Family is a VERB!

Many years ago, as a young mom I sat in church listening to a 40ish single school teacher that had been asked to speak on "family." My first thought was "seriously?  How inconsiderate to ask her to speak!  I knew having children of her own was something she longed for.  However, I am very thankful! Her talk was very influential in my life.  I guess that is obvious, because I am still thinking about it almost 20 years later!

As she spoke, the message of her talk was "Family is a VERB!!" It is something we do, we family.  

One way to think is Family shouldn't say who we are, or what our nose looks like... Family is how we do things.

The definition could read like this:

fam.i.ly   v.  /ˈfæm ə li, ˈfæm li/ 1.a. to show great love to all involved  b. the act of charity 2. the act of keeping a group together for all eternity 3. to build a bond that can not be severed 4. the development of belonging to a unit of people 5. time

Used in a sentence: Oh, I am going to family the kids tonight.  They won't know what hit them!  

It will be great, we are going to family for the week in St. George!


So how does one "Family Effectively?" 
I conducted a very unscientific survey of the following questions:


1. What is your favorite thing about your family growing up?

2. If you have your own family now, what is your favorite thing about it?

3. What is one thing you would like from your family that you are not currently getting? (uhh, money does not count)