Family Rituals

Many American families can boast of certain rituals centered around traditional occasions, usually holidays. To family members, such small acts seem unremarkable; sometimes, talking about them, they cannot pinpoint when or why the custom began. But social scientists believe that as family life tends to become increasingly fragmented, such repeated ceremonies play a significant role in creating and strengthening our sense of emotional security. Jay Schvaneveldt, a sociologist at Utah State University who has studied hundreds of families, points out that families with the strongest ties have the most rituals. "They are important not so much for whatever is actually said or done," he says, "but for the results they yield—the sense of 'we-ness' that grows out of shared experience. More than anything, the ritual is a symbol of how family members feel about one another."

There are numerous manifestations of this custom. At Christmas, for example, many families have special ways of exchanging gifts: "We sit in a circle and take turns opening one present at a time ... " Or: "The children get one package to open on Christmas Eve, and it's always a pair of pajamas."

Thanksgiving and birthday rituals usually center around food: "It wouldn't be Thanksgiving if Aunt Grace didn't bring her blueberry pie." Or: "Whoever's birthday it is has the privilege of choosing the menu for the entire dinner." Other ritualized occasions include family reunions, Sunday prayers, and July Fourth picnics.

But family rituals are just as likely to grow out of spontaneous or chance events. One woman, without realizing it, started a ritual when she and her husband made a list of their household possessions for a fire-insurance policy. "When the job was done I said, 'Well, we know what things we have, but what about intangibles or abstract things?' So we made another list of qualities like love, trust, good health, a sense of humor—what we call our happiness inventory. Now once a year we review it and try to add an item or two to it."

According to Professor Schvaneveldt, family rituals serve several basic purposes:

Firstly, they reinforce family closeness. A friend of mine prizes the memory of a childhood event that took place each year on the first warm April Sunday: "My dad would go out in the yard? breathe in deeply, and say, 'It looks like spring is here at last.' Then I knew that it was the day for our spring hike. We'd pack a lunch and head out into the countryside. We didn't do anything different on that hike than on others we took during the year, but it was the idea—the first hike of the season, just Dad and me—that made it special."

Secondly, rituals also help newcomers feel part of the family group. The late sociologist, James Bossard, told of a couple who began the custom of reading the poem "The Night Before Christmas" on Christmas Eve when their first child was three years old. The custom continued with a second daughter and became an essential part of the holiday. Later, the girls' fiances and husbands were included in the ceremony. Eventually, the couple's close friends and three grandchildren also gathered each year for the reading.

Finally, if wisely cultivated, rituals provide the sense of continuity, understanding, and love that strengthens family closeness. As one woman put it: "Rituals are family keepsakes that live in your heart."