In a psychology class I once took as an undergrad, we read about different family styles: permissive, authoritarian, democratic, etc. I temember trying to figure out into which group my family of origin might fit. But I really wasn’t sure. They didn’t have a category for anarchy.

I don’t know how to categorize it either. But I did read a funny comment once that I thought described smart-alecky families well:

“Parents vary in their attitudes toward children and their ideas about
family life. In some families humor is considered a virtue and
laughters its reward; kids are permitted to interrupt or make
impertinent remarks if they’re funny enough. I grew up in a family
like that.”

This is from Judith Rich’s Harris’s excellent book The Nurture Assumption.

Thanks for posting this Lynnette. It’s fun to remember all the silliness, even if I was probably more frustrated at the time that our meetings took so long (which was mostly everyone else’s fault, I’m sure ).

JrL, thanks for your perspective. I think our “wasting time” tended to drive both of our parents a little crazy–although on the memorable occasion Lynnette mentioned when I kept score to see who was wasting the most time, it turned out that our mother was the worst offender. She’s a born smart-aleck, and she’s never been one to just let a potential remark lie there.

When we had 3 teens at home, often even our scripture reading would get sidetracked and go on seemingly forever. After a while of just sitting around talking about “stuff,” one of the kids would comment that we were wasting our time — why couldn’t we get on with it. My wife and I would exchange a glanse — the kids didn’t understand that the “wasted time” in which they were talking about whatever they wished were, for us, more valuable than the overt purpose of the gathering. With just one kid left at home, we find it hard to replicate those conversations.

Mark, I don’t know if we actually ever sang “Love at Home” as a group, but I do remember that the song was sometimes sung at people who were fighting.

ECS, I suspect that the problem is that you’ve never encountered more than two of us at a time. Based on thorough empirical research, I believe that three is the critical number at which family dynamics begin to truly kick in. We really need to have a bloggersnacker someday and get multiple ZDs to attend.

I’m realizing that this family council thing (ours was even separate from FHE) was perhaps a somewhat unusual thing to do? (I do remember that they did something like it in the book Cheaper by the Dozen, and I loved the description of it there because it sounded so familiar, complete with off-topic comments and people leaving in tears.)

Eve- the Greg Prince David O. McKay bio gives interesting behind-the-scenes insight into what really goes on at meetings of the Council of the 12. While it’s not exactly Family Home Screaming, it’s not as orderly and tidy as we might think. Though the 12 Apostles these days seem to be fairly docile compared to the firebrands in the past.

After reading this post, I’m a bit disappointed now that all of my real life conversations with the Daughters of Z have been so civil. No screaming, and very little interrupting. Where’s the love?

Your descriptions of family council make me wonder if what actually happens is ever anything like the picture the church seems to present of family council. Is it basically the same divide between the Ensign pictures of the smiling cherubic children gathered around the piano in the spotless living room, and the actual Family Home Screaming with which we’re all acquainted?

Mom also had the idea to try a list once, but she quickly decided to discontinue it because of the rudeness of the comments. If someone had said that we should stop saying shut up, within five minutes somebody else would have drawn an arrow to that item on the list and written that whoever said that ought to just shut up. But it still meant a lot to my mother that we sing “Love at Home”, and we always did. I remember singing “all the world is filled with love” while slugging my brother.

Also, Eve, maybe it is just a big sister thing to do, but my oldest sister was the person who took notes on behavior and awarded demerits.

And for years I don’t think we got through many family councils without at least one person stomping out dramatically in tears, usually as the family council list was being discussed and various fights relived. I’m afraid there’s considerable evidence that a flair for self-ingulgent melodrama is hard wired into the Zelophehad family.

Come to think of it, our passionate, endless debates, irrelelvant tangents and smart-alecky remarks and generally anarchic Family Councils were the perfect preparation for…blogging.

(Now if you don’t all stay on topic, I’m going to start distributing flak points.)