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Keeping the Family Together · Let's Ask the Mamas!

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  We got a question for American mama's. Dear mama's, how do you stop
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  a family from just falling apart? Well, let's ask our American mama's mama.
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  Mama joining is now our American mama's Terry Edville and Kimberly Burlison. Look,
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  family, family drama is a very big deal. It happens basically in
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  every family. Part of it is because of expectations. We have higher expectations
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  of how our family should treat us than just strangers. A stranger could do
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  something we wouldn't care if family member does it to it they're dead to me.
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  So how do you stop that from escalating? How do you stop that
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  from basically just having everybody walk away? Well, I think that what you
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  do is you make a pact with each other that you never walk away from
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  each other. You think about when your kids are little, and what do
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  you do when they can't get along? They can't play with any other friends.
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  They only can play with each other. You them in a room until
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  they can figure it out. They can't have any they can't do it with
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  anybody else, And they always figure it out. They always come out of
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  the room happier playing well, when you're adults, you can walk away.
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  It's easier to walk away, but that same principle exists. You stick together
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  until you work it out. We talked about this last night with our husbands.
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  So Terry, my sister's and I we got together and we decided twenty
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  two years ago this summer that we were going to have a Fourth of July
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  and street Port and we made a pact at that moment that we will never
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  not do this together. And when I tell you, there have been years
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  we have had fights. We have wanted to you know, I don't want
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  to do it. I'm tired of doing all the work. I feel like
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  you don't do all the work. Terry takes fifteen hours to get ready while
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  everybody's coming in whatever. But you know, so we made a pact.
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  And so last night we're talking about this with our husbands and Terry's husband he
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  admitted, he said, you know, I have to be honest with you.
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  There are years I was angry about it because it takes a lot of
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  work getting ready for a huge party of one hundred plus people, right,
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  you know, And he said I was angry about doing it. And he
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  said, and in these last years. I got it, He said,
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  I totally get why we did it and why we do that. And he
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  said, in my family, my aunts and uncles were a strain. They
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  got in a fight, they don't talk. My dad and his brother they
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  no longer spoke. My mother and her sister secretly would see each other because
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  the husbands didn't speak. And I said, that's what happens in a family.
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  Is like once there's a little nif. If you walk away, one
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  week turns to two weeks, turns to months, turns to years, then
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  it's an awkward situation and there needs to be a big reconciliation. If you
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  just don't walk away and deal with it at that moment, it never happens.
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  You stick together. I'll never forget the year after our dad died.
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  I didn't want to do it. I mean it was work for us.
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  I mean I saw the advantage early on because we grew up in a family
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  where we were close to all of our cousins. My you know, my
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  mom and her siblings, my dad and her and his siblings. We were
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  all tied. And I didn't realize that till college. So we grew up
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  no feeling like they were like we were all in this together, no matter
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  what, no matter the differences and all of that. So we did make
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  this packed. And yes, some years were hard because it would take a
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  month to kind of get the house just because of you know, the yard
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  and all of that. But but I remember the year after Dad died,
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  I was like, I don't yeah, I don't want to do this.
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  I just it's like the joy was sucked out of me at that point.
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  And it was Kimberly, who was you know, she's we always say that
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  she's like the rock, she's the glue. She's the one that kind of
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  helps us come around to things. And so she said, she goes,
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  we're going to Darry. I mean, we made a packed and we're going
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  to stick to it. We're doing this. We're doing this not only for
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  Dad, not only for us, but especially we're doing this for our children.
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  We're doing this for the next generation. So they see that even when
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  we're gone on what you do as a families, you keep doing it.
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  Yes, So by us leading by example, they will see how they are
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  going to respond. So we are doing this. So put your big girl
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  panties on, start picking up the sticks, and we'll be there. And
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  decorate and get it all ready, because we all do that part together.
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  But I promise you, if it wasn't for Kimberly saying that I would have
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  stopped that year, Kevin would have been happy because it was like, I
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  don't want to have to and it probably would have been something that it probably
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  would have been one of the greatest losses. So when Kevin said that last
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  night, he's like, it took me a little while, but he said,
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  then I realized it doesn't have to be perfect. Every stick doesn't have
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  to be picked up exactly. Everything doesn't have to be absolutely does Once I
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  realized it's really about getting everybody over here, and we were the lucky ones.
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  Actually in the end, we realized that since we're in the middle in
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  Streeport, so all of our Texas people and our North Louisiana people, we
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  were smacked down in the middle, we have the land and the space.
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  Were are actually the ones that got the most gift from it because people came,
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  they made the effort to come to our place. So just reminded me
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  of a story. You know, I love music and all this there's run
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  me a story of Duran. Duran's lead singer Simon the Bond, uh huh,
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  and he said he was talking with Mick Jagger from the Rolling Stones,
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  and he said, this is the best advice we ever got. Mick Jagger
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  pulled me aside and he said, whatever you do, don't never break up.
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  Don't ever ever ever break up. That's the Rolling Stones. Yes,
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  who have still been on the tour within the last few years. Oh,
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  that's the key. And Deuran Duran by the way, still on tour.
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  I just saw them this last year. They just realized they were better together
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  than they were apart. That's how we feel about our family. I feel
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  like descar American Mama was a question. Go to our website American ground Radio
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  dot com, slash Mama's and click on the ask. The mama's button turned
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  out of Kimberly Brothers and thank you so much, thank you