Does Family Really Have to Come First?

Becoming You with Suzy Welch

Suzy Welch explores 'family centrism' as a core personal value, distinguishing it from love and examining how differing levels of this trait cause family conflict. Joined by family therapist Vienna Farron, the episode unpacks why

Key takeaways

• Family centrism measures how much you organize your life around family, not how much you love them; conflating the two causes unnecessary relational pain.
• Social desirability bias makes 'family centrism' a heavily judged 'ought value,' leading people to artificially elevate it or feel guilty for ranking it lower.

Main topics

• Family centrism as a personal value
• Social desirability bias and cultural baggage

Notable quotes

"Family centrism as a value is not about love. It's about how much you want to organize your life around your family."

Conclusion

Understanding that values are neutral organizing principles rather tha

Transcript preview

Speaker 5 (0:00) They know I love them. I know they love me. Right. And that's okay. And it looks different. It's going to look different. Yeah. Speaker 4 (0:06) You know? Speaker 5 (0:06) So not the Brady Bunch, but it's okay. Yeah. Speaker 4 (0:08) I love that. Not the Brady Bunch, but it's Speaker 5 (0:11) okay. Yeah. Speaker 4 (0:16) Not the Brady Bunch, but that's okay. I do love that line because it's kind of like our version of family isn't perfect, but it... works. And my God, my friends, when it comes to family, I'd call that a victory, wouldn't you? Welcome, welcome. I'm Susie Welch, and this is Becoming You, where our purpose is your purpose. I mean, our purpose is you finding and living your purpose, because that's a beautiful thing. That makes for better lives and relationships and careers, and I will die on that particular hill. We are in the middle of a 16-part series on each and every one of the values that govern our lives. And this week, we are talking about a biggie, maybe the biggest of them all in a way, family. because there's not a person on this earth who does not have a view on how important their family is to them or not. Because look, your values, they all exist on a continuum. Some people have high family centrism, as we call this value. Every decision, every action, it considers family first. And some people have lower family centrism. They may love their people, but they don't. organize their lives around them. This sounds simple, doesn't it? But family centrism is especially complicated. It's not simple because it comes with so much cultural and social baggage. Isn't family a virtue? People like to ask many cultures think family is a virtue, not a choice, not like a value. And shouldn't we organize our lives around our family? Isn't that the right thing to do? Well, the answer is maybe. Maybe or maybe not. Whole families have crashed. Whole families have fallen apart. Whole families have had a lot of hurt because of this value, because they didn't have a way to talk about higher family centrism and lower family centrism. But there is a way. There's a way. And we're going to explore today in this very special podcast, because back with us today is the one and only Vienna Farron, who's a well-deservedly famous and revered family therapist. She's joined me before on Becoming You. And then later, we're going to hear from the woman whose voice you heard earlier talking about the Brady Bunch. That's Lola Persons, who happens to love her family very, very much, but she doesn't put them first. For me, let's be honest here, I've had rather lower family centrism my whole life. Moderate family centrism is seven or eight. And I made it work. And I want to tell you, that's not necessarily easy with four kids. But I've had moderate family centrism. I don't make every decision according to my family, despite the fact that I love them with every fiber of my being. Then, my friends. a seismic event happened. You know, your values don't change very often. Your values are only pretty much changed by a seismic event, according to social science. And I've observed that myself in my own research. Three and a half years ago, my granddaughter arrived and my brain was, I just, I was invaded by an alien. And I looked into that child's face and I became obsessed. And now possibly my family centrism is rising. It's rising because I am actually organizing my life and decisions around how much I get to be with this spirit animal of mine who wears go-go boots. But I see her every morning and you know what I do? I made up a song and I sing it to her every single day. The best part of the day. Oh, it's so bad. Let me just say the words to you. The best part of the day, the best part of the day, the best part of the Speaker 5 (3:22) day is you, you, you. This Speaker 4 (3:25) is somebody whose family centrism is rising as they say in astrology. Okay. But In general, I'm not going to lie. My family centrism, I don't wake up in the morning and think, how can I spend more time with my family? I haven't made my career decisions around my family, but God knows I love them. I give my kids not one kidney, but both. Okay. Now, to help me unpack why family centrism carries so much judgment, why it carries so much weight, why it's so fraught, and what happens when people in the same family rank family centrism differently is Vienna Farrin, as I mentioned before. Vienna, we are so happy to have you here. Welcome back. to becoming you. Speaker 3 (3:59) Thank you. So excited to be here. Family Speaker 4 (4:02) centrism is a very important value. When people talk about values, often the word family comes out of their mouth first, even when people don't even know what values are. But it's a complicated value. It's not about how much you love your family. Speaker 2 (4:16) You Speaker 4 (4:16) love your family. desperately and madly. I know you love your kids and your husband so much. I love my family very much, almost like a feral way. I love them. But family centrism as a value is not about love. It's about how much you want to organize your life around your family. You make a decision about your career. You make a decision about a vacation. You make a decision about a relationship. And the first screen that you put it through is, how does this affect my family? Family centrism gets more. five-star reviews than anything else in the value set and more one-star reviews than you'd expect. Higher highs, some real lows. That's why we can call it intensely held. It's not that everyone likes it a lot. It's that the people who like family centrism put it at the very top, okay? More respondents rank it at number one than any other value, more give it the maximum possible score, and more people place it in their top three. But, and this is what brings it down, okay, is that more people place it, a significant number of people push it into their bottom five, 16%. So real peaks and real values with this highly electrified value of family centrism. Today, I want to talk to you about why, if so many people hold family centrism as such an intense value, why families just can't be more happy and why family is so hard. You and I both have our favorite quotes about family. Every time we get together, we talk about them. Let's hear yours. Oh, gosh. The Ram Dass Speaker 3 (5:44) quote. Speaker 4 (5:45) Yeah. If you think you're enlightened, spend Speaker 3 (5:47) a week with your family. If you Speaker 4 (5:48) think you're enlightened, spend a week with your family. It's like we do all this work during the year and then the holidays come around and you're like, I am Speaker 3 (5:54) ready with all of my therapy tools. And then I walk right through that door and boom, all of a sudden I feel like a 13-year-old again and it's all out Speaker 4 (6:02) the window. When you have high family centrism or low family centrism, you're expressing it. on family. Let's just make up a story. A mother who has extremely high family centrism, she has organized her life around her family willingly, let's say. It's a high value for her. And then she's totally perplexed and hurt when two of her four kids have very low family centrism. They don't want to come home for Thanksgiving. They don't call her first thing in the morning. They let her text stay on red, blah, blah, blah. And then what ends up happening is people say, They don't have a comfort level where they start to judge. They take it personally. And then this virtue stuff comes in because in many, many, many cultures, family centrism is considered. virtue. It's not up for debate. It's a social and cultural good that everyone agrees is excellent. I Speaker 3 (6:47) grew up with this, that family was the most important thing. And you hear that, that family, right, that blood is thicker than water. Any narrative that sounds something similar to that, that we're fed that. And I don't know if we're fed a narrative in any of the other. values as much as we are fed a narrative around family centrism being something that we all ought to have, that is probably the most important thing. Maybe faith for some folks, but I think the family centrism has to be the value where you get so many storylines about how important it is, how much you're supposed to sacrifice around it, what it ought to look like. Here's what we do. This is what our family does. And I think, you know, generation to generation, somebody takes the lead with it and says, here's how we operate as a family. And oftentimes it is similar to the generation that came before. I think now we might start to see people doing things differently. Where you're not necessarily walking in the exact footsteps of the generations who came before you and the expectations around family. It's really an interesting space for resentment to grow. And I think that example that you gave, which is a very real life example for so many, which is, okay, mom or... Dad holds high family centrism. Children do not. Or sibling does not. Or someone else does not. And why don't you care? Why aren't you doing this the way that I'm doing this? And I think one of my favorite things that you've ever said that really struck me was that values are agnostic. Speaker 3 (8:24) I see us judge values so much. People who have high family centrism cannot understand why somebody who has low family centrism could possibly operate that way. And it almost feels like a ding on the card. Like, oh my gosh, you don't care about your family? And that's not what it is. You know what Speaker 4 (8:42) families do when somebody has low family centrism? They... dubbed them the black sheep. I'm just convinced that through history, like family, oh, that's the black sheep of the family. Yeah, that's the one person in the family who said no to family centrism. Now, there may be other people in the family system who have lower family centrism, and they just say, forget it. Okay, every Sunday, we're going to mama's for the spaghetti, whether they like it or not. But the black sheep was the person who said, you know, actually, I don't want to show up for the spaghetti on Sunday evening. And imagine like all the hurt. could have been avoided if people were able to sort of look at their, like, you know, talk about family centrism in this more agnostic way. I have a theory I want to try out on you. You know, lately there's been this debate in society about going no contact, Speaker 2 (9:25) that, Speaker 4 (9:26) you know, suddenly a kid announces, I want to go no contact. And I think sometimes it's a culmination. There was a terrible childhood trauma and the kid's finally trying to claim back their narrative of the