Thoughts on Strong Families

As families nationwide celebrate Thanksgiving, a remarkable group of people - from newsman Tim Russert to Swing editor (and Ralph's son) David Lauren to gay rights activist (and Ellen's mom) Betty DeGeneres - tell what keeps their family spirit alive.

In this article:
Tim Russert
Meredith Vieira
Frank McCourt
Lisa Leslie
Betty DeGeneres
David Lauren
Sibling split need healing? Expert advice
Book excerpt from Anna Quindlan: A Sense of Connection

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Tim Russert

I've talked to so many people in TV as they're about to retire who say, 'My biggest regret is that I was on the road all the time,' or 'I was working so much I didn't spend enough time with my kids.' From the day I began at NBC, I was determined never to utter those words. I have flown home from China, literally, to make my son's Little League game. I was probably sleeping by the third inning, but I was there. You've got to be there.

"This notion of 'quality time' - that's not what kids want. They don't just want a boutique hour set aside for them; they need you there all the time. If you're there physically as much as you can be, you'll always be there emotionally. And the few times you have to be away, the emotional ties will be so strong from the times you were there, it will more than hold you together. My family is the most important thing.

"In the end, whether you're the moderator of Meet the Press or a fireman or a baseball player, you're going to be judged not on your ability to do your job but on how you took care of your kids."

Meredith Vieira

Part of what keeps our family strong is honesty between all of us. We all really respect each other's point of view, regardless of age. Just because someone is pint-sized doesn't mean their opinion is the same. We're big fans of family meetings, because they allow everybody to speak out, and I think once kids feel that they are empowered and that their point of view matters, then they're more willing to give a little. The unwritten agreement is that as long as we all sit down and tell the truth about what's going on, we all take responsibility. We all own it as a family and then try to resolve it."

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Frank McCourt

In America, people seem able to pull up their roots very easily and move on. You have to reinvent families on the telephone and at a distance and through visits and e-mail. You don't have the little ecstasies and irritations that go along with close living or even neighborhood living. The dream I have is of having a kind of Kennedy compound in Hyannis, a great place with loads of rooms and horses and dogs and everybody coming and staying for holidays or whenever they wanted to. I live in New York with my wife, but my daughter and grandchildren live in California. That's the hardest part of all, having them out there. All I can do about that is talk to them on the telephone and visit when I can. It's difficult."

Lisa Leslie

amily has always been an incredible source of security and confidence for me. Every Thanksgiving, my entire family comes together for a huge potluck dinner. More important, the day provides an opportunity for fellowship and reflection, as we thank the Lord for all of the blessings he has bestowed on us. We also use it as an opportunity to pray together, comfort and encourage family members who are struggling. My mother has always said, 'The family that prays together stays together.' "

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Betty DeGeneres

Age: 68. Spokeswoman, Human Rights Campaign; mother of actress-comedian Ellen DeGeneres: "Family is the place we go for a safe haven."

o me, family is composed of those people who are most important in our lives - those to whom we give unconditional love. Family can be biological, nuclear, extended or chosen, and is the place we go for a safe haven from rough encounters with the world. My son, Vance, and daughter, Ellen, are my biological family. I also claim Ellen's partner, Anne Heche (on left in photo), as a daughter and include her in my unconditional love."

David Lauren

Age: 28. Swing editor; son of designer Ralph Lauren; single: "Nothing is more important than our families."

or me and my peers, nothing is more important than our families. I am proud to have a close family I can count on. And I certainly wasn't surprised when a poll of my generation in Swing said 71 percent of men and women in their 20s would rather spend time with a family member than with anyone else - and 35 percent would pick a family member as a personal hero."

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Revelry or rivalry?

Expert advice to heal sibling splits

It's a phenomenon as old as Cain and Abel: sibling bonds strained to the breaking point by arguments over everything from childhood rivalries to inheritance to whom Mom likes best. Such splits often strike in the late 20s through mid-30s, as adults go separate ways to build careers and start new families.

Sibling bonds may be more strained than ever - but also more important.

Though there are no hard statistics, some psychologists say sibling splits have become more common as the American family has changed. Divorce has created a shifting pool of half and step-siblings. One- or two-child families mean fewer choices when it comes to forging that special bond with a particular sister or brother.

Let the healing begin: Start by writing to each other. A correspondence can defuse tension and let each sibling speak his or her mind without interruption. Strive to get past the frozen images of childhood. If, as a child, you pegged a brother as selfish or a sister as bossy, you may carry that image into adulthood. Yet you have changed, and so have they. As siblings learn to talk and listen, they also must learn what not to discuss. Avoid topics that open old wounds or touch off rivalries. As you renew the bond, don't be disappointed it if isn't as intimate as you'd hoped. There are things you can't get from a sibling relationship. If the hurt runs too deep, go to a family therapist. And if you still can't make it work, remain open to trying again to reconcile in two years, or 10.

The experts see an irony: As America enters the 21st century, sibling bonds may be more strained than ever - but also more important than ever. "With people living longer, we will have 70-year-old children taking care of 90-year-old parents, and the 50-year-old children of the 70-year-olds taking care of both," says Dr. Victor Cicirelli, a professor of developmental psychology at Purdue University. Siblings will need to pull together to care for their elders - yet estranged siblings may not be prepared to.

How prevalent are sibling splits? A study presented to the American Sociological Association found that when polled about their family members, 16 percent of adult siblings failed even to count at least one brother or sister.

Still, if siblings are willing, they often can strengthen strained relationships or restore broken ones, says Dr. Karen Gail Lewis, co-author of Siblings in Therapy. She suggests starting with a few basic steps, at right.

- Penni Crabtree

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BOOK EXCERPT

Anna Quindlen,

"A sense of connection"

Everything I learned about negotiation, territoriality, coexistence, dislike, inbred differences and love despite knowledge I learned from my four younger siblings: Bob, Mike, Kevin and Theresa.

In some essential way, they were my universe, even more than my parents. For while we costume ourselves for our mothers and fathers, pretend to be what they want or strike a pose as that which they most abhor, we let down our guard for our siblings day after day, year after year, without thinking about it much. We share with them real life.

"They're all you'll have someday," my mother used to say when we would bicker, fight or strike one another, as we did with some frequency. I always thought there was something pathetic about the way she'd say that, as though our siblings would be the sad leftovers on the plate of
life, scraps of fat, puddles of congealed gravy.

But as I say it to my own three children now - and I do, I do, almost despite myself - I realize that she meant something quite different. And I remember what I felt deep in my bones when I was pregnant with my third child, that she was an extraordinarily lucky person, not because she would have my husband and me as parents, but because we had had the foresight to provide her with these two brothers, who, in the natural order of things, would still be part of her life after we were gone.

How difficult it is to fathom, to describe, to deconstruct all this, the commonplace bonds of blood. There is a sense of connection as powerful as a rope - or those chains around the ankles that convicts wear when they're shuttled to and from prison. Lifelong, irreversible, accidental connection is like that. They are me. I am them. I say that now, knowing that some of us have almost nothing to say to one another that doesn't start with the word "remember." I say that knowing that sometimes we have been estranged, angry, uncaring.

"Flesh of my flesh," they say sometimes in the marriage ceremony, but it's just not true. It is not even true of our children who are part us, part someone dear to us, loved by us, but not made of what we are made of. But our brothers and sisters: Well, it is all the same clay. That is why we can hit them. That is why we can hate them. That is why we can never really lose them, or we have lost our history, our past, a part of ourselves that we cannot do without.

Anna Quindlen, 45, is a mother of three and best-selling author of books including One True Thing and Black and Blue. This excerpt was drawn from her book Siblings, with photographs by Nick Kelsh, out this month.

Compiled by Jennifer Mendelsohn
Photo Credit: MAX HIRSHFELD for USA WEEKEND (Russert); NICK KELSH (tricycle children)