The traditional family table is round. No corners. No sides. No head. No tail. Everything is smooth. The food is in the center, and each family member reaches over the same distance. Someone you love is next to you on each side, and no one is last or at the end. The person farthest away from you is also the person facing you.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes equality and unity within the family structure, where everyone is valued equally.
Deng Ming-Dao's quote about the traditional family table illustrates the ideals of love, connection, and togetherness that characterize a cohesive family unit. By describing the table as round, it symbolizes that every family member has an equal place and importance, fostering an environment where love is shared equally without hierarchy. This image of a smooth table, devoid of corners and sides, reinforces the notion that family relationships are built on mutual respect, support, and closeness, ensuring no one feels isolated or neglected.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of family values during a community gathering.
Real mothers don't just listen with humble embarrassment to the elderly lady who offers unsolicited advice in the checkout line when a child is throwing a tantrum. We take the child, dump him in the lady's cart, and say, "Great. Maybe you can do a better job." Real mothers know that it's okay to eat cold pizza for breakfast. Real mothers admit it is easier to fail at this job than to succeed.
Fatherhood is the best thing I ever did. It changes your perspective. You can write a book, you can make a movie, you can paint a painting, but having kids is really the most extraordinary thing I have taken on.
The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.
My mother's rules had to do with feminine deportment, so I never played hard enough to break a toy or muddy my dress. My father's rules had to do with never shaming the family by even a hint of scandal, and not providing business rivals with an opportunity to kidnap me or throw acid in my face.
When you leave them in the morning, they stick their nose in the door crack and stand there like a portrait until you turn the key eight hours later.
As we go through life, even through very rough waters, a father's instinctive impulse to cling tightly to his wife or to his children may not be the best way to accomplish his objective. Instead, if he will lovingly cling to the Savior and the iron rod of the gospel, his family will want to cling to him and to the Savior.
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