Stories that Bind Us

The article, "The Stories that Bind Us" showed how children can better handle life situations when they have a family narrative. The more a child knew about their families, the better they were able to handle stress and difficulty in school and other aspects of life. When children know details such as where their grandparents grew up or how their parents met, this led them to feeling apart of something more than just themselves. While reading through this article, I realized how blessed I am to know so much of my own family narrative. We love to tell stories in my family and some of my favorite stories include how my parents met and about when I was born. My parents met at church because both of them had siblings in the same ward in Agoura Hills, California and my mom was babysitting my cousins that day. My dad lived with his brother at the time and so that was the ward he regularly attended. Their siblings had tried to previously set them up but it hadn't worked out so they knew of each other. My favorite part of the story is that my parents sat next to each other and after class my dad asked for her number but didn't have a pen and suddenly everyone was trying to give him a pen. My dad was twenty-eight at the time and so they probably wanted him to stop being a "menace to society"and indeed it did work out. There were several complications that occurred when my mother was pregnant with me but my parents always emphasize how they were blessed because I was born healthy. These stories do give comfort to my everyday and it has helped shape how I view my family.
One thing that I am grateful for is that in the second grade I had to make a scrapbook and interview several family members. I interviewed my parents and my mom's parents and I was able to learn a little more about what it was like for them growing up. Beyond just my grandparents, I have learned a great deal about my ancestors and their lives. In the article it mentioned is the oscillating family narrative, which includes both hardship and triumphs but emphasizes that the family got through those hardships. This theme is present in my own family life, I remember my grandpa telling me about my pioneer ancestors who had to suck on pebbles to keep themselves from getting thirsty but would also sing songs along the trail. His father had a difficult childhood for various reasons but was able to persevere and started a company that did well but even the company eventually failed, my family lived on. Another unique part of my family narrative is that my dad was adopted at birth and so as we have done more family research, we have found out about my dad's birth family. Through a DNA test, we were able to figure out the identity of my dad's birth dad and that has been fun learning about my biological ancestors on my dad's side. If there is one thing that this has encouraged me to do is to be better at documenting my life so that when I have children they can learn more about their family. I also want to continue working on family history so that the family narrative can expand.