Keep the family close / For the Children.

I started thinking of a family as a “team". Sounds absurd perhaps, but I think there is something to think about there.

And I am saying "team" because you will remember that other time I said we need to start looking at ourselves in the context of teamwork and as an organisation.

There are some lessons from corporate life that we can apply to our personal lives.

There is a concept in corporate and very much alive in software development called "self-organising" teams.

I may not have the correct definition, but self-organising teams pull together towards a mission, everyone brings in their skills and throws in everything and their time to what can be achieved for a common purpose.

I think this very much applies to families and the immediate community before you go wider into society.

Charity begins at home, take care of home first, make the home great, and again, focus on bringing everyone close to keep the family close. Thats a decent value system, no?

And I think if you guys do it well, it may not immediately be thought of in the positive by those that may be outside looking in. A stacking of generations under one roof?

But, Indian families, Greeks and Italians have this down to the tee. If you read Malcolm Gladwell’s "Outliers" you will remember this concept and social observation he made when talking about the community of Rosetta, in the first chapter of the book so you dont have to go far if you are lazy to read the entire thing.

He speaks of the community that immigrated from Italy to the US and they were observed to live a whole lot longer and carried on with life free from stress and disease in their families and communities.

Yet there was nothing extraordinary in their eating habits, they smoked and drank and partied and slept late etc. The air wasnt any cleaner than anywhere else. But they lived long.

And they had a lot longer length of life and a better quality of life that was disturbing and exceptional in the analysis of data to the point that scientists and statisticians were baffled in understanding what the explanation was.

It turns out that because of their nuclear family structures, where 3 generations of their family lived under one roof gave good vibes and the grandfather, the parents, the kids and the grandkids habited the same space and interacted, and counselled each other and ate together and respected each other;

And they built a value system and they were common in what their direction as a clan was, all these things made them happier and healthier people.

So my encouragement to you all, in your own way as families, is that you continue to care for each other, and you stay grounded in the common mission to be there for each other, as you have been.

But do allow for the incidence that the younger ones are now adults, and they have opinions, and they now have elevated education.
But do not see that as disrespect, continue to be supportive and helpful to each other and still revere that “indlela ibuzwa kwaba phambili".

With this being a statement of guidance for the younger ones, who should have a voice, and they have to be free to express themselves, out of common respect for the elderly and the elders who are their parents.

And the dictum remains, and I encourage it, that you must honour your father and your mother, for your days to be longer and more joyous.

Peace be with you fam ☺️