We Are Family!! (or are we?)

Mawaige.  Mawaige [and family] is wat bwings us togetha ... today.
(isn't this photo gorgeous?!)

Family is a messy word. Like Dr. Suess characters, today’s family comes in many different shapes and sizes. It might include a dad, or it might omit a mother – or it might include two mothers! Or it might not include any parental figures at all, and simply consist of a brotherhood (which may/may not consist of blood siblings). It’s the era of the non-traditional family.

That's not to say that my generation doesn't value family. We do. It’s just that we’ve discovered that blood isn’t much thicker than water and that marriage doesn’t equal happily-ever-after. Relatives are regular people after all: people who might be selfish or who might be kind, people who might get me or people who might rub me wrong. And so we’re looking elsewhere for long-term, committed relationships of love, support, and self-sacrifice. We don’t expect our parents or siblings to be our family. More often than not, it’s my friends who are the truer community of understanding and support. Or so it seems.

I think we accidentally boiled “family” down to “friendship.” We were trying to burn off the crud that ails most traditional families – i.e.: personal misunderstandings, ego, authoritarian abuses – but we inadvertently evaporated the distinction between “family” and “friendship.” Your friends should love you unconditionally, defend you in all situations, and advise you to do the right thing. That is the definition of a good friend. But that’s all it is – friendship. It’s not family. Family entails much more than just love, loyalty, and advice. It entails responsibility, roles, and rights. Your family shouldn’t just be advising you, they should be training you – disciplining you. And they shouldn’t just be encouraging you or defending your various endeavors; they should be protecting and providing for you. Family isn’t just the place where you learn about friendship, it’s also the place where you learn about authority. And I know we don’t like authority much these days, but it’s kind of a part of life. But when it’s properly mixed with love, it’s not such a bad thing ... and cue film-related tangent:

Ok, so have you ever seen the movie Catch Me if You Can?  I rented it a few months ago, expecting to enjoy an outrageously funny caper movie.  Instead I got to watch a family fall apart on screen.  Not quite as much fun. Basically, the premise is this sixteen year old kid named Frank (aka Leonardo DiCaprio) runs away after his parents get a divorce, on a mission to earn enough money to repair their relationship.  He fakes his way all over the world, stealing millions by impersonating people with high-profile careers (a pilot, a doctor, a lawyer, etc.), all the while being chased by an FBI agent named Carl (aka Tom Hanks). 

Anyways, at one point during the story, after Frank's been running a while and is feeling the strain of his choices, he meets up with his dad for dinner. And Frank asks his dad to make him stop running. But his dad, who's never taught Frank to respect boundaries or authority, simply says, "You can't. You can't let them get you." And Frank just wilts. It's not very loud or ostentatious, but it's a very clear meltdown. And he resumes his running, this time solely for the purpose of outfoxing the FBI agent, for the love of the chase. And it's a downward spiral. 

In the end, the person who ends up being Frank's truest father figure is the FBI agent Carl, the embodiment of rules and authority. As he chases Frank down, forcing Frank to submit to society, Carl unwittingly develops a connection with Frank. And he begins to display honest concern for Frank's well-being and rights, bartering to get Frank out of French prisons and into American courts, offering him a job with the FBI, working in fraud detection, trusting him to find a place in society. Ultimately, it's Carl who sets Frank on the path of healing  from his family's dysfunction and destruction.

... and resume post. The thing is family should be more than just a safe place of unconditional love and support. It should be your safe place of unconditional love and support. The place you have rights to, eternally and irrevocably. It ought to be an unbreakable community. Which explains a lot of the pain that comes from families that don’t act like families. And I think that pain is compounded by the fact that the family unit is inherently unbreakable. It really is. Because it’s the foundation of life.

Every person in the world has a family. Every person in the world has a biological father and a biological mother. Regardless of how you were conceived, whom you were raised by, or whom you consider you true family, you have a pair of genetic predecessors. A father and a mother. You can’t change that relationship status, not like you can with friends or romantic partners. It’s irreversible. A fact of life. And I don’t think science is ever going to figure out a way around it. (insert shameless plug for cloning post) Which is why it’s so sad when parents don’t love each other – maybe they never did, or maybe they just don’t anymore. It’s heart-breaking. Or when parents don’t love their kids. Or when kids don’t love their parents. Which is a little more common these days.

I have a hunch that your view of "family" changes dramatically when you become a parent. Because parents bear most of the responsibility in the family unit. After all, children eventually grow up into adults, who eventually start their own families. So kids are naturally moving away from their birth family unit. But parents can't outgrow their second round of family, the family they birthed.

Your second round of family. Oye. That's where things get a little murkier. Because you have to choose that relationship; it’s not a pre-chosen for you. (unless you’re doing that arranged marriage thing, which is pretty old school and not really my cup of tea, but I guess it works for some people) Regardless, it's a fluid situation. The relationship is chooseable, changeable, disposable – it’s not a fact of life for anyone!

Or at least, not until kids are involved. That's when the reversible becomes irreversible.  Because now your relationship is a fact of life for someone. And you have responsibilities. Because you have a family now.