The Middlesteins, Essay Example

Food is an important facet of life, a reality that is underscored Jami Attenberg’s novel entitled The Middlesteins. Attenberg argues that the lifestyle adopted by the Middlesteins, a suburban, American-Jewish family, indeed mirrors how suburban, American families currently live. Food has become such a salient issue due to its ubiquity: McDonald’s line shopping malls and plazas, and elegant dessert bars are featured at b’nei mitzvahs in which people can make their sundaes or indulge at the chocolate fountain.     Today people eat foods to fill emotion voids in their lives. A good example is Edie, the matriarch of the family who is both a political activist and lawyer enjoys eating when faced with stress.  Food has become much more than just a temptation. Families remain an integral part of one’s life. Families should be firm and yet flexible towards change (Nydia, n.d., 305). A family should always be ready to change their ways of life once in a while to be able to accommodate changes that may occur among the family members. For example, adolescents are known to display various behaviours and emotions that need accommodation by the family (Nydia, n.d., 307).  In this case, Edie’s family need to make rules that will accommodate Edie’s behaviour and work on trying to change her eating behavior.

Food plays significant roles in the modern society. Its functions are profoundly influenced by family systems, which impact on people’s eating habits. For example, for the case of Edie, who eats a lot her behaviour can be associated with her family’s feedback. Feedback is defined as a family’s reaction towards a particular action, which can either be positive or negative (Feedback vs Feedback Loops, n.d., 1). In this case, Edie’s family is supportive as it allows Edie to continue feeding excessively. Even though she continues to eat with no serious repercussions within the family. Her family continues to condone this animalistic and obsession with consuming food. As her life continues to change and her most reliable comfort remains in consuming large amounts of food.

Family systems theory offers a paradigm that helps explain why people eat the way the way they do. The family systems theory says that family highly affects the kind of life that people live. In adapting the approach, one can be able to justify Edie’s actions and why she developed specific issues about an abnormal eating pathology. Food provides people with solace and as a result, contributing to uncontrollable emotions, food becomes a wonderful refuge for people to solve their problems. Although being morbidly obese can be a problem emanating from excess eating, individuals may choose to eat to deal with antipathy, which results in complicated personality. For example, in one instance, Edie gets into a fight with her family while at McDonald’s and steals her progeny’s food and expresses her desire to run away and be alone with her McRib sandwich so that she could rapidly consume it (Farrell, 2015, 5). Edie’s children witnessed such behaviours, causing Robin to turn to alcohol as a coping mechanism subsequently. Coping thus unequivocally becomes a major issue among humans. From a family systems perspective, coping emerges as a process rather than an outcome. Since the family is a complex and enmeshed system, coping is not created but rather progressively changes over time and involves managing a vast array of domains in family life at the same time.

Self-differentiation is evident in the book. Self-differentiation is where one can work independently and remain emotionally attached to the family (“So How are these Connected Again?”, n.d., 1). Edie can eat independently and remain attached to the family. Even though she still conflicts with the family, she always depends on the family for food. As a result of her weight, Eddie’s professional life falls apart, as she was forced to retire after being given a pension, and they do so to cover up the fact that they asked her to retire because of the problems related to her weight. Possible explanations are offered for why Edie uses food to hide from her issues, many of which germinate out of her decision to get married and raise a family. From the situation, one can learn that families need to keep a family chronology to keep track of family events (Critical life events, n.d., 82). This would be efficient in the case of Eddie’s family to be able to rectify her eating behaviour.

Families often evolve a lot as they go through various stages that can otherwise be modelled into a family life cycle. Families are often faced with stressors related to positive and negative events (Bush, n.d., 1). Bush et al. feel that family’s perception of a situation is the major determiner change when one is faced with stress.  Eddie’s family has hit the stage of families in middle years, where children are already grown up and married leaving their parents to rethink about the experiences that they have had to raise them. According to Duvall (1957), food can be a source of family problems. At this juncture, each member of Edie’s family is being impacted by forces emanating from both individual and family functioning. In any case, the behaviour of one member of their family has far-reaching consequences to the lives and choices of others because though the children are already out of the house and married, they still are connected to their parents (“So How are these Connected Again?”, n.d., 1). Both Robin and Rachelle are in the stage of childbearing families, and family drama has a significant impact on their life choices since they are yet to gain stability in their new families. Therefore, it is the interconnectivity of family and individual lives that comes out as an essential aspect of the lives of the characters in the story The Middlesteins.

The multi contextual lifecycle framework argues that human development is rooted in the family (Multicontextual Life Cycle Framework, n.d., 2). The author of this article feels that stress and dysfunctions are part and parcel of families. For example, the decision by Richard to abandon his wife, Edie, can be associated with multi contextual lifecycle framework, which shows some of the problems facing families.  At the stage of childbearing families, Richard’s children need a proper example of how people tolerate the many issues that are often encountered by young families. They lack the example from their dad, who ditches their overweight and ailing mother. Robin turns into perpetual alcoholism, and Rachelle becomes a weirdo, almost developing the constant eating habits of her mother only that she takes an opposite direction. She is more cautious of her eating habits because she sees her mother being abandoned by their father as a result of her unhealthy eating habits. She does not want her husband to leave her in the future because of overweight conditions. The choices made by Edie and Richard are affecting the entire family of The Middlesteins.

In conclusion, it is evident that family system theory and the framework are interconnected in a family life cycle model. Families evolve, and as they do, individual decisions tend to impact them. This is evident with Edie, who is always feeding as a way to overcome her feelings. Food is an essential facet of the family ties. However, persons like Edie need to work on their attachment to food as they may end up ailing from the high food intake.

References

Attenberg, J. (2013). De Middlesteins. JM Meulenhoff.

Bush, K., Price, C., Price, C. and McKenry, P. (n.d.). Families coping with change: A Conceptual Overview. Chapter 1.

Critical life events. (n.d.). Tracking Family Patterns Through Time and space.

Contois, E. (2013). Latest Posts. Public Health/Nutrition.

Duvall. (1957). Traditional Family Life Cycle [PDF Document].

Farrell, A. E. (2015). ‘“When I Was Growing Up My Mother Cooked Dinner Every Single Day”: Fat Stigma and the Significance of Motherblame in the Contemporary United States. Body Politics–Zeitschrift für Körpergeschichte.

Feedback Vs. Feedback Loops. (n.d.). Feedback Loops [PDF Documents].

McGoldrick, M., Gerson, R., & Petry, S. S. (2008). Genograms: Assessment and intervention.      WW Norton & Company.

Multicontextual Life Cycle Framework. (n.d.). Multicontextual Life Cycle Framework & Assumptions [PDF Document].

Nydia, G. (n.d.). The Transformation of the Family System during Adolescence. Chapter 16. “So How are these Connected Again?”. (n.d.). Differentiation Summary Slide [PDF Document].

Roller Coaster Model of Family Crisis. (n.d.). Family Crisis [PDF Document].