Family Resilience: Similarities and Differences between Louisiana and Irish Families

M. E. Betsy Garrison, Diane D. Sasser, Robin Knowles, and Rebecca E. White

Louisiana State University Agricultural Center

In family science, resilience has been defined as the ability of a family to recover or bounce back from adversity (Boss, 2002, p. 75). Families who 'struggle well' and become resilient do so through nine key processes that "can reduce stress and vulnerability in high-risk situations, foster healing and growth out of crisis, and empower families to overcome persistent adversity" (Walsh, 2003, p. 405). These key processes are divided into three categories of family functioning: belief systems, organizational patterns, and communication processes. They include: economic and social resources, collaborative problem solving, flexibility, open emotional expression, and transcendence and spirituality. As residents of the Gulf Coast region of the U. S., we have been studying family resilience in the context of a natural disaster. The purpose of our paper is to compare and contrast what we have learned about resilience from Louisiana families who survived Hurricane Katrina to Irish families who survived the human-made trauma of "the Troubles."

Historically the hostility between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland (often referred to as "The Troubles") began as early as 1536 when Henry VIII was declared the Supreme Head of the Church in Ireland (Holloway, 2005). In searching for information on the Troubles there are many and varied views, of course, on the conflicts. Other accounts of the Troubles consider the conflict in Northern Ireland as beginning approximately 30 years ago (Kaptur & Campbell, 2002). Regardless of the source, almost all agree that in Northern Ireland all aspects of political, social, and religious life are closely entangled. There is as a result an intimate and historically deep rooted relationship among church, government and families and one that includes terrorism and war and has heavy political and social overtones. Irish families, in turn, have been profoundly affected as written very movingly by Fields (1973) and to a lesser extent Raven et al. (1976).

Our research project began several months following Hurricane Katrina when families who had sustained moderate to severe property damage and who had returned to Southern Louisiana were solicited to participate in our study. Structured in-depth interviews were conducted between February and April 2006. Our original sample comprised 50 respondents living in St. Tammany parish. The findings reported here are from 13 of these families whose scores from the Loss of Resources inventory (Sattler, 2002) were the highest among the larger group. Most of our respondents (85%) were married, middle-aged (mean = 44) women who were either Caucasian (62%) or African American (39%); and half of the respondents reported that their family income was below $40,000.

Several dimensions of Walsh’s (2003) family resilience framework were salient to our participants. Economic and social resources helped some families to recover and rebuild more quickly than other families in the area. Collaborative problem solving is apparent in reports from families who "discussed how we could get some things done" and "helped each other put our houses back together." Flexibility was displayed by families who expressed their "pulling ourselves up by the bootstraps" philosophies. Spirituality appeared to play an important role. Only one family did not attribute their success in recovery in part to their belief in a higher power. Almost all the families indicated increased communication as a silver lining post-Katrina. Open emotional expression sometimes made for hard feelings among families as they worked through their difficulties. In most cases the anger eventually gave way to acceptance. However, one family appeared to be driven apart by their lack of emotional expression. The spouses in this case were at odds with how each was handling the crisis. While the wife appeared ready to move forward, the husband in the wife’s perspective seemed to sink deep into despair.

In a few cases, family’s perceptions of what they expected from their communities and government held them back from being able to recover. Some families lost family members during the storm contributing to their sadness. Other had their livelihood taken away as a result of the storm and were therefore left with few financial resources. Lack of housing after the disaster caused several families to be scattered across the state or even across the country. An inability to concentrate caused one woman to wreck her car after the storm. Paranoia, depression, grief, sadness, financial loss, unhappy children, indecisions, neighborhood thefts, daily hassles of finding new doctors, driving farther away for a local post office or grocery store and lack of return of neighborhoods were reported by families as stumbling blocks to their families’ recovery.

Although there is a vast difference between the Troubles and hurricanes, one being acts of terrorism and the other acts of nature, similarities and differences can be noted (Table 1). Fear and anger are common reactions in crisis regardless of its source. Both in the coastal Louisiana and in Northern Ireland people were killed, injured, and traumatized. Residents of Northern Ireland lived their daily lives in fear while residents of coastal Louisiana experienced that fear primarily during hurricane season. For families of both countries, religion and politics are featured prominently in their recovery, albeit for different reasons and varying degrees.

For several families in the St. Tammany Parish area of Louisiana, politics and the government (local, state and federal) was perceived as the barrier to (a) their escape from the storms, (b) the fault behind the levee breaches, (c) the hindrance to recovery, and (d) the obstacle to families returning to the area. There was an "us" and "them" perception separating individuals and families who suffered from the disasters from those individuals in government who made the decisions about the lives of the survivors of the hurricane. In addition, religion played a role as an important coping strategy for many and was considered an aspect of life separate from the political system.

In Northern Ireland politics and religion are so entwined that the two cannot be easily separated. In extreme cases individuals experienced paranoia about brainwashing, disinformation, or the next planned attacked (Fields, 1973; Kaptur & Campbell, 2002). As time elapsed, those who experienced the first hand Troubles have more definitive opinions about trust and political involvement while younger cohorts who are more removed from the experience may be more ambiguous about politics and therefore religion (Whyte & Schermbrucker, 2004). While parents had some influence over their children’s views of the Troubles, Whyte and Schermbrucker (2004) identified personal experiences as more likely to control children’s views of politics and religion. It appears that time away from the actual experiences may lessens the impact of a crisis. These findings, while not necessarily generalizable to the U. S., or for that matter Louisiana, may still have implications for future generations of citizens who did not experience a disaster, such as Hurricane Katrina. Parents may influence their children’s views on the cause of the levee breaches and the root of the problems related to the slow recovery of families in the St. Tammany parish area, but those views may change over time and with children’s future experiences.

Based on our research, we would like to raise the following questions with the Irish families whom we meet.

1. What aspects of your family life were most affected by the Troubles?

2. Did any aspects of your family life improve?

3. What do you wish someone who wanted to help could have done for you? What kind of social or emotional support could you have used?

4. What was considered normal before the Troubles, and what is considered normal now?

5. If you could make a single statement that would describe what the Troubles did to families, what would that be?

The following is a list of possible discussion questions during a fireside chat.

1. Since Hurricane Katrina (and for that matter Rita), our primary maxim as dual residents of the U. S. Gulf Coast and family scholars has been that "one size doesn’t fit all." Do you think that this mantra is true for Irish families? Why or Why not?

2. Another one of our maxims is "life doesn’t stop just because you’ve survived a disaster."

In the continued aftermath of Katrina, the construct of pile up from the family stress literature has been particularly salient for us. Did you observe or hear about Irish families coping simultaneously with disaster and non-disaster stressful events? How do you think Irish families would respond to inquiries about pile up?

3. Our last maxim is "do no harm." For some families, helping professionals may need to step aside after basic needs, food, clothing and shelter, have been met and give parents a chance to parent without intervention. Did you observe or hear about situations with Irish families in which helping professionals may have actually inhibited recovery?

In conclusion, we welcome your input about our work. In particular, we invite you to submit two types of questions to us, (1) ones to pose to those families we meet while we are in Ireland and (2) ones to discuss during the fireside chat. You may send your questions to Betsy Garrison at hcgarr@lsu.edu. We look forward to hearing from you.

References

Boss, P. (2002). Family stress management: A contextual approach. (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Fields, R. M. (1973). A society on the run: A psychology of Northern Ireland. Baltimore: Penguin Books.

Holloway, D. (2005). Understanding the Northern Ireland Conflict (internet retrieval August 6, 2007 at http://www.communitydialogue.org/).

Kapur, R. & Campbell, J. (2002). The troubled mind of northern Ireland: Social care object relations theory and political conflict. Journal of Social Work Practice, 16(1), 67-76.

Raven, J., Whelan, C. T., Pfretzschner, P.A., & Borock, D. M. (1976). Political Culture in Ireland. Dublin: Institute of Public Administration

Sattler, D. (2002). El Salvador Earthquakes: Resource Loss, Traumatic Event Exposure, and Psychological Functioning. Quick Response Research Report #160. Boulder, CO: Natural Hazards Research and Applications Information Center, University of Colorado. URL: http://www.colorado.edu/hazards/qr/qr160/qr160.html.

Walsh, F. (2003). Family resilience: Strengths forged through adversity. In F. Walsh (Ed.), Normal Family Processes (3rd ed.) (pp. 399-423), New York: Guildford Press.

Whyte, J. & Schermbrucker, I. (2004). Young people and political involvement in northern Ireland. Journal of Social Issues, 60, 603-627.

Table 1. Louisiana families after natural disasters and Irish families after the Troubles