For week three of the SYL12 challenge we had to make a family mission statement. I thought about doing two- one for me and one for our family as ultimately I am writing them but for now I have only written one for our family. My personal core values were love, growth. authenticity, happiness and balance and I spent the week talking with Shun to help him try and define his core values and also talk through some of the questions that Deb posed to use for helping us to write our statements. Shun`s values were family, service, laughter/fun and freedom.
We talked about what was important to us and also what we enjoyed most about 2011. Funnily enough we shared some of the same things as our “happy” moments and that was nice to find out. We decided that as a family we are best when we all together but away from distractions like computers/internet/phones and worst when we are tired. We talked about what would be our perfect day and are planning some more family days on the weekend days that I do not have work. Shun & I realized that we spend some much time on and with the kids that we also need to remember to carve out time for ourselves as a couple but find that we are both so exhausted a lot of the time that we prefer to do our own things when the boys are sleeping. We have made a deal to spend more time just the two of us a couple of times a week even if it is just watching a movie together, playing a card game or trying to get out and eat a meal together just the two of us.
We spoke a lot about how we want to raise the boys- what qualities we want to ensure they have and what sorts of things we want for them. In the end we came to the conclusion that what we really want to offer them is support and guidance but ultimately we want them to learn to make their own choices as well. We know that with the boys being so close in age that there might be a lot of competitiveness in their future and we need to work towards making sure that each of them knows that they are special no matter what and that it doesn`t matter if one of them is better at something over the other or vice versa. Each will develop their own talents and interests.
We spoke about our positive and negative qualities. I am very social, organized and take care good care of the family and house {and Shun learnt the word “clean freak”} but have a hot temper and can get annoyed easily. Shun is very easy-going, laid-back and relaxed but can be quite lazy and while he always enjoys himself if we do something as a family outside of the house it is sometimes hard to get him going and motivated.
While we had the boys in mind when we talked about things we could not include them in our conversations because of their ages. I hope we can do this exercise again in 3-4 years so that we can come up with another family mission statement that reflects the thoughts and desires of all four of us.
Family Mission Statement
Our family mission is to talk more, yell less, be positive, support each other, always make time for each other and have fun together. Our goal is to be happy as a whole and also to continue to grow as individuals, as a couple and as a family. We will be honest with each other and with ourselves. We will always try to put each other first and work together to find balance, tolerance, and respect for each other. We will acknowledge that we are each individuals with different things we can offer to each other, to our extended family and community.
We will focus on the good and not the bad and try to remember that when days go pear shaped that tomorrow is another day. A new day. We will be grateful for each other and for what we have.
Each day we will laugh, share experiences, love and grow.
I really wanted to write the mission statement up to print out but haven`t gotten to it yet. Does anyone know any good online programs that could do something like this for free? Where you could get the text image as a jpeg?
Most of our conversations were about this were in Japanese. We had to pull out the electronic dictionary on a couple of occasions which is something we have not needed to do much in recent years as Shun`s English got a bit better and my Japanese did also but it reminded us of when we first started dating and he spoke absolutely no English and my Japanese was limited the year or so I had been studying. We laughed about how we managed to communicate so well back then despite our language barriers and how far we have come!
Popularity: 2% [?]
. It does seem that in this area though that 50% of the mums I meet plan to send their kids to ritzy private elementary schools. I was asked recently if I was worried they wouldn`t be able to get into private junior high and high school if I didn`t send them to private elementary as well….must be getting more competitive. Shun & his brother went to private school from junior high even though they went to the local elementary school and they both got into private universities too. We would like to send the boys to private school from junior high but we are not 100% sure of that yet or anything {and have absolutely NO IDEA where!}
}…it is just that most mums I know seem to be able to do their own thing, at least a little bit, when their kid{s} are awake….I can`t even make a phone call or skype call without it resulting in a ton of mess to clean up and/or someone trying to climb all over me and/or screaming because their brother pushed/bit/kicked or stole something from them.
I am just a twenty something Aussie girl living in Chiba, Japan with my Japanese husband trying to make sense of the crazy Japanese world we live in! We welcomed our first son in December 2009 (Noah) and a second son in January 2011, 2 months premature (Shion). I am working hard at raising them to be confident, bilingual, happy kids!
