Dona Jean Gillespie, UAW Local 602 recording secretary, Lansing, Mich.

Joined at the heart

Whenever I hear someone preaching “family values,” the first thing I ask myself is whose family are they talking about?

Are they talking about the Dan Quayle ideal two-parent, 2.3-child family?

If so, does that mean the rest of us aren’t real families – the single parent families, adoptive families, childless families, blended families, foster families, multigenerational families, mixed (be it religion, race or gender) families, etc. Or does it mean we don’t have values?

If we don’t fit the Quaylean family mold, does that mean we don’t love each other? Does it mean we are irresponsible? Less committed to each other? Immoral? Unpatriotic?

What exactly are “family values?”

I’m not sure what other people mean when they talk about “family values,” I only know what my family values: each other.

We value time spent together. We value laughing together. We take joy in each other’s successes, and draw strength from each other by sharing our sorrows.

We help each other when we can, we say we’re sorry when we screw up. We ride out the occasional emotional storm, taking it on faith that the sun will shine again – if not tomorrow, then the day after, or the day after that.

We accept the fact that none of us is perfect and each of us will make mistakes.

We look out for each other.

We respect each other’s independence and rely on our interdependence.

We’re not joined at the hip; we’re joined at the heart.