Nurturing vs Enmeshed

Last night, Beth and I were watching Nanny 911. A family with 6 boys. The father would cuddle with each (4?) of the older boys and the mom would do the same with the youngest until they fell asleep each night. The dad was a good guy and sincerely believed he was helping them by making sure they felt nurtured, loved and safe. The mom wanted to do the right thing, but knew something was twisted. In reality, as the Nanny helped him discover, he was really reacting in some way to his past and doing this out of selfish need of his own. The Nanny hit the nail on the head. He was in fact making them fell much secure only when he was with them, and they felt incredibly insecure the rest of the time.

Mike Cope had an excellent post related to this, where he describes the difference between nurturing families and enmeshed families. Many good comments along with the post. It's worth a read.

Mike defines the two types of families like this:

"A nurturing family is one that empowers family members to have a strong sense of self. Children are loved and drawn into the nurturing center of the family--but without losing their sense of self and outward mission.

In an enmeshed family, children are loved and drawn into the center--but often at the expense of their sense of self and outward mission."

I started thinking that church families model these same two types of behaviors. At least there appeared to be some similarities while Beth and I were visiting various groups of believers over the last couple of years. Still thinking about that.