How Functional Is Your Family Life?

In watching the TV series American Dreams, it’s easy to see how family relationships are based on control. Everyone in the Pryor family is trying to control and manipulate everyone else to ensure their individual happiness.

Dad (Jack Pryor) wants his eldest son (J.J.) to attend Notre Dame University on a football scholarship. Notre Dame means nothing to J.J. but he’s constantly coerced by Dad into believing that Notre Dame is actually his (J.J.’s) dream. Of course J.J, rebels. The night a football scout from Notre Dame is coming to the Pryor’s home for dinner, J.J. goes off and gets drunk with a buddy instead of showing up for the dinner. He’s also slow about filling out his application and so Dad takes care of making sure it gets to Notre Dame on time. Dad’s living HIS dream and he can’t accept that it’s not J.J.’s dream, too.

Mom (Helen Pryor) doesn’t want to have any more children. She has four already. She wants a life of her own, outside of being a housewife and mother. Dad (Jack) wants more kids and Helen doesn’t know how to talk to him about what she wants. So she secretly starts taking birth control pills. Withholding information from others is another form of manipulation and control. It happens when we aren’t willing to own our power. Helen has a history of giving her power away to Jack. So when she can’t bear to stand up to him, and own her power, she gives it away through silence and secrecy. She resorts to manipulating Jack by keeping him appeased in the dark.

J.J, is stuck on controlling his girlfriend Beth. Beth is an independent girl who comes from a wealthy background. She’s used to having whatever she wants on her own terms; and when J.J. tries to put the brakes on her, it leads to all sorts of relationship problems. J.J. expects that Beth should be known, not as Beth, but as J.J. Pryor’s girlfriend. When Beth rebels against this and insists on open-dating, J.J. can’t handle it. His whole identity is threatened because he’s learned form his Dad that you control the women in your life. So J.J., the perfect All-American boy hero, goes so far as to bust-out the windshield on a brand new Ford Mustang owned by one of the new boys Beth is dating. It’s dysfunction at its worst: The “good boy” with the unacknowledged and repressed “bad boy” trapped inside of him and bursting to come out in all the wrong ways.

Meg (J.J.’s sister) is stuck on a boy named Luke. Luke works at the local record store and the two of them share a love of music, but not the same kind of music. Meg is into all of the latest Top 40 she dances to on American Bandstand; while Luke is into Bob Dylan, John Coltrane and Nina Simone. Meg believes in Valentine’s Day, Luke doesn’t. Both struggle to accept the other as they are and both fail. So does the relationship—until they both realize that there’s something more between them, something no one can control. They really love each other, and eventually they realize that they need to work at accepting each other’s differences while enjoying what they do have in common. (Ah, finally some functional behavior and hope for a better life!)

J.J. and Meg have two younger siblings, Patty (age 12) and Will (age 7) and I won’t even go into all of the bickering-based need to control that goes on between those two and the rest of the family. Needless to say the Pryors are the typical dysfunctional American family of 1963 and of today. Everyone in this family is fighting for their turf. Everyone in this family thinks that his or her own dream is the only dream, and if they haven’t been able to live it themselves, they try hard to live it through someone else. Does this sound familiar to you? It does to me!

The type of family dysfunction we witness with the Pryor family always spills over into relationships with people outside of the family: The Beths and the Lukes. Dysfunctional relationships are all about this mindset: “How can I control you to ensure my happiness?” and then delving right into every possible form of manipulation and emotional abuse we can muster to get whatever we want to make us happy. Of course in the long run, we are never really happy. But that doesn’t stop us from repeating the same dysfunctional pattern of behavior over and over again—until we start to learn something about ourselves and grow from our mistakes.

Healthy relationships are about learning from all of the dysfunctional errors we’ve made in the past. Little by little, with each episode of this TV series, I see the Pryors growing in self-knowledge and understanding, as well as in a more enlightened understanding of each other. There’s hope for them. How about you? Do you learn from your past errors, especially in your attempts to control others instead of simply accepting them as they are? Do you grow from those errors by learning things like “I have to be responsible for my happiness and I can’t mold and shape someone else to be responsible for it?” I hope so.

Become a Meg. Accept the Luke in your life just the way he is. Love what’s good about him and learn to be responsible for your own needs that he can’t meet for you. Allow the relationship to flow. Flow is the opposite of control. And enjoy the ride as you flow toward spontaneous happiness that’s simply natural and uncontrollable.