Hands up if you have never heard others say, or said yourself, that “family is the most important thing in life”. Family is one of the most frequently mentioned values. It is mentioned even by people for whom it isn’t really a value at all. Culturally and politically correct, adults are expected to regard family as one of the most important things. People who openly say they don’t want to start a family or have children are looked upon unfavourably.
We should also distinguish between the family we grew up in – our parents, siblings and grandparents (the family of origin) – and the family we start ourselves – partner and children. For some, the family of origin may be important, while the family they start may not be a value at all but only a socially and culturally accepted duty.
One’s own family becomes a value when its absence means almost physical pain, and starting it and having it means satisfaction and happiness.
Of all the researchers of values, Steven Reiss places strong emphasis on family as a value (high or low). Most often this means a desire to have children and a partner and a need to look after and care for them. A strong need will characterise very caring people, in extreme cases even overprotective ones. Such people will most likely strive to become parents, if not biological then adoptive. They may also work in places where care is key, especially if this goes together with a strong need for idealism. Such people try to keep their children close and find it very hard when their children leave the nest.
People with a low need for family, on the other hand, may not start one at all and don’t actively seek to have children. If they do become parents – because of tradition, their partner’s wishes or an accident – they raise their children in a spirit of partnership and make them independent quickly. In extreme cases they may even abandon them. They enjoy their freedom and independence and want to focus on their work and their own development. The need to sacrifice themselves when their children are very small and need special care often costs them a great deal of mental effort.
Shalom Schwartz doesn’t literally place family on his circle of values. However, a strong need for family can be found in the values of tradition, conformity to rules, interpersonal conformity and caring. Caring is an essential value for those who value family and children and have a strong need to have them. All these values lie in the area of social focus. A low need for family can be found in the opposite area – personal focus – among values such as self-direction, achievement and hedonism. What family-oriented people call selfishness, people who don’t need a family of their own call self-realisation.
Family understood as a strong need to have one and to care for others can be found in Józef Kozielecki’s Promethean values. According to myth, Prometheus moulded humans from clay and took a fatherly attitude towards humankind, although it was Zeus, not he, who breathed life into them. Yet Prometheus cared for people and sacrificed himself for their good – which is what parents for whom their own family is the most important thing do every day.
Among Edgar Schein’s career anchors, family can be found in the “service and dedication to others” anchor, as an expression of a strong need for family, and in “lifestyle”, as an expression of pursuing one’s own needs and ambitions among people for whom having a family of their own is not the main value.
How to recognise people for whom a strong need for family is a motivator?
Stories about their children and family members often come up in their conversations.
They value time spent at home with their children on shared activities and play.
They can’t imagine holidays, celebrations or meals outside the family circle.
They feel uncomfortable if they spend too long away from home and their family (meaning their own children).
They form close relationships with their children, even after they have flown the nest, and stay in frequent contact with them.
They are inclined to give up their own plans and dreams in order to spend as much time as possible with their children.
They seek contact with children and pay attention when a child appears around them.
How to recognise people for whom a low need for family is a motivator?
Such people don’t spend all their time with their family/children.
They have their own interests, goals and dreams, which they actively try to pursue.
They give their children autonomy and independence; sometimes it seems they aren’t interested in them at all.
They approach raising their children and their relationship with them in a spirit of partnership from the earliest years.
The first years of raising children are hard for them; later they quickly build partnership-based, friendly relationships with their children.
They spend a lot of time either at work or pursuing their own hobbies. They lead a lifestyle in which they are rarely at home.
They get irritated quickly when children nearby want something, especially when they are busy with their own affairs.
They say of themselves that they don’t like children, except their own.
What to do to satisfy a strong need for family?
Such employees will strongly emphasise work-life balance. They want to spend time with their families and will be reluctant to work overtime or take work home. Any overtime will cause them great discomfort, and afterwards they will try to make up for their absence to their children. At work they like to have something that reminds them of their family and children (photos, children’s drawings). They will be motivated by work in which they don’t have to choose between, say, an ambitious project and a planned holiday with the kids. They will also choose work in which they can plan childcare and don’t have to leave their children with their grandparents or at nursery all day. Frequent and long business trips, overtime, work calls in their private time or a ban on “sorting something out” for the family during working hours will demotivate them. They will value flexible working hours, which in their vocabulary means, for example, popping out of work to see a nursery performance.
What to do to satisfy a low need for family?
At work such people are happy to take on activities that have nothing to do with children or contact with them. They will avoid family picnics, children’s days and the like. They will be happy to spend time on business trips, especially to interesting places. They will value flexible working hours, which in their vocabulary may mean sleeping late, working late or finishing early on Friday for a long weekend. In stressful situations they will seek isolation, to be as far away from children as possible.
How do people who need family see those who don’t?
People with a strong need for family consider themselves caring, responsible and loving towards their family. These are the people who say that “family is the most important thing” and that “children are our future”. They look at people with a low need for family as irresponsible egoists devoid of deeper emotions. They believe such people will remain alone, with no one to bring them the proverbial glass of water in old age, and that their lives lack purpose.
On the other hand, people with a low need for family prefer to think of themselves as independent, free-willed and autonomous, with partnership-based relationships with their family and children. They look at people with a strong need for family as self-sacrificing and overburdened. They think they are inflexible and tense and have a low quality of life, like “life on a treadmill”.
A need or value is not a competency.
Whether or not family is important to us doesn’t automatically mean we are good parents. Parenting has to be learned, regardless of one’s values.
