Let's Talk About Family

[Fishwhenican]

It's been a long time since I started a post so I thought I would give it a shot. This is inspired by KT's Post on turning 35 and the ensuing discussion about family. Seemed like that OP was going off on a tangent so I though it would be interesting to create a separate post on Family.

I find it really interesting how different families interact with each other. Some get along really well and than it seem to run the gambit to other families that do nothing but fight like cats and dogs.

I guess that you could say I fall somewhere in the middle of all that. My mom and dad passed away and my sister lives pretty far away and we rarely talk. It's not that we don't get along we just don't talk or get together much. The only person I really really miss in my family is my Dad. My mom was a lunatic PITA and my Cousins, Aunts and Uncles always lived a pretty good distance from me so I never really saw them too much to really miss not seeing much of them now.

Here is the interesting thing. I guess I really deep down inside believe that family is important. When my kids fight with each other I have had more than one occasion where I have stopped it and gave them the family lecture. I tell them that other people can come and go, Friends, spouses, people you work with, whatever. But, family/blood is forever. When/If everyone else is gone you will still be related to your family and it is a precious thing that you should protect. I don't know maybe I am just over dramatic but I think something in me wants to see my kids get along better and end up closer than what my family ended up. I mean I am OK with how things ended up but still miss the closeness I see in some families.

So, how close are you to your family?

How many people do you actually consider to be "Family"? Does it include cousins, third cousins ect... This is interesting to me because around here there are so many people who are related to each other it is silly. People have distant blood that they call Auntie and Cousin.

What is normal or is there even such a thing.

How about some family stories. Maybe good heartwarming ones and also the ugly(funerals are usually good for this. NOt because people are jst sad at missing their loved one but it seems like if there is bad blood in a family this is the time when all the crap really hits the fan)

[katyseagull]

Fish, I intend to contribute something. I just have to edit it down to less than 5000 words [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]. I've witnessed a lot of interesting family dynamics in both my own family as well as others. To sum it up...they can be frustrating. In fact I wrote 'frustrating' but what I really meant was disappointing.

[Fishwhenican]

[ QUOTE ]
Fish, I intend to contribute something. I just have to edit it down to less than 5000 words [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]. I've witnessed a lot of interesting family dynamics in both my own family as well as others. To sum it up...they can be frustrating. In fact I wrote 'frustrating' but what I really meant was disappointing.

[/ QUOTE ]

Disappointing. I understand! Not so much with immediate family but with with my extended family(Aunt/Uncles and all that). I really respected a few of my extended family when I was growing up and as I grew older and discovered things like how they felt about me, it really disappointed me. I was always kind of the black sheep and my family was the one who was at the bottom of the list when it came to income and all of that. Most of my relatives are pretty well to do and my family was really just lower to middle class. I think I ended up doing really well for myself even though I had to do more for myself than any of my other relatives ever had to do. It used to really bother me but now I have figured out who is who and what is what and don't worry about it and really do not have anything to do with those that do not think much of me. Their loss if you ask me. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[thirddan]

"How many people do you actually consider to be "Family"? "

myself, sister, brother in law, mother, father, 3/4 best friends, uncle, first cousin...thats it...

all other family is dead or lives very far away and i rarely see them...

i consider my closest friends to be family and my "family" is quite small...im probably closer to my friends than my family, at least when it comes to opening up to them about feelings/experiences whatever, but i have a hard time talking about things with anyone...

[Blarg]

I've always had relatives who live very far away -- most all of them really -- and so to me, they're really family in name only. I have no real contact with them nor interest in their lives, and vice-versa. I just wondered who I would pull up onto a liferaft first, this distant family or someone I knew and liked, and I didn't come up with an answer quickly. I'm not sure I'd believe any answer I gave to be reflective of what I'd really do.

[NhlNut]

Geez, don't get me started on family.

One story:
I'm 12 or so. It's winter time, and I'm taking a tennis lesson indoors with a bunch of other kids. There's a balcony that overlooks the courts. I notice an old guy (65 or so) watching us. Not a problem, as there are usually a bunch of parents and others watching.
So the lesson ends, and as I'm going to meet up with my mother, I walk past the old guy, and he says "Hi". I sort of say "Hi" back, but keep walking. I walk the 20 feet to where my mother is waiting, and I tell her that old guy said "Hi" to me.
"Oh" she says, "that's your Uncle Carl"
I'm like "Huh?"
"Yeah he's my older brother."

Turns out I had 3 older uncles and a whole half of my mothers family that I had no idea existed. They all lived in the same city (Cincinnati) as me, and were of some prominence. The two halves just never spoke.

[Blarg]

Kind of a shame this sort of thing would be a surprise. Lots of families keep lots of secrets, and maybe this wasn't quite that, I dunno, but who your own family is seems to me something that shouldn't be a secret. That's making too many of your own life's decisions for you, without asking.

[daveT]

I never met most of my family. Apparently, I have twin uncles (I think one died) that lives here in California, but I wouldn't know.

Blarg: Some siblings simply grow to hate each other. I made the conjecture in the other post that many families grow apart and then come back together in life. It is not uncommon to hear how a teen disliked his parents and then ten years later became very close. I imagine that this would be harder as siblings, since people move when they are younger, and older people stay in their own home. Their phone number never changes.

[SoloAJ]

This is a really timely topic for me. I'll try to articulate why, but as I have a raging headache and a 10 page paper due tomorrow that I'm delaying doing (thanks Lounge), this may not come out well.

All of my life, I have been very family oriented. My parents divorced when I was 2 or 3, but remained civil on my behalf and I spent time nearly 50/50 with my mother and with my father. I really don't think I could have asked for better parents, especially given the situation. It made it hard at holidays because they both wanted me to spend it with their families, and so I did.

On Thanksgiving and Christmas, I wake up at my mom's, travel to my maternal grandmother's house and hang out there with family until 1 or 1:30. Then I would go to my dad's house for about an hour, before we would leave for my aunt's house an hour and a half away, where most of his immediate family resides. Because I've spent so many holidays with my families, I had come to take it for granted in some ways...

I didn't take it for granted in that I didn't appreciate them or love them. That part is something that I learned well. When I left UIUC after my freshman year, part of the reason was to be with my family again for the year at juco. I love my family.

However, I took for granted how involved family would be in my life in the future. I had always just assumed that I would spend all of my holidays with my immediate family (including aunts uncles first cousins, etc...just like I did with my elder family). However, I am starting to realize that this is increasingly unlikely.

My mom is moving 6 hours away from my hometown on Saturday. That alone has really made me realize how wrong I will probably be about assuming I'd always have family around. This combined with my recent (last couple weeks) thoughts about moving states after graduation to teach anywhere I want....it is all just a lot.

I cherish my family above almost everything and three of my closest friends the last year or so have been my parents (stepmother included). It really sucks that in the last week or so I've realized that my thoughts about the future involvement with my family are becoming "more realistic."

I hope this contributed something to the discussion. I'm not really sure if it did. If anyone can fish a question or two out of that, I'd be more than willing to try and elaborate on specific things.

Shrug.

[katyseagull]

I think one of my big problems with family are my unrealistic expectations. Don't get me wrong, my expectations are pretty low. I would like them to ask me how it's going, maybe even include me in their little outings or their little whisper sessions in the back bedroom. I can't believe my family still whispers. What the hell are they talking about? They all do it. I'm wondering if this is normal.

Like I mentioned in Kilgore Trout's thread, being the youngest I feel kind of transparent. I'm often the one that ends up baby-sitting while my sisters go shopping or out to the book store to buy each other gifts.

When I go to see my mom (which is not very often) she never wants to sit and laugh, and she never asks me how I'm doing. She asks very specific questions and they're almost always about finance or sunscreen. Usually she'll come over to the sofa and sit down a little too close to me and look me in the eye and then say "Katy, how much money have you managed to save this year? How much of it have you put in your mutual fund?" I'm like "Mom do you mind? I'm trying to watch LOST." Then she gets all pissy and sits there frowning. There's never any talk of "how do you like your job?", "where are you going on vacation this year" or anything like that. She would be happy if I never went on vacation.

Now I'm depressed. I feel like getting a rope.