Learning to Love Family Differences

So you think you came from a dysfunctional family? My family was the one that put dysfunction in dysfunctional families.

Welcome to becoming wiser with Dr. Robert A. Rohm, author and world renowned public speaker, as he shares stories involving his experiences and lessons learned in a good, spirited, positive and fun way. Here's Dr. Robert A. Rohm.

Hi, I'm Dr. Robert Rohm. And I had a family a lot like yours. I there different people in it and they were all weird. And I used to wonder, why can't everybody in this family be normal like me? Well, the truth of the matter is all of us have a family and all of our families are different. And I want to share something with you. I love families. I love your family. I'm sure if I got to know your family, I would think your family is great. However, all of us realize sooner or later that families are different. Give you an example. My mother raised me on a meat, two vegetables, a salad, a dessert and a big glass of milk. And so that's just the way I grew up. It was wonderful. And usually a piece of chocolate cake or lemon pie for dessert. So my friends would come over and they would sit there and look. I can still remember Rick and Eric and John and Steve. They'd come over and my mother would put salad and meat and two vegetables and a dessert, a glass of milk. They would look at my mother and say, Ms. Rome, do you have a hot dog? It'd make my mother so mad, she would be like on fire. Hot dog? Yes, ma'. Am. I just, I don't really eat all this kind of stuff. See, I grew up in a family where I didn't know I had a choice. I'd go over to somebody else's house, they'd have hamburgers or hot dogs. Nothing wrong with that. I love hamburgers and hot dogs. But pretty much my mother lived by the couple of vegetables, the piece of meat or chicken or fish. Now, I didn't know any other family that did anything any other way. You know why? Because I wasn't part of any other family. You don't know what you don't know. So I began to learn and I began to look around. And the older I got, I began to realize families are different. As I mentioned, my family was pretty different because my father was a Russian Jew. My father had come out and escaped from Russia during a program where they were killing Jews. And he had escaped his grand my grandfather, his father got he himself, his wife and their son, who was my father out of Russia in the early 1900s. He came to America. They settled in Richmond, Virginia after my father grew up. Of course, being here in this country, he eventually moved and had an opportunity to be a jeweler in Birmingham, Alabama. My father was there and during the time he was in Birmingham, Alabama, he would come to Atlanta. And while he was in Atlanta, he also had a great opportunity to run a store called Regenstein's. It was a ladies ready to wear clothing store. Well, there just so happened there was a young lady who was working there and they began to visit with each other. The crazy thing was my father by this time was 42 years old and the lady he started courting was my mother. She was 21 years old. Now think about that just for a minute. Is there 21 years difference in your parents age from the difference in their birthdays? Well, that's what I grew up with, but I didn't know anything about it. It wasn't anything bad. And I was there, the product of that union. I was their only child. My father was 42 when he married my mother. She was 21. So 21 years difference in their age. Well, two years later I came along. That's the highlight of this story. And as their only son I grew up. But I thought my house was as normal as anybody else's because I didn't have any other house to compare it to. I only knew I had a father, I had a mother, and I'm an only child. And I go to school and I listen and learn and play sports and meet different people. Welcome to life. As I look back on it now, I can see some things that I wish I had understood then. For example, my father would come home from work. But when he got home from work, my mother and I had already eaten dinner. My mother believed in having dinner at 5:30, not 5:29, not 5:31, 5:30. My mother and I had dinner together every night growing up because that's when we had dinner at 5:30. My father would get home about 6, 6:15 and my mother would make him dinner. He would have dinner, she would sit there at the table with him. Sometimes I would. Most of the time I was doing something else because I thought all this was normal. And then my father would finish dinner and he would go to the Elks Club. He loved to play cards at night with his buddies. And he would go to the Elks Club every night after work and play cards until the Elks club closed around 11 o' clock at night. So I never really even saw my father. But I didn't think anything about it because I didn't have anything to compare it to. You don't know what you don't know. And I didn't know that what we were doing was really dysfunctional or not normal. My mother would help me with the homework. We'd watch Andy Griffith or whatever TV program was on, and then we would go to bed. And the next morning I saw that my father had come home late. The only difference. The only difference was Tuesday night. Tuesday night was family night at the Elks Club. And so my mother and I would go out to the Ells Club. We'd meet my father.

We'd.

We'd have dinner together. Then we would tell him good night or goodbye. And my mother and I would go home and my father would stay and play cards with his buddies until bedtime. This happened on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Then on Sunday, my father would stay at home Sunday night because the Elves club was closed. And my mother and I would go to church. So I've probably already spent more time talking to you today.

Thank you.

Than I did talking to my father for 18 years of growing up. Now hear me well. He was a good man. He provided for us. I do not even know what it would be like to ever be afraid of losing our house. Have you ever heard kids talk about we might lose our house? My father said we, we're in financial trouble. Things are bad at work and we don't have any money. Listen, when my father bought our house, he paid cash for it. He bought the house. We never had a house note. I didn't know what a house note was. Growing up, my father just. He was older, he had money. My mother loved the security of being married to someone who took care of her financially. Never had a worry in the world. I always had the best clothes, a brand new car. When I turned 16, it was just incredible. I look back on that. I didn't deserve a new car. I probably didn't work growing up. Like I've learned to work since I've grown up. But my father had the attitude of, hey, you're my son. I'll take care of you. That probably in and of itself is not a good idea. Now hear me well. I would not trade a thing that I'm sharing with you. I wouldn't trade a thing. I loved my dad. I loved my mom. I loved my life. But it was really dysfunctional because I should have been taught how to work more. My father should have stayed home and had a marriage with his wife. My mother should have Been more committed to her husband than she was to her son. And the whole thing, looking back, was, hear me well, here it comes. I said everything to say this. It was a mess, just like your family's a mess. Do you know why? Because that's the only kind of families that exist. We're all a mess. But our mess is our message. I have a PhD. My doctoral minor is in family systems. We are going to have a family training coming up in just a few short weeks. You'll be hearing about it. I hope that you'll be part of it because I'm going to be talking about family systems. I'm going to be mentioning to you, it's okay that you had a messed up family. That's the only kind of family that exists. One that has challenges and have problems and has bickering. Oh, sure, you get along at times, but then there are times you don't get along and then they're brothers and sisters and then. Are you ready for this? There can be challenges in families, especially where there's a mixed marriage. Are you aware. Are you aware where there is a mixed marriage, that means a father and he has his children and the mother and she has their children and they get married and their children come to be step children of both of the opposite parents. I couldn't believe what I learned when I was studying in school years ago. Where there are mixed families in the same household. The incest rate is 92%, I thought, is a misprint in my book. I thought you mean 9.2%. No, no, 92%. Because you get familiar with each other, you're all sleeping in the same house and showering and changing clothes. And soon the personalization of an intact family begins to disintegrate. There you have another dysfunctional situation. Here's what I want you to hear. I am not condemning any family. We all have our challenges. We all have learned things. And looking back, we all could do things better or differently. But you know what? Even with that, I'm here to tell you you ought to be grateful for everything that's happened in your life. You know why? Because they brought you to the place you are right now. You see, when you have challenges, they wake you up. We learn from. Even in nature, when they plant crops, the wind blows, the rain falls, the sun shines. All of that's to strain. All of that happens to strengthen the plants, to make them sturdy, to make them stronger, to make them reproductive so they can give off their fruit and vegetables and the other things that grow.

I'm so excited about being able to tell you that you have a wonderful family. You might say, wait a minute, Dr. Rome, you just said my family's dysfunctional. Both are true at the same time.

Now I'm going to put on I was a pastor for eight years. We call this in the world of being a pastor. The reason our families are all messed up is because of sin. You see, sin entered the world. You know what sin is? Sin is wanting your own way, regardless of who you have to hurt. Sin says it's my way or the highway. Sin says, I can do whatever I want to. Sin says, if it belongs to you, I can take it if I want it for myself. Sin says I can sleep with whoever I want to. I can say anything I want to. I am the most important person in the world, and that's why we have problems. You see, until you can learn to grow up and get some maturity and understand I'm not the most important person in the world, life does not revolve around me. There's something called humanism. Humanism teaches that man or human beings are the center of all things. Do you know what discovered I discovered as I was growing up. People said, you need to find yourself. You need to discover yourself. You need to get in your head, know who you are. Well, I did all that, and I found out I'm not my type. So I discovered on a journey of life that learning to love others. And then my mother taught me spiritual things, and eventually my father as well. I tell people, my father, my mother taught me to love God. My father taught me, have a friend at the bank. Both of those are important. One teaches us about eternal life, and one teaches us about this earthly life. Both of my parents came to spiritual understanding and they shared that with me. If you were to offer me $1 million cash, tax free in the briefcase today, if I could go back and have a different family, have a normal family, have a functional family, I wouldn't even consider it. Because everything I went through has poured into me to help me to become the person I am today. I'm not perfect, but I know I have been forgiven. I know I have a personal relationship with God. I know that I have a great business. I have an incredible staff, an unbelievable family. And you know what? We have our challenges too. Every day is for the purpose of helping us do two things. Learn and grow. As long as you're learning and you're growing, you're doing what life's about. So recognize your family may all be messed up. But your mess is your message. Recognize that you go through tests every day. You. Your tests become your testimony. I love life. I love my family. I love the fact that I have a business that's all over the world. I love the fact you are part of our podcast. Stop beating yourself up for being messed up. We're all messed up, but that's how you get started. Your mess becomes your message. Hear me well. You can learn anything you need to know to become all you were meant to be. Don't whine and suck your thumb and be negative in life is so terrible. Stop all that. Start saying, you know what? I was part of a family that was messed up like all the other ones. I'm not going to blame them because being bitter and angry at your family is like you drinking poison and expecting them to die. Let it go. Just enjoy life. Recognize you're learning and growing each day and be part of our podcast. This has been a training about families, but I wanted to emphasize the fact we have a training about families coming up where I can share with you a few things that you can do that will make your life better. So keep an eye out for that. You'll hear information on how you can register for that and be part of the training. I hope you've enjoyed this podcast. Be on the journey of making your family better by you becoming the person you were meant to be. I'm Dr. Robert roll. Thanks for being part of this podcast today. I look forward to seeing you or you hearing me on another podcast real soon. God bless you. Bye Bye.

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