President's Report: A letter from the new NCFR president

by William D. Allen, Ph.D., LMFT, NCFR President
NCFR Report
Content Area
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

I'm writing this article on the day we celebrate the Martin Luther King, Jr., holiday, and have been thinking about what Dr. King used to refer to as the "beloved community." In using that phrase he was not limiting himself to the civil rights struggles of the day. He envisioned a hypothetical community of diverse interests guided by a unifying set of goals and values. He made a point of basing this community on so-called "agape" love; love that supported and honored all people—not just the oppressed, but also the oppressors; not just our friends, but those we perceive to be our enemies. In his view, the community could not be built by "discriminating between worthy and unworthy people." It could only spring from the mutual embrace of our shared humanity. It was, and continues to be a bold but elusive concept.

Like many of you, I consider NCFR to be my professional home. It is the organization that best represents my interests in families of all kinds, and I feel the members share my passion for supporting family relationships. I often think that my ideal for NCFR is that it be a "beloved community," where our diverse professional and personal backgrounds come together in a multidisciplinary forum committed to the mission of family research, education, and practice.

Of course, we don't always live up to our ideals. Part of the problem we face in doing so is that we swim in a sea of discontent. All around us are pressures to disagree with each other, use our differences as the basis for demonizing each other and, at worst, dehumanizing each other. And the problem is not confined to any one nation, generation, gender, socioeconomic class, or any other conceivable demographic that I can think of. The temptation to factionalize affects families, communities and, yes, even organizations like NCFR.

Those of us who care deeply about families know a lot about what makes them work and how to support them, but we still have so much more to learn as families continue to evolve. No single family scientist or group of scientists has the corner on what is right for all families. No single method or approach to understanding families is universally effective in clarifying the lives or the needs of all families. No single family experience has greater or lesser intrinsic value than any other. All of this should be self-evident given the astonishing variety of family experiences.

At the community of faith that I happen to belong to, we often close together with the saying "Take a look at the people around you; you are going to need these people on your journey." It always reminds me that whatever differences I may think I have with the other members, we share much more that binds us together. That is the beloved community that Dr. King was encouraging us to build and maintain, and the kind of organization I hope NCFR can become for all its members—a place where we can disagree about means, methods, or even priorities but stay united in mutual support of our goals. That may not be easy to do at times, and given the current sociopolitical climate it may feel hopelessly naïve if not impossible. But that, my friends, is what I believe we must do. Family science and the families we are committed to serving are depending on it.

Stay well,

Bill Allen