Little Family, Big Values: Lessons in Love, Respect, and Understanding for Families of Any Size - Softcover

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The Roloff Family lives on Roloff Farms, just outside Portland, Oregon. They can be seen on the TLC television show Little People, Big World.

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Introduction

The Meaning of "Roloff Family Values"

If you were to travel west out of Portland, Oregon, and through some beautiful, gently rolling hills, you might find yourself on a thirty-four-acre farm called Roloff Farms.

That is our home and the home of our four children as well as an assortment of animals we keep as pets or livestock. It's also the site of a complete three-quarters-scale western town, a pirate ship on a pond, a three-story tree house, an almost full-sized medieval castle, a big pumpkin patch, one of the biggest zip lines in North America, and other projects we've either completed or have on the drawing board.

If you've had a chance to see the Learning Channel's "reality" television show Little People, Big World, then you have at least a little bit of a picture of what the farm looks like -- and what we, the family living on it, look like too. You know that my wife, Amy, and I are little people -- more commonly referred to as individuals with dwarfism -- living a busy life of work, running our home and farm, and most important, raising our children.

One of the many results of doing the show is that we receive literally thousands of viewer e-mails every week asking us everything from what it's like to be small in a tall world to what kind of reactions we get from people when they first see us. But the question we're asked most often is what makes our family tick, how our mutual love, respect, and understanding have brought us beyond our differences to form a powerful family bond.

Those values are what this book is all about.

Our family -- as varied as it is -- works so well because Amy and I have had instilled in us by loving parents on both sides a set of family values, which we've built on and in turn instilled in our own kids. As a result, we now have our own set of family values, which we'll get into. Before we launch into our individual and collective beliefs, I'd like to introduce myself and my family for those who haven't come to know us through the show Little People, Big World.

The Story of Our Family

I was born a diastrophic dwarf, meaning that I am not only short in height -- just over four feet -- but I also have severe problems in my legs, knees, hips, shoulders, arms, and the rest of my body. My joints, my hands, and my feet are all visibly deformed. The list goes on and on.

All these physical problems led to a childhood spent in hospitals, either receiving corrective surgeries (some of which helped, some of which didn't) or recovering from them. In addition to those hospital stays (nearly two years combined), I spent more months than my family can count at home in braces and casts and recovering from my many surgeries. The physical problems have also led to a situation where it is impossible for me to stand up straight or walk without the aid of crutches.

Amy is also a little person, but her condition is different from mine and not nearly as severe. Her genetic condition is known in medical terms as achondroplasia, which is another cause of dwarfism but one that doesn't carry with it nearly as many of the complications as I've dealt with all my life. For the most part, Amy physically leads a fairly normal life in which she is active and even coaches our son's youth soccer team. For several years, she held the difficult but rewarding job of being a stay-at-home mom. However, in the past few years she has started working outside the home -- part-time for a local youth soccer club and also as a preschool teacher.

We have been married for nineteen years, and we are the proud, happy parents of four children, the oldest of which are our twin boys, Zachary and Jeremy, who were born in 1990. We also have a daughter named Molly, who was born in 1993, and another son named Jacob, who was born in 1996.

Now, we know the question most people who don't know us would ask, and the answer is "No, not all of our children have dwarfism." While dwarfism of all kinds is a genetic condition that can and does run in families (for example, my brother Sam is also a little person), little people are very often the parents of average-sized children, and we have three of our own.

Our son Zachary, who is two feet shorter than his twin brother, Jeremy, is the third little person in our family, making it a 3-3 tie between little people and average-sized people in our home. Zach's condition is the same as Amy's, meaning that he is relatively healthy.

The other two members of our family appearing on the show are my parents, Ron and Peggy Roloff, who have also contributed some of their thoughts to this book. As you will see as you read on, my parents are remarkable people.

My father is a tough but tender ex-Marine who instilled in me many of the values we've listed in this book. He is a man of incredible compassion, strength, and faith who knows what he believes in and why he believes it. He is also the perfect complement to Mom, who came from a background of comfort and ease only to take on the incredibly difficult job of raising four children, three of whom during certain points in their young lives required almost constant care and attention. Mom is a sweet but strong woman who could offer an encouraging smile while at the same time offering challenging words for children who needed to be strong to endure the pain of many major surgeries and countless hours of excruciating recovery and rehabilitation.

We are the Roloffs, and what follow are the values that make our family -- which we admit is completely different from anything you've ever seen -- what it is today.

Defining "Family Values"

Right from the start, there are some things we want you to know about us -- namely things we don't claim to know or to be.

First, we are not counselors or experts who have this whole family values thing figured out. While we believe that the values you will read about in this book are all positive and helpful when it comes to family life, we don't by any means believe we have all the answers. In fact, sometimes we find ourselves drifting from those things we consider our most important family values. Like most families, we are learning and adjusting as we move along in life.

Second, though we have a happy, loving family in which our children are so far growing up to be well-balanced people, we aren't perfect by any definition of the word. As husband and wife and as parents, Amy and I have our share of conflicts, disagreements, and arguments. And our children, as much as we love them and would do anything for their well-being, aren't without their flaws either. At times, they argue with one another and demonstrate attitudes and actions that aren't as loving and supportive to one another as we would like.

In other words, we are, in most ways, just like any other family. Where we differ from other families with our physical challenges has given us more tests of our love and endurance than many, but that has served only to draw us closer to each other than ever. So underneath the surface challenges to our family lies a tremendous amount of love and support for one another. While there are times when it might not seem as though certain members of the family like each other, there is never a moment when they don't have love for one another.

Our family values are those things that are collectively important to us when it comes to living a good life. They are the things that we as parents feel are important to teach, instill, and be examples of when it comes to raising our children. They are the things that we hope our children will take with them when they are grown up and moving away from home to go to college, start their own careers, get married, and have children of their own.

Amy and I agree on the...