Chosen Families

While reviewing an edition of Scientific American as a teenager, I was startled to come across my surname.  There it was: “Hubble,” as in renowned astronomer “Edwin P. Hubble.” Now popularized by the Hubble Space Telescope named in his honor, Edwin P. was then mostly unknown outside scientific circles.

What if this brilliant scientist were a relative? I ran to ask my Dad if he knew.

“He sure is!” replied Dad.

As it turned out, we shared a multiple-great grandfather a couple of centuries ago, and Edwin was a distant cousin of my grandfather, Billy. Like Edwin, my Great-Grandfather Billy had some fame, but for dramatically different reasons.  Expert in maneuvering 1800′s logging wagons in North Carolina, Billy was renowned for spectacular DWI crashes of his horse-drawn cargo. “The family alcoholic,” said my teetotaling father, deeply averse to the destructive potential of liquor. In fact, what Billy brewed downline was a whole batch of teetotalers, several of whom were Baptist ministers.

So you would think, perhaps, that alcohol’s crippling impact was nipped with Billy, if his kids and grandkids steered clear of the stuff.  Yes, and no. Yes, the flow of alcohol was stymied. But research shows multi-generation emotional, psychological and relationship risks in addiction-wounded families.

What is known of male descendants of alcoholics is that they tend to be internalizing emotion-stuffers, learning in an alcohol-soaked family system to survive treacherous personalities by hiding emotionally, and sometimes physically. Thus my dear father was in many ways unknown and unknowable, as the wall around his heart made his truest thoughts and feelings inaccessible not only to others, but I think to himself. Those with such family histories can understand their own emotion and relationship wiring better if they scrutinize ripple effects of even one alcoholic (or other type addict) in the family tree.

The alcoholic himself or herself is often moody, even raging, under-responsible, often marginally employed, and toxic to others emotionally, physically or both.

All of which is personality distorting and risky for others in the family – even if they never touch a drop of alcohol. Under-responsibility in one family member shoves over-responsibility onto others. The spouse is commonly stuck with an overgrown
child at controls of the family power grid. The spouse may walk on eggshells, never knowing when some small event (or no event) will prove explosive. She (or he) may live in constant financial distress, traumatized and socially isolated. She may slide into her own dark world of depression, resentment, rage, anxiety and fear – all of which can give her children a second  radioactive parent.

Kids marinated in such toxic emotions and relationships are compelled not only to parent themselves but often to parent their parents. What kids from warm-hearted, stable families absorb by osmosis (emotional calibration, judicious decision making,
reciprocal relationships, building and sustaining mutually caring bonds, effective communication and conflict resolution) remain elusive to kids with a legacy of family alcoholism.

Why does it matter if you or I know this about our ancestries, or about the ancestries of others?  It explains a lot, doesn’t it? My Dad’s good heart, generous spirit, kindness, integrity and faithfulness in this context become major triumphs over forces that could have produced a raging, destructive, reactionary personality. His solitary ways and detachment seem more due to survival habits than a heart chilly to others, and such understanding deepened my love, admiration and compassion for him.

Before Dad “went Home” at the age of 76, we explored some of this history together. He was thrilled to learn from my research that his Grandfather Billy, at the end of his life “went to his grave happily, having come to know the Savior,” as a contemporaneous letter reported. Dad was also truly shocked to learn that two-thirds of a century earlier, his own internalizing, emotion-stuffing father had said to Dad’s sister: “If only the rest of you were like Ralph!” Mere months before he left this world, Dad learned that his unexpressive father had particular affection and admiration for him, a reality he had not intuited from his dad’s detached personality.

How I wish such warmth and care had been infused into my cherished father’s heart from childhood! But it wasn’t too late to soothe and nurture this septuagenarian heart with paternal affection for which every heart yearns.

And it’s not too late for me, and for you, to nurture hearts in our own families with expressions of affection, commitment and respect. Research shows that warm families inoculate parents and children, alike, from life trauma, and energize them for journeys ahead. Family warmth that is frequent, specific and has some intensity predicts stronger social relationships, marriages, employment patterns and emotional stability.

This health, social and economic insurance requires no act of Congress and no diversion of tax dollars.  With a little initiative, and as the Psalmist put it – a few “words well spoken” – life energy can be powerfully infused into treasured hearts, including our own.