These are some of my favorite parts... but the entire article is worth reading.
SECRET OF FAMILY WORK
By Jenet Jacob Erickson, Ph.D.
Anthropologist Dorothy Lee... saw men, women, and children exerting themselves in learning and performing difficult tasks without any of the typical rewards she had always seen used to generate such motivation. She observed Native American youth being taught and tested in developing remarkable levels of self-discipline and valor to help them find food for their tribes. She observed the Arapesh of New Guinea walking miles with saplings to plant them on the sites of others, hunting only to give all the kill away, giving pigs to relatives who lived long distances away, and going on long walks in the jungle to find things needed by neighbors in building their homes or repairing their farm structures. ...
It was the strength of the connection with community, rather than freedom from obligations to community, that enabled individual development to flourish. ...
But the experiences can establish a pattern that invites a sense of personal fulfillment, capacity, and oneness, as well as meaning and joy. ...
Certainly, much of this has to do with how parents themselves approach the experience of family work and working together. ... One mother talked about learning to help with family work saying, “I grew up working along with my grandparents down on their knees [harvesting raspberries]. You know, I thought, ‘If they can do it, I can.’ That’s some of my best memories. Actually, all the cousins would come and each row was a quarter of a mile long. And then after, we’d go have picnics in the park.” In her own family, she said, “I try to make [family work] joyful and important and not just something to get over with.” ...
It was not her work, or her grandparents’ work. It was their work together, mixed in with the leisure—a natural part of living, loving, and being part of the family. ...
We can then see how through organizing it in “communal” ways—by working alongside one another; by seeing family work as shared, good, and central to family love and belonging; and by appreciating each one’s contributions to it—we can strengthen relationships and bonding. ...
It may in fact be one of the great secrets of life that working beside and for one another is intrinsic to real enjoyment and meaning. In doing this work together we will discover that we have created the patterns of oneness. ... We will find that not only do families and communities thrive in working beside and for one another, but that the oneness that results will also invite the finest in individual exertion and development.
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