Reading the news I stumbled upon this. Princess Madeleine has come to visit her sister the crown princess Victoria. Victoria will give birth any moment now. Last time when Viktoria got a baby, Madeleine was in New York and she did not arrive to see the baby that day when the little princess was born. It took the “whole” six days for Madeleine to come from New York to see her niece and this was considered a HUGE scandal. All the newspapers wrote about it. Is the royal family dissoluting? WHAT is wrong in the family? What kind of arrogance was that when she didn´t arrive immidiately etc.

Victoria had her birthday: Another “scandal” rose. Her sister did not come to her birthday. She was in New York. In all newspapers and social media is it written. Again the same story. What is that? Is the royal family falling apart? Etc.

Reflecting upon this phenomena I came to some conclusions. In rich and strong families… if the brother / sister or close relatives / cousin do not come to the wedding it is looked upon like a disastrous scandal. It is immediately written about in the newspaper, social media etc. This option- NOT to come, simply does not exist in strong families. There is no excuse and no reason. One has to plan the time. Find out a way how to come to the wedding. The (un)written rules are very well known! And if you do not follow these rules, everyone in the family and the world will know about it and it will hang around for years. Wealthy families will “raise” their youth to not even consider the idea not to come to the particular wedding. Whatever reason they would have. Therefore, these families rule the world and are strong for many generations which able them to achieve estates, power and respect from other people.

The “average” family, on the other hand, fall apart that moment when the two get married. I’ve never seen that these two families really, practically get united in such a way that the customs on both sides are followed. I can even state that these young “newly connected” families actually break up the old customs, because old customs get ignored and are not longer followed…because of her or him. We do not go to birthdays of relatives because we have “other things” to do. Weddings are not attended to because of different reasons like money, time, not sufficient “value” or closeness to the couple. .
We do not visit when babys are born because the tickets are expensive, we have a job (the job is always the most important) and so on.
We do not visit the oldest family members for Eid / Christmas because we have “no time”.
We don´t visit old grandmothers / grandpas because they are “boring” and it is more fun to travel the world.
Old customs are simply not followed. And that is the reason why some families never will have a strong spine and integrity.
The worst thing is that people of these average families believe that this behavior is normal and that they do not lose anything with this (except time). But the fact is that this is just a sign that we are incompetent! Whether we want to admit it to ourselves or not! We are simply unable to plan relevant life events because we do not put any value into the family.:

Think about following:

• How many times per year is a birthday?
• How many times do we have weddings? For the marriages we get the dates in time long time before. So what reason do we have that we do not come?
• How many times are children born? Why cannot we then come to see the child immediately and not after a month or two…or a year
  Eid or Christmas are not every week so how come that we cannot plan to visit the oldest family member this one time? No matter if it is the family of the husband or the wife.
• How will our children know its aunt, uncle or cousin if we ” the older ones” do not teach them the custom to meet each other? Even if they live far away from each other? We have to teach them that no matter if they want it or not, no matter if we “feel for it or not?

Seriously, we should all be ashamed if we missed even one birthday, birth etc. of our closest family. We can say what we want but it is not ok because we do hurt people doing it by not giving them high priority! It is the wrong way of saving money or vacation days. Nothing should be more important than that. Neither our jobs nor anything else.

So, why are some strong families and some do not?
Because strong families:

• Follow the events of life and not just deaths
• Funerals are not the only place they meet
• They teach their children to know exactly who and what their relatives are and teach them that they can call / meet the relatives no matter where in the world they are.
• They teach their children to know the extended family. For example, in the case of opening a new business they can have great support be it with money knowledge, because there is always someone knowing things you need.
• They will never have a problem to educate their children. They know that children are not born 18 years old. They plan the time and money so their young can get educated. In that way they avoid cases that a child cannot get educated because of the financial situation of its family… when there are 50 working people in the extended family.
• They see their relatives as a network and you never know who, when and why they can be needed
• They plan – not always because they want to, but for the benefit of the family. There is always a way to meet at least once a year.. If not once a year then every second and they have NO excuses to avoid it.
• They do not give in to any “newcomers in the family” to break the families old customs in your family. Especially if no new better customs are introduced. Newcomers are “assimilated” into the family and “learn” that they have to come to the important events. Not like it usually turns out that even family one was meeting previously, we stop meeting because of different reasons of the spouse. Imagine getting married in the royal family. Do you honestly think that you could avoid some things only because you do not feel for it, because you do not like a person or you do not have time?
• Everyone in the strong family follow ALL these things without exceptions or excuses.

Unfortunately this knowledge came to my mind very late so for this year I cannot expect everyone to come to Ada´s birthday. But this time you have one year to plan. Because one thing is on us teach our children and that is teach them to meet their (extended) families because they can never know what future brings on to us.
Citam novine. Princeza Madeleine je dosla svojoj sestri prestolonasljednici Viktoriji u posjetu. Viktorija treba svaki tren da rodi. Prosli put kad je rodila Madeleine je bila u New Yorku i nije bila tu tog dana kad se mala princeza rodila. To je bio skandal velikim slovima. Jer je trebalo “citavih” sest dana da dodje iz New Yorka da vidi svoju necakinju. U svim novinama je o tome pisalo. Raspada se kraljevska porodica! STA to nije u redu?? Kakav je to bezobrazluk da se nije stvorila tu odmah??? Itd.
Viktorijin rodjendan bijase: Isto tako skandal nastade.Sestra joj nije dosla na rodjendan. Bila je u New Yorku. U svim novinama i socijalnim medijama je to pisalo. Opet ista prica. Kakav je to nacin? Stoje li stvari kako treba u familiji? ITd.
Razmislila sam malo o tom fenomenu i dosla do par zakljucaka. Kod bogatih familija (pa da se ne kaze skoro klanova) da na jednoj svadbi ne dodje brat/ sestra ili blizi rodjak/rodica je apsolutni skandal koji se odmah po novinama pise. Ta opcija da NE dodjes jednostavno ne postoji. Nema izgovora i nema razloga da ne dodjes. Ima da isplaniras to vrijeme. Nadji rjesenje kako ces doci . Zna se red! I ako ga ne pratis svako ce znati za to i to godinama. Bogataske familije ce svoju djecu”odgojiti” da im ne padne na pamet da uopste razmisljaju o tome da ne mogu doci. Ma koji god bio razlog. Zato te porodice vladaju svijetom i zato su generacijama postigla imanja, moc i respekt okoline.

“Prosjecne” porodice se ne ujedine kad se vjencaju dvoje mladi. Naprotiv! Nikad jos nisam vidjela da su se dvije familije ujedinile u tom smislu da su obicaji sa obe strane prihvaceni i praceni. Smatram cak sto vise da se  familije mladih rasture jer i ono sto se do sad pratilo se vise ne prati. Ne dolazi se na rodjendane jer se ima “drugog posla”. Ne ide se na svadbe jer se nema novca/nema vremena ili se smatra da nije dovoljno vrijedan/ vrijedna da se potrudis doci .
Ne dolazi se kad se dijete rodi jer se radi (posao je uvijek najbitniji).
Ne ide se najstarijem kad je bajram / bozic jer nemas vremena.
Ne ide se kod stare majke / dida jer su “dosadni” itd.
Nikakav se red ne prati. I zato takve prosjecne familije nikad nece imati jaka ledja i integritet. Najgore je sto ljudi ti prosjecnih porodica misle da je to normalno i da nista ne gube sa tim (osim mozda vremena). Ali cinjenica je da je to samo znak da smo nesposobni! Htjeli mi to sami sebi priznati ili ne! Jednostavno smo nesposobni isplanirati bitne zivotne dogadjaje jer ne vrijednujemo svoju porodicu.

Razmislite:

• Koliko je puta rodjendan godisnje?
• Koliko puta su svadbe? Za svadbu se na vrijeme sazna, znaci koji je razlog da se ne stvore svi koji trebaju tu?
• Koliko se to puta djeca radjaju?
• I je li to svake sedmice bajram/ bozic da se ne moze otici kod najstarijeg u familiji taj jedan put godisnje kad bude? Koje god familije da bude (muzeve ili zenine).
• Kako ce moje dijete znati ko je njoj tetka, stric ili rodica ako mi “stariji” ne uvedemo red da se vidjaju, htjeli oni ili ne- dalo se to nama ili ne, pa makar jedno zivjelo na Plutu a drugo na Marsu.

Treba nas sve biti sramota ako smo samo jednom promasili rodjendan, rodjenje itd. nasih najblizi jer mozemo mi pricati sta god hocemo. Ali cinjenica je ta da mi kad ne dodjemo u neku ruku uvrijedimo tu nasu najblizu osobu sto nismo dosli, jer nismo je prioritirali. A to NIJE u redu. I ne treba na tom trosku da se stedi. Ne smije nista da bude bitnije od toga. Niti posao, niti odmor, niti sta drugo.

Znaci, zasto su neke familije jake a neke ne?

• Zato sto prate zivotne dogadjaje a ne samo smrtne slucajeve!
• Zato sto se ne srecu samo na sahranama/ dzenazama
• Zato sto uce svoju djecu da znaju dobro ko im je rodbina da u svakom momentu mogu da se jave rodbini gdje god u svijetu bili.
• Zato sto uce svoju djecu da vrlo dobro znaju ko je sta i s cime se bavi u siroj rodbini. Tako u slucaju otvaranje npr. novog biznisa vec imaju veliku podrsku bilo to novcano ili znanstveno
• Zato sto im nikad nece biti problem skolovati svoju djecu jer znaju da se djeca ne rode sa 18g. Nego na vrijeme planiraju nacin kako da svoje mlade skoluju da ne dodje do slucaja da se necije dijete ne moze skolovati zato sto nema love… a bliza familija se sastoji od 50 ljudi koji rade
• Zato sto svoju rodbinu gledaju kao jednu kontakt mrezu za koju nikad ne znas ko, kad i zbog cega ce ti trebati.
• Zato sto planiraju – ne uvijek ceifom nego zbog korist familije. UVIJEK se moze nacin da se barem jednom godisnje svi sretnu. Pa ako ne moze jednom godisnje moze se svake druge godine sresti. BEZ izgovora.
• Zato sto ne daju ni jednoj “novodoslici” da rasturi svoje stare tradijicije svoje familije, pogotovo ako ne uvede neku novu bolju. Ergo novodoslice u familiji se “asimiliraju” i nauce da i oni dolaze na bitne dogadjaje a ne kako to kod nas biva i ono sto se posjecivalo prestane se posjecivati jer se muzu /zeni “ne da” ili ima neki drugi razlog. Zamislite da se vjencate u kraljevsku porodicu. Mislite li vi stvarno da bi mogli sjediti kod kuce zato sto vam se “ne da” ici , ili sto ne volite osobu ili sto “nemate vremena za nesto”? Malo sutra bi to mogli uraditi.
• Zato sto SVI u jakoj familiji prate sve ove tacke bez iznimaka ili izgovora.

Nazalost ove spoznaje su  mi kasno dosle u glavu pa ne mogu ove godine traziti da svi dodju na rodjendan Ade naprimjer. Ali za iduci rodjendan imate godinu dana za planiranje. Jer jedno je ipak na nama a to je da naucimo djecu da se srecu jer ne znamo sta buducnost nosi.