I keep forgetting to blog about this...

There's a section in the Flow book about family relationships.  Czikszentmihalyi says that the unconditional acceptance we feel from our family gives us the courage to venture forward, to test our limits.  It enables us to explore our world without fear.  However, unconditional acceptance means nothing without attention.  Family, like any other undertaking, is successful only with investments of psychic energy.  If we don't pay attention, then our acceptance is nothing more than an empty gesture.

We sometimes think that homelife takes care of itself.  If we are faithful and kind, if we put food on the table and clothes on our children's backs, if we as children get good grades and don't get into any trouble, then our families should be ok.  But to actually be interested in each other, ah, that's something else entirely.  If we find each other's stories tiresome, if we don't care to listen or listen with far too many judgments, then the relationship is formalistic, not substantive.

A good home life requires both acceptance and attention.  To my mind, the latter is much harder to provide.