Keep it in the family

28th March 2025

The run from the Christmas break through to Easter is always a challenging period. It all feels a little different this year with the false Easter but the break will be welcome. I know that not all of you will be able to take the full two weeks but you will all get some time. I do know that many of us will take the opportunity to get away as the prices for flights, accommodations or packages – home and abroad – may well be a little cheaper; it seems that the rest of the country doesn’t break for Easter for a week or two – which makes sense. However we got to this, the break is welcome and, if you are going away, any savings that you’ve made will also be welcome.

I should take the opportunity to offer an early Eid Mubarak to our families and friends who will come to the end of the holy month of Ramadan and be able to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, either Sunday or Monday. It’s been a tough month, as it always is and as it should be. Those of you who have successfully made it through this period will be looking forward to some time with family and friends and celebrating, after the necessary time for reflection. Eid al-Fitr is a joyous time and at the heart of the celebrations will be a focus on family. Alongside the joy will be a reflection on faith, forgiveness and charity.

I take time to reflect upon the importance of community, through these messages. In doing so I guess that sometimes I am taking the messages about the importance of family for granted – maybe I really shouldn’t do that. I think it’s time to just reflect upon the importance of family to us all. In doing so I recognise that not all of us have functioning families, those strong networks around us. I also want to recognise that in discussing family we should note that the concept, view, image, perception of family can and does make many forms. It’s true that there are so many people who hold onto relationships, labelling them as family, when in the past those individual relationships may well have been sneered at or dismissed. We all have the right to define family in our way, identifying those who can play the role of a caring and sharing family member or group.

However we define family, wherever we draw our boundaries, we can all recognise what a familial construct offers us. We all need relationships, however fraught or frayed they can become at times, where there is a degree of unconditionality. Whatever we do, however we conduct ourselves there will be someone, some people, who will always offer that support (and challenge) whatever the circumstances or times. Typically, the longest relationship we will have in our lives will be with family members (especially brothers and sisters). As with every relationship in life those connections need nurturing, need care, need attention and need patience.

We, working in schools, in college, also reflect upon how we can become extensions of families; be that for our children and young people, or be that for adults. We all spend so much time together, occasionally through times of real stress and emotion. Consequently, bonds will form, relationships will develop and some concept of family may emerge. If the longest relationship you are likely to have is with a family member, the most regular and, occasionally, intense relationship you might have is with someone, or as part of a group, at school or college.

And so, as our Muslim family, friends and colleagues will invest in family in the coming days, be kind to your family, find joy in spending time in the company of family members, however you define your family.

Back to the Future?

‘Family is not an important thing. It’s everything’. Michael J. Fox