Family Stressors

This week we are going to talk about family stressors. I’m not talking about when your family is stressing you out, but circumstances that fall upon the family that can cause a lot of stress. The most common family stressors deal with finances, sickness, death, abuse, fighting, divorce, blame and shame, and babies.

In my family we have had a few family stressors regarding finances, accidents, and babies.

Having a new baby in the family can always be a stressor, and in my family we have 5 children. I know that my parents love each and every one of us unconditionally, but that does not mean it is an easy adjustment when adding somebody to the family. However, if you ask any one of us, we would not have it any other way.

I can also recall a few times in my life when my dad has been in a few accidents. I remember one occasion when I was a young girl, my family went on vacation to see my grandparents. While we were there, my father, his brothers, his nephew, and a friend went up in the mountains on a week-long fishing trip. They had been planning this for months. The first night that they got there, they knew they arrived too late to go up to the lake to fish, but they wanted to go up on horseback to check out locations. On their pack trip up, all of a sudden, my dad’s horse started running and bucking like crazy. She made a sharp turn and bucked my dad off and he says all he remembers seeing coming at him was a tree and two giant rocks. Well, he hit his head on those two boulders and tree and it knocked him out cold. After a four-wheeler ride, an ambulance ride, and a flight for life, my father was headed to the Pueblo Hospital.

During this time my mother had heard the incident on my grandma’s police scanner and prayed it was not my father. The phone rang a while later and it was my uncle on the phone kindly and lovingly telling her what had happened. I remember being on my grandma’s bed with my sisters watching a television show when my mother came in the room and told us what had occurred. She suggested and offered a short prayer of comfort for all of us. In this manner, my mother was “[rearing] us in love and righteousness.” She taught me about faith and prayer that day. When my uncle got back to town, he picked up my mother and my paternal grandmother and drove them to the hospital, three hours from where we were staying at this time. (We were on vacation and were at my grandmother’s house.) Meanwhile, my maternal grandmother was caring for my siblings and I. I wanted to go with my mother so bad, but I knew that I had to stay and take care of my little sisters. That night we fell asleep and I remember waking up somewhere about three or four in the morning to them coming in the house and walking my dad back to the bedroom he and my mother were sleeping in. I remember seeing my uncle and my dad walking through the doorframe and the joy I felt as I saw him. I was so grateful and I remember that after they had gone through the room I knelt in prayer and thanked my Heavenly Father that my daddy was still alive and that he was able to walk. I know that my father felt bad and a little guilty that the trip had not even lasted twelve hours when they had been planning a week, but nobody resented or held it against my dad. Everyone was just so thankful that he was alive and well.

This was a stressor that was put my parents, but it is all about the way that they handled it. My mom did not lament and was not upset with my dad or any of the men on the trip. She was worried and hoping my dad was going to be alright. That is one thing that I admire so much about my mother. She is put in a stressful situation and handles it with such ease. She is calm and makes sure that my dad is being properly taken care of. My dad has had a few incidents where my mother could have reacted in a negative matter, and same goes with her, but they handle it with love and respect to each other.