WHEN DID FAMILY BECOME A FOUR LETTER WORD?

 

Why is it we are one of the only countries in the world who treat family as if it were an untreatable condition?  Now, I exaggerate here to make a point, but what I say is not so far off the mark, at least for many people in many familial situations.

Travel anywhere – and I’ve traveled often to many countries in South America, Asia and – Europe and families tend to stick together in a way we do not.

Forget travel and just look at immigrant families in this country be they Chinese, Italian and Indian they are very tight and they are not embarrassed about it. For the most part they go through their lives with their families being the cornerstones of their world.

 Sure they go off and make their own families, often times earlier and larger than their American counterparts, but they come home for Sunday suppers and birthdays and holidays and just to be. The grandparents are not harbored off in Florida or Arizona but stick close and help raise the kids.

It isn’t seen as a duty, or something to endure to alleviate guilt; it’s seen as source of great pleasure, entertainment and sustenance.

Even mobsters. Sure they may whack someone and shove him in a trunk but they will go straight over to mom’s for dinner. Perhaps out of remorse perhaps for the cannelloni or more likely he loves his mama -  or perhaps I have watched too many films.  But actually they do do it. And try – just try saying anything about an Italian guy’s mother.  I dare you.

I spend a lot of time in India and there the concept of family takes on a meaning we cannot begin to comprehend.  The blended family is still very prevalent. The son, once married, moves in with his family and they all live together. Now this is not all rosy and leads to many problems at times and some great fiction! Rohinton Mistry says in FAMILY MATTERS “nothing makes an Indian son happier than pleasing his family.” I’m not sure how firmly his tongue was planted in his cheek when he wrote this, but it has been the Indian motto for centuries.

I think now with Western values flooding in through globalization much is changing, but they remain very close and I don’t think that will ever change.

 

It has been proven that people with healthy/close ties to their families throughout their lives are less lonely, depressed and dysfunctional.

They are also often times more prosperous: when one doesn’t operate under the every man for himself rule people have a certain ability to grow economically. Which is another reason people in poorer countries tend to stick together they cannot afford to break apart, but regardless of the economical advantages within that structure they feel more secure.

How is it the Koreans come here and own markets within years of landing?  They bond together and work for the good of the family. If the family succeeds the indivivual members do as well.

I once had a Viet Naimese manicurist who owned five buildings on La Cienga in LA. I was so impressed by this as I was most likely in debt while being a trust fund baby. I asked her how she did it.

She said unlike you we all stick together. I took a job to put my brother through medical school then he became a doctor and he bought me this business. Then we pooled our money and bought the first building and instead of hiring someone to run it we have our parents do it so we can save there and now we have five. It may sound goofy however empires often are family affairs.

 

But for some reason once we hit a certain age, and that age tends to be eighteen, family far too often becomes a thing to run from, be embarrassed by, only visit when we absolutely have to, Thanksgiving and big family weddings. Hit the road Jack.

News flash Jack Kerouac was close to his family – you can have it both ways!!!!

 

As someone who works in the media I have to admit the media has made it much worse.  How often is the fiancé preparing her soon to be husband for the horrors that lurk inside the family home?  We tend to portray parents as stupid and intrusive and grandparents as doddering and to be avoided and little brothers and sisters as pesky and without merit.  Once again there are exceptions to this rule but it happens more often than not.

And the kids reinforce it with each other, so even if an adolescent or a grown up child finds his family a source of comfort or god-forbid fun they are  often ridiculed as being a sissy or a baby. You are only a grown –up if you stay as far away from the nest as possible.

 

Look, many families do suck and are toxic and need to be avoided, and many kids have no choice but to stay as far away as possible. But many do not and it becomes more of a collective habit than a natural choice.

 

This topic resonates strongly with me as I pretty much come from no family.  I grew up an only child with a single mother, back in the days when there were not as many of these couplings around.  Despite the fact like many, I longed for a very Brady life, I had a grand time with my mother much of the time. I didn’t have a childhood in the normal sense of the word; I had more of a pal than a mom and no real siblings.  But I thought my mother was cool and she was.

And in many ways I think she still is  though sadly we are now estranged. 

Through much of my life I fond her  more interesting than people my own age, her friends certainly were as well and we went amazing places, did amazing things and continued to do so into my mid-thirties,  and well into my first marriage.

I included her in almost anything she wanted to be included in up until it all fell apart.

Why it fell apart is not for this blog, but what is for this blog is the fact I really did enjoy her, and today as a fifty-one year old woman I miss having a mother. I see mothers and daughters my age shopping, having lunch, on holiday with the whole family and I really long for that. I wish I had a mom to go to for advice. I wish I had a mom now when Taylor is going off to school.  I don’t need The Waltons, but I would love some family. And I do believe the older you get the more you understand and appreciate what family really means.

On the other side of my family coin is my father who I am as close to as I can possibly be given the depth of water under the bridge, the formulation of family ties and the blows the years have struck on our connection.

He is eighty-one and we have hammered out the best connection we can, and that is good. I’m pleased by that as we both overcame many obstacles and have to make allowances for things in our indivual personalities that could keep us apart. But in the real sense of the word I am not a part of his family and that is as much my fault as his – perhaps. It is the way it is.

 

Coming from the background I did my biggest goal has always been to make a strong family that would last.  And even now that one member will be spending eight months a year away (and possiblly more with travel and what-have you) I don’t plan on letting the whole thing slide.  And that has nothing to do with “Letting Go”, this wildly over used term. It has to do with remaining some form of a unit.

 

We all went to Egypt a few years ago.  We travel a lot as family. I’m a big believer in making memories and I find travel to be some of the most enduring ones. They certainly were in my life, I have amazing travel memories with my mother that have lived on though the relationship has not.

When we returned from Egypt many asked if I would go back. “I’ll take my grandchildren”. And I mean it.  That’s he kind of grandma I hope to be.

We are building a house on our property in the country to make room for our children’s new lifestyles and mates and hopefully some day their children.

Yeah, life moves on, they grow up and have their own homes but how nice it is for them and you that they always know there is a place to come back to where they are loved for who they were and who they have become – that is unconditional  love, it’s what stories from the beginning of time have been constructed on, it’s what we all seek and so often it is under the roof from where we came.