Copperhead Road & Family of Origin

Have you ever flown anywhere for a vacation? Isn’t it interesting how you have to analyze what you pack when you fly in a way that is totally different that how you pack when you are traveling by automobile? The bag that seemed light at home can get very heavy after lugging it through the airport terminal.

The same is true in our relational abilities? We learn from our parents and grandparents what a marriage should look like. It does not matter that is the right picture or not, it is the one we believe because it is what we were taught and saw modeled for us.

In 1988 Steve Earle wrote a song called Copperhead Road. The singer tells of his grandfather and father making and selling moonshine. After serving in Vietnam, he comes home to alter the family tradition a bit. He begins growing marijuana. Now, I am not approving of moonshine or illicit drug use, I am only making a point. This song is above all things a song about family systems. The main character learned his behavior from his father and grandfather. He learned to sell illegal substances and disrespect authority from his family of origin.

Each of us carries “baggage” into our marriage and dating relationships. This baggage comes from what our family “taught us.” Why not take an honest look at the preconceptions you bring to your most intimate of relationships and ask: “What should I keep? What should I jettison?”

When it comes to relationships, what has your family taught you? What have the families of those we serve taught them? In all honesty, there are things we learned from our family about relationships that are good, wholesome, healthy, and worth keeping. Discover them; name them; keep them. Perhaps even improve upon them.

However, there are those items we “learned from our family” that are just plain wrong, unproductive and in many cases unhealthy. Likewise identify them; name them; then begin the process of eliminating them from your repertoire of relationship behaviors. Those “bags” can get very heavy if you carry them for year after year after year. Maybe they need to be repacked so as to lighten the load.