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Post by Cali on Jul 2, 2014 20:07:30 GMT 1
I want to start by saying I love my family, immediate and extended. They're a great bunch of people, and we're all insanely close, and I feel endlessly grateful that I'm part of such a loving and unwaveringly supportive gang such as this. They are more or less a "traditional" style family, and really, I can't see at first glance that there's not much wrong with that.
Let me also say, that when people argue that traditional family values are extremely fundamental and essential for society, I can't help but feel that they aren't paying the following things any heed:
1. That family means different things to many people (though admittedly still almost always yield the same value and feeling). 2. That the "traditional" or "nuclear" family hasn't really endured completely throughout history. It's more recent than many people think. 3. Any family is only as good as the people in it. 4. That it's rather silly to assume that the "fall" of the traditional family is remotely related to whatever problems the world has.
It's also pretty worth noting that there's way too many cranks arguing in favor of the nuclear family, which isn't really helping. Anybody got any thoughts? I'd sort of like to know what the term "family" means to everybody else.
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Post by Lily Ariel Linders on Jul 2, 2014 23:07:20 GMT 1
"Family" means the people you love who love you back. Unconditionally. I am adopted, so I am not related to any of my family by blood, and yet there's nothing I wouldn't do for them, or they for me... it's all about love.
Linders is family now too... to the point where my parents and the rest of my family consider him so. In fact, people tend to be 'absorbed' by my family simply by virtue of being spouse to a family member, and any given person attached to our family could ask anything from anyone and chances are it would be done. We're mostly all very close, and that's really all that's needed to make a proper family - unconditional love and knowing that they'll always be there for you.
I love my family...
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Post by jklinders on Jul 3, 2014 3:27:38 GMT 1
Family transcends whatever legal ties that society puts out.
Family will have your back if you need help, but give you your lumps when you deserve them. People need both of those kind of love. Sadly, I'm not too attached to my blood family outside of my Mom and brother. Many of them are great people, I just don't know them well. Lily's family, I see more of and feel more like family. Though my cousins just outside the city are great as well. I just rarely have the combination of time energy and resource to see them.
I feel that the whole emphasis on the "traditional" family has more to do with politics than anything. Any way the different and odd can be suppressed is embraced by those who invoke that particular piece of terminology. The "traditional" family also required that the wife be the homemaker and child rearer and never leave the home except to run errands. Trust me on this, my Dad was VERY reluctant to let mom learn how to drive until it was obvious that it was more convenient to have her be able to do some of this stuff. They are out there and it should frighten you that they are.
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Post by CAPT Issac R. Madden on Jul 3, 2014 3:49:49 GMT 1
I agree with Linders. To me, "family" is anyone I'm willing to put myself through pure hell for their sake. For me, that's my mother, father, sister, and two close friends that I can name (one of whom is the guy I bought the guitar rig for).
Considering how many of my blood relatives are scumbags, I don't find sharing genes to be a compelling argument for what "family" means.
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Post by Clint Johnston on Jul 3, 2014 5:55:05 GMT 1
I think a family is a close knit group of people who make things work at the same residence. They live their lives together and take care of one another. People you spend years with. I think blood relation or at least time does have something to do with it. I don't have the same connection with my roommate as I do with my sister. People you put up with despite their obvious foibles, and care about in spite of their unwillingness to confront them.
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Post by Mister Buch on Jul 3, 2014 11:31:32 GMT 1
I think WE are family, and that I've got all my sisters with me.
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Post by Clint Johnston on Jul 3, 2014 12:57:29 GMT 1
Get up everybody, sing....
Getting up and singing? I'm going to my room.
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Post by Warhammer Gorvar on Jul 3, 2014 17:42:31 GMT 1
Family...family...does that mean the lady who kept feeding me when I came out of the egg and then kicked me out when I was mature enough? I remember having to walk when i was 3 hours old. It was friggin' hard yo!
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Post by Lily Ariel Linders on Jul 3, 2014 23:15:25 GMT 1
I would also like to add that true family doesn't necessarily mean people you live with, either... I already mentioned about my family 'absorbing' people who are considered to be more than friends (and I don't mean in a sexual way either); my family consists of those who would be expected to be family (parents / aunts / uncles / cousins etc.), and no small number of non-related people who are such close friends of the family that they became family by osmosis. The gentleman who happens to be best friend to both me and Linders is more like a brother to me than my own legal brother.
And family is what you make it.
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Post by Mr. Glow on Mar 12, 2019 22:00:49 GMT 1
*Extremely poor acting voice* You guys are all my family. And you have to do anything for your family. Sink a dozen Coronas. Jump off the freeway. Make multiple films with Jason Statham. That's what family is all about.
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