What is or is not Family?
fam·i·ly
[fam-uh-lee, fam-lee]
noun, plural fam·i·lies.
1.
a.
a basic social unit consisting of parents and their children, considered as a group, whether dwelling together or not: the traditional family.
b.
a social unit consisting of one or more adults together with the children they care for: a single-parent family.
noun, plural fam·i·lies.
1.
a.
a basic social unit consisting of parents and their children, considered as a group, whether dwelling together or not: the traditional family.
b.
a social unit consisting of one or more adults together with the children they care for: a single-parent family.
Family is something of a tough subject. I grew up with an interesting perspective on what family means, and I think it's fair to say that everyone has a unique opinion on the topic.
I'd like to share a brief background on my upbringing to shed some light on my answer.
When I was born my parents were not married. They never married, actually. Until the age of four my mother and I lived with my grandparents. After that, I lived with my mother, and saw my father once a week on Sundays. It should also be noted that I am an only child.
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| Living the life at my grandparent's house. |
Growing up as an only child to a single mother was interesting, and I'd have it no other way. I stayed with my grandparents, babysitters, and many family friends.
In my family I am something of an anomaly. There were no other kids my age besides my two cousins, who I almost never saw. So I basically became the only child in a medium sized family up until I was eleven, when my little cousin was born. Around the same time my father got married to my step-mother. My step-mother has a daughter (my step-sister if you will) who is significantly older than myself. In fact, when my father got married, my step-sister's daughter was the flower girl.
I was thrust into a 'family' I wanted no part of.
Now, there's family, and then there's family. You know what I'm sayin'?
Family is a support group. A group of people who love you, regardless of any circumstance. They're people you get mad at, and forgive them immediately. They're people you love, people you can be foolish around. They know your quirks, and they don't care. They tease you, play pranks on you, and get you into trouble. They're people you may lose touch with, but seeing them never feels like you've missed a thing. A family is something that is NOT forced. It's something that doesn't fit neatly into a box. Sometimes it's messy. These people are NOT always related to you, either. There are two other families that I grew up with that I treated just like my own. I have friends that I consider family.
My immediate family will always be my mother, and her parents. These people have always been there for me. And I know they always will.
Family (for me) is people who you are related to. By marriage or by blood. These are people I do not particularly resonate with, but they are family. As I have grown older I have tried to forgive and forget some of the things family has done to me. All things aside I still cannot consider my father and his family of my own.
There is something else I'd like to touch on. A significant other's family. When you date or marry someone you ARE, whether you like it or not, dating or marrying their family as well. It's an arduous task. There are so many people to meet, and get to know. It's worlds harder than just dating in general. However, if you try hard enough, your reward is another loving family.
Admittedly this was something that I struggled with at the beginning of my almost 10 year relationship with my boyfriend. I was 17 years old when we first got together. I was a punk ass kid, and sometimes a lack of a welcoming attitude from a new group of people is rather off putting. The long and the short of the situation was this: I was unwelcome initially, but only by some people.
Being able to love my boyfriend's family as my own is a very liberating feeling.
The sooner you realize that you're on someone else's turf, the better off you'll be. As an outsider to a family you cannot barge in, demand respect, and expected to be loved unconditionally. This type of love and respect is EARNED. Being the outsider is hard. It's hard for the established family, too. You must realize that you are lucky to be witness to someone's support group. Something they've had for years, and spent generations creating. Admire it, it's a beautiful thing.
That being said, I believe everyone deserves a family. Straight, homosexual, mixed, whatever the situation. Everyone deserves love and support. Who are we to deny that to anyone? I support gay marriage, adoption, and families. I support mixed ethnic relationships. I support broken families, broken families with children who welcome a new parent into their lives, and those people who aren't afraid to love someone who comes from that background.
Family knows only the boundaries that we place on it.
