Ranger who, along with his longtime partner fellow Ranger Augustus McRae, pioneers cattle ranching in Montana finds himself on a trek to take the body of his deceased friend from Montana back to Texas to bury him. On his lonely journey, Call faces an old acquaintance and nemesis, Clara, the love of Gus’s life. She brings up the sore subject of Newt Dobbs, a young man who has lived and worked with Call and McRae his whole life and is ostensibly Call’s son, whom he fathered with a woman of loose morals when he was young.
The conversation goes like this:
Clara Allen: Did you give that boy your name before you left Montana?
Woodrow Call: I gave him my horse.
Clara Allen: You gave him your horse, but not your name?
Woodrow Call: I put a lot more value on the animal than I do my name.
A prior scene between Pea Eye, a simple but loyal cowhand, and Newt, after Captain Call gives Newt his horse and pistol before heading south to bury Gus plays out like this:
“Dern Newt,” Pea Eye said, more astonished than he had ever been in his life. “He gave you his horse and his gun and that watch. He acts like you’re his kin.”
“No, I ain’t kin to nobody in this world,” Newt said bitterly. “I don’t want to be. I won’t be.”
Despair in his heart, he mounted the Hell Bitch as if he had ridden her for years, and turned downstream.
Looks like Newt needed confirmation more than a horse or a pistol. Remember that.
Conciliation
CONCILIATE suggests ending an estrangement by persuasion, concession, or settling of differences.
My father-in-law once drove two hours in the middle of the night to my house to apologize for an argument we had earlier that day. He could have stood his ground. He could have wielded his position of power and authority to try and break my will. Instead, he apologized.
This was in the mid-90s. I have no idea now what the dispute was over. I think about it and assume I was likely in the wrong and should have been the one to apologize and reconcile. I do not remember the dispute, but I remember what that good man modeled for me that night: there is no drive too long, no road too hard, and no argument more important than the people you love.
Whenever I see a parent recognizing they have been wrong or misjudged a child or situation and apologizing to the child, I think that kid is in good hands. That kid has a fighting chance.
The marital relationship is also strengthened and confirmed by conciliation. You can win the fight and lose. You can surrender your ground and win.
Collaboration
You have to work together to make it work. Collaboration means “to work jointly with others.” Jointly is a good word. Nothing is more dysfunctional than a disjointed family. Everybody working on their ambitions without supporting those of the others in the home will inevitably lead to disharmony.
My wife is a puzzler. Like millions, she picked up the hobby during the COVID lockdown. She often leaves puzzles incomplete that she could easily complete because her parents are coming over and her dad likes to puzzle, too. Or, because our grandson Axle is coming over. He also likes to puzzle.
My daughter Holly Frys has a magnetic personality. She is beautiful, creative, and talented, and I am not just dad-talking here. She is also disabled. She and her husband Edward Frys are the perfect example of collaborating and complementing one another to build a robust business and a dynamic home life.
(“Hey, Gene! Why are you shamelessly promoting your kids’ business?”
“Um, they’re my kids.”)
Continuation
What do you do when you are at the end of your rope?
Tie a knot in it and hang on.
A happy home is not about getting it right all the time. If it is, there are no happy homes. A happy home is about committing to the dream, compromising when necessary, standing your ground when you must do so to protect your partner or kids, working playing, laughing, crying, jumping, kneeling, celebrating, mourning, winning, losing…living…together.
Staying.
For Christmas 2023, I had this picture inspired by the song Crowded Table made for my wife to hang in the dining room of our home.
Stay! Sometimes, that is the most courageous, heroic, precious thing you can do. Sometimes, it is all you can find the strength to do. Stay.
Home is where the hard is because it is where the heart is and matters of the heart always require more.
Cheers to you and yours and to home and harmony and happiness.