The idea of family may include those creatures we cohabit with. It may be the slow evolution from friendship to kinship, or it may simply be those we love the most. The notion that it is restricted by our genetics seems rather antiquated.
We hear the word all the time, family. It pervades the media and its stories. It permeates our entertainment and every culture that we know of. It is the smallest unit of socialization, the first we are born into. At its foundation, is a definition rooted in genetics; simply put, in our blood. My father is my family because his genes are part of my genes, his blood is my blood.
Why don’t we see family in other ways?
I can remember in college when I would return home for Thanksgiving. I would always have two dinners; one with my family and one with my friends. I remembered how I felt, how I anticipated, being with my friends. A select group of us came together and had a meal all to ourselves, time that we shared separate from our individual families. I always felt that these good friends were just as close (if not closer) than those I shared genes with.
As I’ve moved away from many of these friends, I’ve grown apart from them; just as I’ve grown apart from certain family members. There are a select few that I still consider close; friends that visit once every three years and yet still feel as if they have never left; friends I consider close in ways I don’t have with family. These specific friends I would wholeheartedly call members of my family.
It is easy for us to pigeonhole family as only those who share a branch of our DNA. It’s easy because it is simple. Another aspect of this is that family, for many of us, is those individuals we have lived a good chunk of our lives with. Sure we may have grown and moved away from each other, but that chunk of history is still in our memory.
It takes more effort to encompass friends and strangers into our definition of family. The effort is in overcoming our cultural idea of the word and what it means. Once we can overcome this, we understand that love may indeed play a greater part in defining those who are truly brother and sisters.
Copyright © Tyler Gant 2010 for Just Moving Along .com
