Living Your Values

Recently, Yvon Chouinard, the founder of Patagonia, decided he no longer wanted to be a billionaire. Instead, he decided to use his wildly successful company to combat climate change and protect undeveloped land worldwide. His values center around safeguarding the environment, after years of creating apparel for people to wear while enjoying that environment. His decision to give his company’s profits to agencies that will care for Mother Earth is inspiring to me. It also prompted me to home in on my values and make sure I am living in accordance with them.

Source: Kara Hoppe

Life can become so busy that we drift into automatic pilot, not giving too much thought to our values, let alone to living in fidelity with them. Many of our values come from our first family or from the culture we grew up in. We may have imbibed these values unconsciously. As adults, we may not have stopped to assess what all our values are; we just know that we have strong feelings about how things in life play out day to day.

This lack of clarity about values can be compounded if you’re in a relationship and you also don’t know all of your partner’s values. This can be even more challenging if you and your partner are operating out of conflicting values you’ve never discussed. And if you have a growing family, you can face a super-charged situation if you want to instill your values—but, wait a minute, what exactly are our values?—in your kids.

Examine the Values You Hold as a Family

Slowing down and engaging with your deeper self and identifying your values before you set out on a plan to live them can be a radical act of individuation. Clarifying and living in accordance with your values doesn’t have to be a grand-scale gesture—like that of Mr. Chouinard—for it to have a positive impact on your soul, your family, and the world around you.

These days, when you hear or read the term "family values," you may find yourself wincing. It may evoke uncomfortable thoughts about so-called traditional family values, whereby the nuclear family is the only valued structure, and within that structure, women stay home and men bring home the bacon. And it’s true: the term has been politicized and used to exclude some people and ways of living. I’d like us to reclaim it. Rather than using it to value one family structure over another, we can use it to refer to the set of values that bring your family into alignment—regardless of the size or the structure of your family.

Common core values for families include the following. Some of these may overlap with what you consider needs, while others may be more broadly defined as beliefs, principles, or standards.

• Lifelong learning
• Good physical and mental health
• Time together as a family / with your child
• Personal alone time / alone time as a couple
• A network of friends
• Extended family
• Travel
• Nature
• Religion/spirituality
• Loyalty
• Honesty
• Integrity
• Open-mindedness
• Hard work / financial success

Note that some common values may presuppose the privilege that allows you to even consider them. For example, the ability to travel long distances may be limited by your child’s age or a pandemic; where your child attends school may be driven by financial considerations. If you feel something you value is out of reach for you right now, dig deeper and ask what specifically you value about it. In the case of travel, you might value diverse cultural experiences. In the case of school choice, you might value lifelong learning. Use those deeper values to refine your list.

Claim Your Values

You can do this exercise (adapted from my book Baby Bomb) by yourself or together with a partner.

Step 1. Find a quiet time to ask yourself these questions:

• What is important to me in raising a child? Being a partner? Being a person in the world?
• Where did these values come from?
• Do I want to carry these values forward or do I want to reconsider any of them?

Step 2. From the values you identified in step 1, pick five you consider core family values. For each, answer the following questions:

• Do my partner and I share this family value?
• Did we consciously choose this family value?
• Does this value support our secure functioning as a family?
• Are we proud of this as our family value?
• Do we consistently act on this value in our family?

Environment Essential Reads

The Gift of Plants

Should Changing Your Environment Be Your New Year's Resolution?

Revisit Your Values

Values aren’t meant to be set in stone. As you learn and grow and change—both in the context of your family and of the larger society—your values are likely to reflect those changes. The same goes for your partner. Agreeing to engage in a regular, maybe even annual, reflection on your values can add depth, mutuality, and a sense of purpose to your family.