Hmm, I guess I'm the complete opposite? I have a large and loving family on both my mother and father's side, and actively grew up with both. My (long since deceased) father's family lives 700 miles away, and we still always made a point to visit every year or two. However, I have never been able to form many real, lasting friendships outside my family, for reasons myself and several shrinks have been unable to pinpoint. If I didn't have the support and acceptance of my family network, I'm fairly certain I would all alone in the world. Reading in this thread and elsewhere, not everyone seems to have a built in "benefit of the doubt" from their family, giving them an advantage vis a vis trust, help, visiting, etc.
So I don't know if it's because they are my family, or because of the specific people who are my family, but there is a quality I've observed in my family in creating relationships that simply doesn't exist outside my family for me.
Yeah I got a not-crazy family and got a stronger connection with them than most people. They're not my friends, they're my family and it's different. But not for biological reasons and if any of them pulled the shit that is in some of the stories I would naturally cut fucking ties.
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
It's just me, my wife, and my kid. My family tree starts with the three of us.
This is where I kinda get wide-eyed and idealistic, but that's what I want. I mean, if my wife ends up having a great family, they'll be included too.
I refuse to start a family under the same conditions as my parents - unprepared. I also refuse to act toward potential children as my parents acted toward me.
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silence1186Character shields down!As a wingmanRegistered Userregular
It's just me, my wife, and my kid. My family tree starts with the three of us.
This is where I kinda get wide-eyed and idealistic, but that's what I want. I mean, if my wife ends up having a great family, they'll be included too.
I refuse to start a family under the same conditions as my parents - unprepared. I also refuse to act toward potential children as my parents acted toward me.
Sorry to use you as an example, but would you say your parents still ended up shaping you into a good parent, if only by taking their example, and running in the opposite direction?
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AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular
I'm currently engaged in a land war with my father's side of the family, who decided his death and their mother's alzheimer's would make a good opportunity to try to kick us off the farm.
So yeah, there's nothing abuot family that means you have to give extra shits about them.
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
It's just me, my wife, and my kid. My family tree starts with the three of us.
This is where I kinda get wide-eyed and idealistic, but that's what I want. I mean, if my wife ends up having a great family, they'll be included too.
I refuse to start a family under the same conditions as my parents - unprepared. I also refuse to act toward potential children as my parents acted toward me.
Sorry to use you as an example, but would you say your parents still ended up shaping you into a good parent, if only by taking their example, and running in the opposite direction?
No. It was not by their design / intent. I am applying what I learned vs. what I was taught.
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MortiousThe Nightmare BeginsMove to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
I'm currently engaged in a land war with my father's side of the family, who decided his death and their mother's alzheimer's would make a good opportunity to try to kick us off the farm.
So yeah, there's nothing abuot family that means you have to give extra shits about them.
Quick, marry an Asian. I heard something about them being good at this sort of dispute. Might have to do with them being good at math.
I might be misremembering the quote, and also a little bit racist.
I'm kind of in a similar situation with my family as the OP. I'm just starting to realize what a lazy, lying, and manipulative bitch my mother has been. Every time I feel that internal sense that I am indebted to her for raising me, she does something else where she is obviously trying to set me up against my siblings, and I remember why I hate her. My dad was abusive, I sort of had a relationship with him after my parents were divorced, but ultimately he kicked me to the curb by refusing to attend my wedding. I guess he couldn't stand that I grew up, became successful, and was living in a different part of the country. I wasn't around to attend his bullshit functions which were just to impress his female friends with the fact that he had a reasonably well-adjusted child, so he had no use for me.
Most of my extended family is still in the old country, but the ones that are here are no winners, either. My uncle feels that my mom tricked their mom out of his inheritance and won't talk to us. The few times I've seen him he's definitely still riding that pony, blaming me for somehow not sticking up for him as a kid that he should have gotten his share.
My brother is eight years older than me, and we were close for a long time, even after I moved away. I moved back and now we can't seem to get along. I chalk up much of it to jealousy. He's also very sensitive about the slightest insult said in jest. He also has picked up on all the bad things my mom and dad used to do. He can't stop thinking that somehow he's entitled to use those same guilt weapons against everyone and everything, including me and his friends, of which he has none.
I have two sisters one of which I haven't spoken to in years. The other is reasonably well-adjusted, but for whatever reason we don't hang out that often. We both have kids now about the same ages and they all play together, which keeps us close.
My wife's family is great. They have their issues, but for the most part are good when they all get together. Only thing is they're all spread out all over the country. My wife and I moved back home to be with these people, but it turns out that they would rather retire and move to Florida anyway. They're just not that into grandkids.
So, I'm 32, and just coming to the realization of the OP that family isn't everything. It's sad and depressing, I really wish my family got along better. I have no choice but to move to where it's most beneficial for me and my career, independent of family. I just don't know how to get over that feeling of failure that stems from my family not getting along.
It's just me, my wife, and my kid. My family tree starts with the three of us.
This is where I kinda get wide-eyed and idealistic, but that's what I want. I mean, if my wife ends up having a great family, they'll be included too.
I refuse to start a family under the same conditions as my parents - unprepared. I also refuse to act toward potential children as my parents acted toward me.
Sorry to use you as an example, but would you say your parents still ended up shaping you into a good parent, if only by taking their example, and running in the opposite direction?
There's so many things we have to learn in order to be competent parents. Having to start over from scratch with just "I'm not going to be like my parents" is often not enough. Especially since if you study patterns of abuse, you see that children of abusers tend to be abusers themselves. Try as you might, you can't help but emulate what you grew up with.
This thread has made me really appreciate the family that I do see regularly. What I consider my 'family' is largely on my father's side--me, my older brother, my mother and father, my three uncles and two cousins, and my grandmother. We're what you might consider tribe-ish as we're all quick to defend anyone against outside sources, but we squabble and have in-fighting and such the rest of the time. All told, though? Tight-fucking-knit. To the point where I see no reason to really leave the state--I wouldn't know how to conduct myself that far from everyone I care about. I mean, sure, one of my uncles is a bit much to handle (think man-child who's been legitimately trained in Kung-Fu [look up Wah Lum some time] but he never got the primary lesson about self-control and is super quick to anger/take things the wrong way) but all in all it's pretty awesome. We still get together for everyone's birthdays, all the holidays (including Easter and Christmas though we're all quite heathen), and just generally see more of each other than most other families. Friends basically become honorary family members after a short while, too, so it's not like we're exclusive.
That said, even on my dad's side, there's some hillbilly/racist elements we don't associate with (they're mostly in Ohio and Polk County). My mom's side has a bit of that, too, but it's toned down and we just don't see them very much since they live a bit further away (this is who I was referring to in my earlier post).
But I really, really feel bad for those of you with crazy/awful mothers. Seriously, that sucks. Mine likes to tell me she could have very easily gone that way (as her sister did) but she looked to her mother and father for what not to be when she grew up, and so, turned out excellent. Same with my dad, actually--his father just up and left him to fend for his mom and three younger brothers. He likes to tell me that all parents have lessons to impart--purposefully or otherwise. Seeing what some of you have had to contend with, I believe he may be right.
I'm not at liberty to share all of my woes, but for a few months now I've been worrying about a certain "extended family" type individual or two with no goddamn reservations at all about endangering people I love. And there isn't much I can do about it at the moment. The only thing I know I could do would probably have bad consequences, because it's really putting my foot down recklessly hard. It's eating me.
It's just me, my wife, and my kid. My family tree starts with the three of us.
This is where I kinda get wide-eyed and idealistic, but that's what I want. I mean, if my wife ends up having a great family, they'll be included too.
I refuse to start a family under the same conditions as my parents - unprepared. I also refuse to act toward potential children as my parents acted toward me.
Sorry to use you as an example, but would you say your parents still ended up shaping you into a good parent, if only by taking their example, and running in the opposite direction?
Heh, I'm not sure what the success-rate on that mechanic is. I try to not be like my parents, but I'm growing older, just as they've already grown older, and it tends to turn out I'm the same general kind of animal.
In some cases I can see where they're coming from, though. Like being crazy.
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Nova_CI have the needThe need for speedRegistered Userregular
My family was a terrible family. Most of us get along better now that we've scattered, and my relationship with my dad and my sister is probably better than it ever was while I was at home.
I don't think you owe your family anything. Kids are born and raised in circumstances where they get zero choices. They are told who to be and what to be for years. If you have a great family and warm, fuzzy memories, and you want to give back, great.
My dad is a sack of shit but his whole family is angels, concerned for my mother and myselves. His third wedding is New Years Eve. My mother is the only sane woman and her side is all pure evil. Their divorce deterred me from all relationships until I have my career in order. I, and my siblings she raised on her own, are the children the others wished they had.
Wow, major condolences to @Henroid and @Giggles_Funsworth. My parents never really got THAT bad, I'll spare everyone the sob story again. I posted it in Atomic Ross' earlier thread about family. I mostly just had to deal with an emotionally absent father who never did anything to really help me in my life and my mother who started out just being absent, but turned into a Religious Authoritarian after I had a nervous breakdown due to school bullying. I still feel conflicted about forgiving them, since the primary crime in my case isn't so much malice as it is ignorance (Mom was raised in the derper-bubble-state of Oklahoma to a well-to-do family that had been prominent in State government for quite some time prior.) but at the same time that ignorance expressed itself in malicious treatment of me.
It's kind of like people who think slut-shaming is a serious and effective tool at improving people's quality of life by getting them to stop being promiscuous. Facts don't motivate them, facts aren't what created that warped way of viewing the world. But yet at the same time pursuing that ignorant strategy has dangerous results and consequences. I grapple with how to properly hold my parents responsible for the consequences of their actions even though I know they didn't really know any better at the time.
I sometimes think we're getting closer, but then I have to remind myself that really it's just that I need money from them again. I still can't bring myself to forgive, and I think it's because what it'd take for me to forgive them would be something they'd not be willing to do. (Do something which goes against their religion to assist me. Prove their loyalty was to me first as their child and not to their religion and its dogma. Basically prove they'd moved beyond their former ignorance.)
If the best you can come up with against someone who's patently ignorant is to yell back at him, "Yeah? Well there's BOOKS, and they say you're WRONG!"
Then honestly you're not coming out of this looking great either.
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lonelyahavaCall me Ahava ~~She/Her~~Move to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
I miss my mommy.
and I say this as a 31 year old woman living across the world. I miss my mommy. We talk on skype at least twice a week, sometimes for upwards of 2 hours at a time. if it were feasible with all logistics, my mom would be my matron of honor at my wedding. For most of my life, she's been the closest female friend I have ever had. We talk about everything and for most of my teenaged years, my mom and I were close enough to the point where if she had to complain about work or family friends, I would be the person she talked to, not anybody else. I was the one that held my mom while she cried the night after my dad and my brother finally erupted at each other and almost got into a fist fight in the kitchen.
I miss my daddy too.
He's not as openly affectionate as he could be, but he's still loving and has made it possible for me to get everything that I needed in life. From shelter to food to clothing to an education, my father has handled everything for me. Still handles some things for me. I would not be as much of an adult as I am without the influence of my father and the help he's given me. Every night before going to sleep my father (and the cat) would come check on me in my bedroom and say "Good night, sleep tight, pleasant dreams, I love you."
I miss my brother.
Now my brother and I are 4 years apart, with him being the younger. We got on great when growing up, but upon adulthood some things have been rather strained. Most of that comes from how our family life shook out during his formative (middle school) years. See my parents both worked nights/late days in the medical industry, and dad was going to school for his nurse practitioners license. Which meant that after school it was just me and my brother. From the time that I was 12 and he was 8, we were alone in the house from when school ended until my parents got home at 7pm. I made sure he did his homework, I did all the cooking and the dishes. So when the time came for me to go away to Uni, and he was only just starting high school, he had never quite gotten a chance to really engage with our parents in that 'dinner time' mode. He blamed me for 'abandoning' him to life at home with the parents, and that resentment stayed with him all through high school and even into his Uni days. When I moved back home after failing to be an adult and making mistakes, my brother and I got along better, but only when we didn't have to spend a lot of time together. But despite him being a clueless jackass most of the time who still hasn't quite found his head from a hole in the ground, I still love him, and will do most anything for him.
Other than that, the only family that I have and care for is my mom's oldest brother. And he's getting up there in years and I am absolutely crushed that due to his 70th birthday party next year, he will not be able to come down here for my wedding. But as for the rest of my family? Fuck em. My dad's sister and her kids? I did everything that I could to stay close to them after my grandmother died. But they wanted nothing to do with me, so fuck em. And my grandparents are all dead and gone, and have been for a while. But my mom's mother is another one that I would have done anything for.
so even my family whom I love dearly has its own little quirks. my brother and my father don't talk to each other save for when it's absolutely necessary, even though my brother is still living at home and not paying any sort of rent at all. I may not fully comprehend the situation, but I can empathize.
To me, Family is important because in some case, in my case, there's nobody else around who has seen all of my ups and all of my downs and been right beside me through them all. But, I say the same thing for a best friend. It has nothing to do with the blood relation, and more to do with the physical closeness of it all.
I think parents, by default, have earned a measure of Familial Bond by virtue of having spent many years and thousands of dollars caring for you and supporting you.
But they're also the ones who forced the kid into this mess. Without those parents getting drunk and fucking, the kid would never have existed, and so never experienced pain, suffering, disappointment, loss, etc.
I consider that to be a wash. Sure, the parents spent time and money raising they kid. But they also forced it into existence.
Which, itself, is pretty fucking shitty of them.
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MayabirdPecking at the keyboardRegistered Userregular
Sorry to use you as an example, but would you say your parents still ended up shaping you into a good parent, if only by taking their example, and running in the opposite direction?
I know it's not aimed at me, but I would say no. People who grow up in shitty environments but end up being good decent people do it despite the best efforts of everyone around them to make them just as terrible and shitty.
So yeah, the importance of family. The *theory* is that family would stick with you through thick and thin, if you had nowhere else to go and needed a roof over your head or was sick and needed a caretaker or whatever. The crazy racist uncle who's always going off on rants might disagree with you if you marry outside your race, but he'd still support your decision because you're his niece/nephew and he loves you, and he'd pitch in to help fix your house after the river floods.
That's the theory. This doesn't happen much. It's more like in my family where my crazy religious aunt disowned my cool aunt when the cool aunt came out as lesbian, to the extent that crazy aunt's kids weren't allowed to have any contact with cool aunt, and when grandma died and the dinner after the funeral was going to be at crazy aunt's house, cool aunt was banned, leading to a few other supportive family members having to boycott the dinner. And so on and so forth in increasingly worse ways.
My belief about family is that it's one of those things like home and respect that people believe without question is bestowed because of birth, but really it has to be a two-way street. Washington state was more home to me than rural georgia, even though I spent my first seventeen years in georgia and I only moved to Washington a couple years after college. I felt welcome there, instead of feeling like everyone resented my very existence. To be family, one has to behave like family, the give and take and thick and thin. Some guy who came in your mom and ran off? That's not your father. That's a sperm donor. Some unrelated guy then takes it on himself to marry your mom and raise you for eighteen some odd years? That's your real father.
HakkekageSpace Whore Academysumma cum laudeRegistered Userregular
I guess I don't know how to describe what is happening in my family life (Chapter 500,000 in an TBD-long saga), but seeing as how I can't sleep and I'm thinking about it and down, here goes.
I'm 22 years old and my parents just divorced after a long, bitter, and still unresolved ~2-year proceedings in court, which itself followed my entire life of a long, bitter, and violent marriage. I don't even want to call it a marriage. I don't know what it was. It sucked. I live at home with my mother, who is in her early 60s but looks like she is in her 70s. She loves me and my sister to death, but she is a paranoid, probably bipolar, incompetent, and utterly beyond help or change. I can barely stand her anymore; one second she is sweet and caring in her trademark overbearing way, and the next she is screaming and railing for hours about some sleight (real or imagined).
My father has been living with his mother (my grandma) several states away. I rarely see him anymore. He calls often but most of the time I am too angry or upset or just don't want to be bothered and don't answer. I'm sure this breaks his heart. It breaks mine, every day. He is older than my mom and on disability. He doesn't have much money. His brothers--my uncles--are rich as balls, but they apparently aren't interested in lending my dad anymore help.
I'm not surprised. The legal bills from all this ugliness are well over $100k combined. The judge ruled that since my parents can't decide how to settle the assets the share, namely, their joint ownership of the paid-off house I grew up in and which my mother kicked my father out of during the event that started the shitball rolling last year, that the house will have to be put on the market and sold without their consent. My parents had so many chances before, during, and after the divorce to maintain financial stability and they threw it away to hurt each other as much as possible. I can't even begin to describe how terrifying the future is to me, and how angry I am at them.
But I can't hate them outright, because they are my parents, and they love me deeply, and I love them. I love them so much. And I don't know if you can imagine how it feels to have the certain knowledge that they are also, without a doubt, unable to change, and that they have fucked things up so far beyond the point of no return that the only way I even have a chance to live my life as I want to is when they both die. And it's not even the money that they lost (and are still losing)--it's the constantly mounting stress of being a new supposedly self-sufficient adult, with a brand new job, and brand new responsibilities, also feeling responsible for my mother's expenses (she recently underwent surgery and cannot work), my father's dire straits, my sister's constant screaming and reproaches that I have to try harder to maintain the delusions that my mother suffers under, all while trying to balance my secret relationship (Persian family...) and my time-consuming job/commute and my increasingly panicked inner voice telling me that if I don't live my life while I am still young I will never get a chance to live it, but I need to save my newly earned money because I have no goddamn idea what fresh hell awaits me tomorrow or the day after or the year after...
Usually people try to tell me that I'm an adult and I don't have to put up with any of this shit, and that it's not the end of the world. Please. Please. I can posture and declare that "I am so done with this!" but that's not how family works. Particularly while I am still relying on not having to pay rent (for as long as we can remain in this house), while my mother continues to loosen her already lax grip on fiscal and social responsibility, while my sister is still in college, and while my father, who lives so far away now, and is so old, that it terrifies me that I won't have a lot of chances to be with him before he dies, but trying to sneak a whole trip around my mother's paranoia is next to impossible without opening a whole Pandora's box of brand new fights and settlements rollicking instability, and it;s not like I get along great with my Dad anyway, who is also getting more religious and inflexible and paranoid...I feel like I am trapped even more now that I am and adult. The easy ride others gave me is over now, and every day I feel like I have less and less to look forward to in life. I have to do something about this all on my own. And just walking away is not doing something about it.
So yeah I'm really depressed right now.
Oh and this whole story is like 1% of the whole Very Berry Shitsnack Flavor Explosion that is my family life. I haven't even touched on my childhood. Hoo-y.
I have a pretty decent family and extended family, with most problems well in the past, so I can't really get on the story train. That said, my personal philosophy is that blood is just an ice-breaker. It's an excellent way to make really good, life-long friends if your family is full of good people, but if they're causing harm to your life, the bond you have is strictly optional, and people need to earn their place in your hearts through something other than a trick of fate. If the family you were born into isn't acting like family, make friends, and they may well become like family to you.
People who harp about family-values and how "family is everything" are really just casting their privilege and frame of reference upon other people.
Which considering the type of people who harp about family values, isn't really surprising.
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Inquisitor772 x Penny Arcade Fight Club ChampionA fixed point in space and timeRegistered Userregular
Interesting discussion. What would you folks say to the idea that familial obligation serves as a sort of enforced bondage between people, and in that way helps to maintain society at large? Regardless of whether you like the people in your family, the fact that they are "family" means that you would have a greater likelihood of providing them assistance in times of need (and vice versa). This acts as a preliminary social safety net in a way that larger, more disparate populations would have a hard time maintaining.
A lot of the talk seems to center around whether your family "deserves" your time/love/support/etc. Taking that out of the equation, what if there was simply some sort of lottery-based mechanism of ever-expanding sets of people to whom your level of obligation would decrease the larger the set became? What say you, PA, to this quasi-rational post-Confucian model of society?
I mean, my family has plenty of issues, and I can't say I'm particularly close to any of them. That being said, I know I can pick up the phone at pretty much any hour and they would respond. It's an open question as to whether I would actually want their support, but they would provide some sort of help given the situation at hand. It also goes the other way around - if my aunt, who is bipolar and emotionally abusive to her children (one of whom is autistic) calls me in the middle of the night and asks me to give her a ride to the hospital, I'm gonna do it. I'm not going to particularly enjoy it, but I would feel obligated to do it, out of respect for the fact that she would most likely do the same, or if not her then her children (my cousins) would, and if not them then etc. etc. etc.
Granted, I'm of Chinese descent, so our concept of what a family means is probably not quite the same as what is generally assumed in Western culture. Obligation, guilt, and social expectation (e.g., "I can't believe she isn't paying for her mother's hospital bills") play a far stronger role than "love" or "constructive relationships" in that sense. The implied understanding is that, at some point, you need to just count on people. If the bonds you form are based purely on whether you like someone or get along with them, then that obligation can just as easily be rescinded once you stop liking that person or getting along with them. The picking up the phone in the middle of the night, the emergency loan to bail you out of jail, the place to stay for a few nights because your plumbing exploded - that constancy of support and obligation in and of itself a thing of value.
I feel at odds with this thread, because..well...I don't have anything to really complain about. That's not to diminish anyone else who's family are a circus of complete cunts.
@Giggles_Funsworth, that's the worst story man. I hope you're in a good place now.
I don't know of anyone who's in my exact situation - I live away from my family, they're all getting very old, and pretty soon Thanksgiving or Christmas, or whatever...well. I won't have any family left. It's just my Mom and my Grandmother, and I won't have them forever (given their poor health and age).
It's difficult to let that sink in. We're all mortal, and we'll all lose the ones we love. The holidays just seem to remind me of who I've lost, and who I'm too poor to go home and visit. I'm fortunate that I have friends where I live now - they're like family to me. But they aren't my mother or my grandmother.
And when my immediate family is all gone? I'll be alone, and I'm pretty sure I'll just...deconstruct. It's a future I don't want to contemplate.
I think family is incredibly important and you should do whatever you can to sustain it.
However, "family" is who you choose it to be, not who you're related to genetically. If the two coincide, that's great. If they don't, it's nothing on you. There's way too many people out there who abuse those bonds and they don't deserve ANY of your time.
I'm someone who would quickly jump on the anti-family bandwagon (particularly the boomers in my family), but I think there needs to be a balance in this thread.
Family is important in my respects. Most obviously that family, whether you like it or not, helped shape the person you are today--without them you would be non-existent and not the person you are today. That's it, period. So there's bit of an investment and identity tie in with family that doesn't exist with friends who one chooses (and subbing friends as "family" seems a highly consumerist and a bit alarming ideal-"I get what's most convenient to me when I want to get it").
People who harp about family-values and how "family is everything" are really just casting their privilege and frame of reference upon other people.
Which considering the type of people who harp about family values, isn't really surprising.
Hmmm. I could argue the opposite. People who are able to dismiss their family and choose their own are flexing their own privilege.
privilege of knowing people that are better than their blood relatives? I don't really think that fits with projecting a schema you take for granted towards other, different people.
If you are tied to family regardless of how much they abuse or take advantage of you because 'blood is thicker than water', I think it's very unhealthy. It results in facilitating behavior that is unhealthy for you, and unhealthy for your family members.
At the same time, if you are willing to throw away ties to your family without spending a significant amount of honest effort working on compromising and resolving the issues, that's unhealthy too. It's incredibly selfish and stubborn to dismiss family without talking through the issues with them, explaining what's wrong, and giving them a realistic opportunity to improve.
When it comes to family, I really don't think there are many blanket statements. It's going to depend on each person's situation. But either way, don't just dismiss family because you are 'just' mad. The relationship should be fundamentally flawed, and if you do choose to cut ties with some people you should do everything in your power to keep people you do care about from getting caught in the middle or having to pick sides.
I will be unable to join you all this Christmas. Please don't make any plans around my travelling before I'm able to do so, as my circumstances simply make it impossible at the moment. Apologies for any inconvenience this causes. I'll let you know when I'm able to make the trip and we can make plans for a family occasion then. I look forward to seeing you all again as soon as possible I hope you all have a fantastic Christmas and love to you all.
You are in my thoughts,
Henroid"
In this case, it sounds like something like this is REALLY the best option. Be polite, and when things settle down and you've put some distance between you and this issue, think about it some more and decide if you really want to cut ties / burn bridges or if you can maybe just lay down some ground rules and make your family respect them.
I'm someone who would quickly jump on the anti-family bandwagon (particularly the boomers in my family), but I think there needs to be a balance in this thread.
Family is important in my respects. Most obviously that family, whether you like it or not, helped shape the person you are today--without them you would be non-existent and not the person you are today. That's it, period. So there's bit of an investment and identity tie in with family that doesn't exist with friends who one chooses (and subbing friends as "family" seems a highly consumerist and a bit alarming ideal-"I get what's most convenient to me when I want to get it").
Here's a little rule I use
if someone abuses people I love, they are not someone I will go out of my way to hang out with
The concept that the work my grandparents put in to barely not get CPS on their ass is somehow deserving of a lifetime of respect and deference is maddening. My grandparents did bad things until they became demented enough to forget who people were.
They were invested in my parents' identity in the same way an abusive spouse is invested in your identity. They certainly had an impact! On occasion, multiple impacts in a row!
The reason I maintain strong bonds with friends (and friends of my parents) and not family isn't because I'm doing what's convenient, but because I like them and I dislike my family. I'm lucky enough to have had a dad, and to have a mother and sister, who are really lovely all around. But they taught me the lesson that family needs to be dropped by the wayside when it's hurting you instead of helping you.
Family is a collection of other human beings, they don't have blood magic. I am eternally grateful we didn't pretend a couple of racist geese were our loving grandma and grandpa who we totally didn't hate. I am impressed by the pragmatism and strength displayed by my parents when they cut off a group of people that you are endlessly told will be your only lifeline. My sister and I were not shaped by extended family, and we're better for it.
mrt144King of the NumbernamesRegistered Userregular
I also don't really give a shit about my extended family cause I only saw them once a year until I was 16, and not much after that. I'm sorry that people I only see once a year don't really matter to me, wait, no I'm not.
People who harp about family-values and how "family is everything" are really just casting their privilege and frame of reference upon other people.
Which considering the type of people who harp about family values, isn't really surprising.
Hmmm. I could argue the opposite. People who are able to dismiss their family and choose their own are flexing their own privilege.
privilege of knowing people that are better than their blood relatives? I don't really think that fits with projecting a schema you take for granted towards other, different people.
Privilege and being able to re-locate and dismiss where they come from--usually this has $$$ behind it. I would guess that poorer people tend to be closer to family and not because poorer families are somehow more magically, but because they can not afford to separate themselves.
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mrt144King of the NumbernamesRegistered Userregular
People who harp about family-values and how "family is everything" are really just casting their privilege and frame of reference upon other people.
Which considering the type of people who harp about family values, isn't really surprising.
Hmmm. I could argue the opposite. People who are able to dismiss their family and choose their own are flexing their own privilege.
privilege of knowing people that are better than their blood relatives? I don't really think that fits with projecting a schema you take for granted towards other, different people.
Privilege and being able to re-locate and dismiss where they come from--usually this has $$$ behind it. I would guess that poorer people tend to be closer to family and not because poorer families are somehow more magically, but because they can not afford to separate themselves.
Holding the family unit hostage with $$$ doesn't make the situation any less contemptible when your family sucks.
Staying with people because you can't afford otherwise sucks, no need to guess.
It also interferes with your whole life as a separate individual. Other people's bad, destructive decisions are your bad, destructive decisions, because they get to make decisions for you.
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MortiousThe Nightmare BeginsMove to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
It almost looks like some people are using different definitions of family here. And family is a loaded term.
Blood-relation/relation seems a bit more neutral, and probably more accurate to what I mean.
Because when I say that I consider someone to be family, it means we're close. When I say some IS family, it means we're related, and doesn't mention anything about how close we are.
Being related is an ice-breaker (to steal a term from above). It's a nice little quirk, in the vein of wearing the same shirt to a party.
I don't think I've ever considered the family tree when deciding who I should consider 'family'
I guess I was unclear, it's not a hostage situation. I was trying to say that breaking away from a "family" is not an option that everyone has, and those who have that option are afforded a privilege; therefore, those who say just break from the family are in a privileged position (going back to the original quote).
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Yeah I got a not-crazy family and got a stronger connection with them than most people. They're not my friends, they're my family and it's different. But not for biological reasons and if any of them pulled the shit that is in some of the stories I would naturally cut fucking ties.
This is where I kinda get wide-eyed and idealistic, but that's what I want. I mean, if my wife ends up having a great family, they'll be included too.
I refuse to start a family under the same conditions as my parents - unprepared. I also refuse to act toward potential children as my parents acted toward me.
Sorry to use you as an example, but would you say your parents still ended up shaping you into a good parent, if only by taking their example, and running in the opposite direction?
So yeah, there's nothing abuot family that means you have to give extra shits about them.
No. It was not by their design / intent. I am applying what I learned vs. what I was taught.
Quick, marry an Asian. I heard something about them being good at this sort of dispute. Might have to do with them being good at math.
I might be misremembering the quote, and also a little bit racist.
It’s not a very important country most of the time
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Most of my extended family is still in the old country, but the ones that are here are no winners, either. My uncle feels that my mom tricked their mom out of his inheritance and won't talk to us. The few times I've seen him he's definitely still riding that pony, blaming me for somehow not sticking up for him as a kid that he should have gotten his share.
My brother is eight years older than me, and we were close for a long time, even after I moved away. I moved back and now we can't seem to get along. I chalk up much of it to jealousy. He's also very sensitive about the slightest insult said in jest. He also has picked up on all the bad things my mom and dad used to do. He can't stop thinking that somehow he's entitled to use those same guilt weapons against everyone and everything, including me and his friends, of which he has none.
I have two sisters one of which I haven't spoken to in years. The other is reasonably well-adjusted, but for whatever reason we don't hang out that often. We both have kids now about the same ages and they all play together, which keeps us close.
My wife's family is great. They have their issues, but for the most part are good when they all get together. Only thing is they're all spread out all over the country. My wife and I moved back home to be with these people, but it turns out that they would rather retire and move to Florida anyway. They're just not that into grandkids.
So, I'm 32, and just coming to the realization of the OP that family isn't everything. It's sad and depressing, I really wish my family got along better. I have no choice but to move to where it's most beneficial for me and my career, independent of family. I just don't know how to get over that feeling of failure that stems from my family not getting along.
That said, even on my dad's side, there's some hillbilly/racist elements we don't associate with (they're mostly in Ohio and Polk County). My mom's side has a bit of that, too, but it's toned down and we just don't see them very much since they live a bit further away (this is who I was referring to in my earlier post).
But I really, really feel bad for those of you with crazy/awful mothers. Seriously, that sucks. Mine likes to tell me she could have very easily gone that way (as her sister did) but she looked to her mother and father for what not to be when she grew up, and so, turned out excellent. Same with my dad, actually--his father just up and left him to fend for his mom and three younger brothers. He likes to tell me that all parents have lessons to impart--purposefully or otherwise. Seeing what some of you have had to contend with, I believe he may be right.
Heh, I'm not sure what the success-rate on that mechanic is. I try to not be like my parents, but I'm growing older, just as they've already grown older, and it tends to turn out I'm the same general kind of animal.
In some cases I can see where they're coming from, though. Like being crazy.
I don't think you owe your family anything. Kids are born and raised in circumstances where they get zero choices. They are told who to be and what to be for years. If you have a great family and warm, fuzzy memories, and you want to give back, great.
But there is no obligation.
It's kind of like people who think slut-shaming is a serious and effective tool at improving people's quality of life by getting them to stop being promiscuous. Facts don't motivate them, facts aren't what created that warped way of viewing the world. But yet at the same time pursuing that ignorant strategy has dangerous results and consequences. I grapple with how to properly hold my parents responsible for the consequences of their actions even though I know they didn't really know any better at the time.
I sometimes think we're getting closer, but then I have to remind myself that really it's just that I need money from them again. I still can't bring myself to forgive, and I think it's because what it'd take for me to forgive them would be something they'd not be willing to do. (Do something which goes against their religion to assist me. Prove their loyalty was to me first as their child and not to their religion and its dogma. Basically prove they'd moved beyond their former ignorance.)
and I say this as a 31 year old woman living across the world. I miss my mommy. We talk on skype at least twice a week, sometimes for upwards of 2 hours at a time. if it were feasible with all logistics, my mom would be my matron of honor at my wedding. For most of my life, she's been the closest female friend I have ever had. We talk about everything and for most of my teenaged years, my mom and I were close enough to the point where if she had to complain about work or family friends, I would be the person she talked to, not anybody else. I was the one that held my mom while she cried the night after my dad and my brother finally erupted at each other and almost got into a fist fight in the kitchen.
I miss my daddy too.
He's not as openly affectionate as he could be, but he's still loving and has made it possible for me to get everything that I needed in life. From shelter to food to clothing to an education, my father has handled everything for me. Still handles some things for me. I would not be as much of an adult as I am without the influence of my father and the help he's given me. Every night before going to sleep my father (and the cat) would come check on me in my bedroom and say "Good night, sleep tight, pleasant dreams, I love you."
I miss my brother.
Now my brother and I are 4 years apart, with him being the younger. We got on great when growing up, but upon adulthood some things have been rather strained. Most of that comes from how our family life shook out during his formative (middle school) years. See my parents both worked nights/late days in the medical industry, and dad was going to school for his nurse practitioners license. Which meant that after school it was just me and my brother. From the time that I was 12 and he was 8, we were alone in the house from when school ended until my parents got home at 7pm. I made sure he did his homework, I did all the cooking and the dishes. So when the time came for me to go away to Uni, and he was only just starting high school, he had never quite gotten a chance to really engage with our parents in that 'dinner time' mode. He blamed me for 'abandoning' him to life at home with the parents, and that resentment stayed with him all through high school and even into his Uni days. When I moved back home after failing to be an adult and making mistakes, my brother and I got along better, but only when we didn't have to spend a lot of time together. But despite him being a clueless jackass most of the time who still hasn't quite found his head from a hole in the ground, I still love him, and will do most anything for him.
Other than that, the only family that I have and care for is my mom's oldest brother. And he's getting up there in years and I am absolutely crushed that due to his 70th birthday party next year, he will not be able to come down here for my wedding. But as for the rest of my family? Fuck em. My dad's sister and her kids? I did everything that I could to stay close to them after my grandmother died. But they wanted nothing to do with me, so fuck em. And my grandparents are all dead and gone, and have been for a while. But my mom's mother is another one that I would have done anything for.
so even my family whom I love dearly has its own little quirks. my brother and my father don't talk to each other save for when it's absolutely necessary, even though my brother is still living at home and not paying any sort of rent at all. I may not fully comprehend the situation, but I can empathize.
To me, Family is important because in some case, in my case, there's nobody else around who has seen all of my ups and all of my downs and been right beside me through them all. But, I say the same thing for a best friend. It has nothing to do with the blood relation, and more to do with the physical closeness of it all.
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But they're also the ones who forced the kid into this mess. Without those parents getting drunk and fucking, the kid would never have existed, and so never experienced pain, suffering, disappointment, loss, etc.
I consider that to be a wash. Sure, the parents spent time and money raising they kid. But they also forced it into existence.
Which, itself, is pretty fucking shitty of them.
I know it's not aimed at me, but I would say no. People who grow up in shitty environments but end up being good decent people do it despite the best efforts of everyone around them to make them just as terrible and shitty.
So yeah, the importance of family. The *theory* is that family would stick with you through thick and thin, if you had nowhere else to go and needed a roof over your head or was sick and needed a caretaker or whatever. The crazy racist uncle who's always going off on rants might disagree with you if you marry outside your race, but he'd still support your decision because you're his niece/nephew and he loves you, and he'd pitch in to help fix your house after the river floods.
That's the theory. This doesn't happen much. It's more like in my family where my crazy religious aunt disowned my cool aunt when the cool aunt came out as lesbian, to the extent that crazy aunt's kids weren't allowed to have any contact with cool aunt, and when grandma died and the dinner after the funeral was going to be at crazy aunt's house, cool aunt was banned, leading to a few other supportive family members having to boycott the dinner. And so on and so forth in increasingly worse ways.
My belief about family is that it's one of those things like home and respect that people believe without question is bestowed because of birth, but really it has to be a two-way street. Washington state was more home to me than rural georgia, even though I spent my first seventeen years in georgia and I only moved to Washington a couple years after college. I felt welcome there, instead of feeling like everyone resented my very existence. To be family, one has to behave like family, the give and take and thick and thin. Some guy who came in your mom and ran off? That's not your father. That's a sperm donor. Some unrelated guy then takes it on himself to marry your mom and raise you for eighteen some odd years? That's your real father.
My father has been living with his mother (my grandma) several states away. I rarely see him anymore. He calls often but most of the time I am too angry or upset or just don't want to be bothered and don't answer. I'm sure this breaks his heart. It breaks mine, every day. He is older than my mom and on disability. He doesn't have much money. His brothers--my uncles--are rich as balls, but they apparently aren't interested in lending my dad anymore help.
I'm not surprised. The legal bills from all this ugliness are well over $100k combined. The judge ruled that since my parents can't decide how to settle the assets the share, namely, their joint ownership of the paid-off house I grew up in and which my mother kicked my father out of during the event that started the shitball rolling last year, that the house will have to be put on the market and sold without their consent. My parents had so many chances before, during, and after the divorce to maintain financial stability and they threw it away to hurt each other as much as possible. I can't even begin to describe how terrifying the future is to me, and how angry I am at them.
But I can't hate them outright, because they are my parents, and they love me deeply, and I love them. I love them so much. And I don't know if you can imagine how it feels to have the certain knowledge that they are also, without a doubt, unable to change, and that they have fucked things up so far beyond the point of no return that the only way I even have a chance to live my life as I want to is when they both die. And it's not even the money that they lost (and are still losing)--it's the constantly mounting stress of being a new supposedly self-sufficient adult, with a brand new job, and brand new responsibilities, also feeling responsible for my mother's expenses (she recently underwent surgery and cannot work), my father's dire straits, my sister's constant screaming and reproaches that I have to try harder to maintain the delusions that my mother suffers under, all while trying to balance my secret relationship (Persian family...) and my time-consuming job/commute and my increasingly panicked inner voice telling me that if I don't live my life while I am still young I will never get a chance to live it, but I need to save my newly earned money because I have no goddamn idea what fresh hell awaits me tomorrow or the day after or the year after...
Usually people try to tell me that I'm an adult and I don't have to put up with any of this shit, and that it's not the end of the world. Please. Please. I can posture and declare that "I am so done with this!" but that's not how family works. Particularly while I am still relying on not having to pay rent (for as long as we can remain in this house), while my mother continues to loosen her already lax grip on fiscal and social responsibility, while my sister is still in college, and while my father, who lives so far away now, and is so old, that it terrifies me that I won't have a lot of chances to be with him before he dies, but trying to sneak a whole trip around my mother's paranoia is next to impossible without opening a whole Pandora's box of brand new fights and settlements rollicking instability, and it;s not like I get along great with my Dad anyway, who is also getting more religious and inflexible and paranoid...I feel like I am trapped even more now that I am and adult. The easy ride others gave me is over now, and every day I feel like I have less and less to look forward to in life. I have to do something about this all on my own. And just walking away is not doing something about it.
So yeah I'm really depressed right now.
Oh and this whole story is like 1% of the whole Very Berry Shitsnack Flavor Explosion that is my family life. I haven't even touched on my childhood. Hoo-y.
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Which considering the type of people who harp about family values, isn't really surprising.
A lot of the talk seems to center around whether your family "deserves" your time/love/support/etc. Taking that out of the equation, what if there was simply some sort of lottery-based mechanism of ever-expanding sets of people to whom your level of obligation would decrease the larger the set became? What say you, PA, to this quasi-rational post-Confucian model of society?
I mean, my family has plenty of issues, and I can't say I'm particularly close to any of them. That being said, I know I can pick up the phone at pretty much any hour and they would respond. It's an open question as to whether I would actually want their support, but they would provide some sort of help given the situation at hand. It also goes the other way around - if my aunt, who is bipolar and emotionally abusive to her children (one of whom is autistic) calls me in the middle of the night and asks me to give her a ride to the hospital, I'm gonna do it. I'm not going to particularly enjoy it, but I would feel obligated to do it, out of respect for the fact that she would most likely do the same, or if not her then her children (my cousins) would, and if not them then etc. etc. etc.
Granted, I'm of Chinese descent, so our concept of what a family means is probably not quite the same as what is generally assumed in Western culture. Obligation, guilt, and social expectation (e.g., "I can't believe she isn't paying for her mother's hospital bills") play a far stronger role than "love" or "constructive relationships" in that sense. The implied understanding is that, at some point, you need to just count on people. If the bonds you form are based purely on whether you like someone or get along with them, then that obligation can just as easily be rescinded once you stop liking that person or getting along with them. The picking up the phone in the middle of the night, the emergency loan to bail you out of jail, the place to stay for a few nights because your plumbing exploded - that constancy of support and obligation in and of itself a thing of value.
That or they're generally unpleasant people who need to guilt potential organ donors into spending time with them.
@Giggles_Funsworth, that's the worst story man. I hope you're in a good place now.
I don't know of anyone who's in my exact situation - I live away from my family, they're all getting very old, and pretty soon Thanksgiving or Christmas, or whatever...well. I won't have any family left. It's just my Mom and my Grandmother, and I won't have them forever (given their poor health and age).
It's difficult to let that sink in. We're all mortal, and we'll all lose the ones we love. The holidays just seem to remind me of who I've lost, and who I'm too poor to go home and visit. I'm fortunate that I have friends where I live now - they're like family to me. But they aren't my mother or my grandmother.
And when my immediate family is all gone? I'll be alone, and I'm pretty sure I'll just...deconstruct. It's a future I don't want to contemplate.
However, "family" is who you choose it to be, not who you're related to genetically. If the two coincide, that's great. If they don't, it's nothing on you. There's way too many people out there who abuse those bonds and they don't deserve ANY of your time.
How about people who make huge sweeping judgemental generalizations?
Family is important in my respects. Most obviously that family, whether you like it or not, helped shape the person you are today--without them you would be non-existent and not the person you are today. That's it, period. So there's bit of an investment and identity tie in with family that doesn't exist with friends who one chooses (and subbing friends as "family" seems a highly consumerist and a bit alarming ideal-"I get what's most convenient to me when I want to get it").
Hmmm. I could argue the opposite. People who are able to dismiss their family and choose their own are flexing their own privilege.
privilege of knowing people that are better than their blood relatives? I don't really think that fits with projecting a schema you take for granted towards other, different people.
If you are tied to family regardless of how much they abuse or take advantage of you because 'blood is thicker than water', I think it's very unhealthy. It results in facilitating behavior that is unhealthy for you, and unhealthy for your family members.
At the same time, if you are willing to throw away ties to your family without spending a significant amount of honest effort working on compromising and resolving the issues, that's unhealthy too. It's incredibly selfish and stubborn to dismiss family without talking through the issues with them, explaining what's wrong, and giving them a realistic opportunity to improve.
When it comes to family, I really don't think there are many blanket statements. It's going to depend on each person's situation. But either way, don't just dismiss family because you are 'just' mad. The relationship should be fundamentally flawed, and if you do choose to cut ties with some people you should do everything in your power to keep people you do care about from getting caught in the middle or having to pick sides.
In this case, it sounds like something like this is REALLY the best option. Be polite, and when things settle down and you've put some distance between you and this issue, think about it some more and decide if you really want to cut ties / burn bridges or if you can maybe just lay down some ground rules and make your family respect them.
Here's a little rule I use
if someone abuses people I love, they are not someone I will go out of my way to hang out with
The concept that the work my grandparents put in to barely not get CPS on their ass is somehow deserving of a lifetime of respect and deference is maddening. My grandparents did bad things until they became demented enough to forget who people were.
They were invested in my parents' identity in the same way an abusive spouse is invested in your identity. They certainly had an impact! On occasion, multiple impacts in a row!
The reason I maintain strong bonds with friends (and friends of my parents) and not family isn't because I'm doing what's convenient, but because I like them and I dislike my family. I'm lucky enough to have had a dad, and to have a mother and sister, who are really lovely all around. But they taught me the lesson that family needs to be dropped by the wayside when it's hurting you instead of helping you.
Family is a collection of other human beings, they don't have blood magic. I am eternally grateful we didn't pretend a couple of racist geese were our loving grandma and grandpa who we totally didn't hate. I am impressed by the pragmatism and strength displayed by my parents when they cut off a group of people that you are endlessly told will be your only lifeline. My sister and I were not shaped by extended family, and we're better for it.
Privilege and being able to re-locate and dismiss where they come from--usually this has $$$ behind it. I would guess that poorer people tend to be closer to family and not because poorer families are somehow more magically, but because they can not afford to separate themselves.
Holding the family unit hostage with $$$ doesn't make the situation any less contemptible when your family sucks.
It also interferes with your whole life as a separate individual. Other people's bad, destructive decisions are your bad, destructive decisions, because they get to make decisions for you.
Blood-relation/relation seems a bit more neutral, and probably more accurate to what I mean.
Because when I say that I consider someone to be family, it means we're close. When I say some IS family, it means we're related, and doesn't mention anything about how close we are.
Being related is an ice-breaker (to steal a term from above). It's a nice little quirk, in the vein of wearing the same shirt to a party.
I don't think I've ever considered the family tree when deciding who I should consider 'family'
It’s not a very important country most of the time
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But when you live with a roommate that shits the bed no one weaves tales of togetherness through adversity.
It’s not a very important country most of the time
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