The History of Family Rules
By Jeannette Lofas, CSW

Rules have existed since man hunted and woman gathered three million years ago. Rules lead to productive and predictable interaction between people. No organization, no sporting event today is run without specific rules of action.

Certainly, we can look at the family as a team. Ideally, it is a group of people striving for individual and family goals. However, in too many families today we see no team, no rules of interaction, and few specific goals.

Once, the home was a place to find refuge from the harsh world outside. The house provided safety. In it, things and events had an order. Man retreated to his home to find rest and peace from his job, whether he was a hunter or an office manager. Through his work he took care of the family, and at home, his wife took care of him. In the outside world, he was the boss. In the home, she was.

Both worlds were respected. Each was powerful and purposeful. The role of each was clear and well understood.

Today, both partners typically work outside the home. Thanks to the stress of juggling a job and family, rules for the home seem to have fallen through the cultural cracks. Indeed, for many people, home is not a place of safety, but of confusion. More disturbing is that many of them accept this as a fact of life.

Almost every parent must work today. Too few parents come home at a regular, predictable time. Working late is normal. Regular activities, meals, and time together have become sporadic. Like that lost era when one parent took care of the home while the other provided for the family financially, gone are the days of regular Sunday dinners or the celebration of Shabbat. Children often prefer being on their own or with friends instead of their parents. And what’s worse, their parents like it that way, too.

Today, we see homes that are chaotic and without parental leadership. Wee see parents who are good managers in the office and bad managers in the home.

The Family Rules is written for the new majority of families, or what we call Family 2000. This is the divorced family – usually single mothers and dads whose children visit them (but occasionally the reverse), as well as their new partners – and the recoupled family – whether living together or remarried. When children from prior relationships are involved, whether they are living at home or visiting, it’s a stepfamily.