family
it's like the functional unit of the world
it's what many people strive to create; even in the poorest of poor countries, families exist even when they can't afford to
it's what categorizes our relationships; you are either blood or water
I'll take a stab in the dark but I'm guessing most people would family as their number one priority. It's a bond rooted in nature and it tugs at us quite a lot, especially as we age and mature and become independent adults. In fact, family may even be at odds with this process of becoming independent. At point do we separate ourselves from the family unit and seek another? .
Sometimes independence is the line between you and your family.
I believe a family should nurture independence, in both child and parent. We have phrases such as "family values" but what we don't do is reconcile that with "personal values." Growing up means being influenced from your surroundings aside from family, so at one point, we will have developed our own ideas and values that may be exactly in line with our family, or completely different. In the ascent into adulthood, we must decide if being an adult means completely straying from those who raised us and aged with us. For the lucky ones, it's simple matter; being the person you want to be bears no change on the bonds of family. But for some others, often immigrant families with children raised in a different country than the native, being who the person you want to be can mean leaving the the people you used to be with behind. Often the growth of the children's identities, clash with the established identities of the parent(s). Of course, this is highly dependent on cultural views on family as well.
In Hawaiian culture, or so Lilo and Stitch taught us, "Ohana means family. Family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten." How many truly believe in this? How many practice what you preach? I love that line and can only hope that more people abide by it. Sometimes families break dissolve for what will one day seem like an insignificant reason. How can you deny your own flesh and blood?
At the end of the day, a family is whatever definition comforts you. It is whoever gives you a support structure, a protective arm, a strong bond. I believe we all have the need for parental figures, no matter how independent. We are born with a bond to our parents, especially to our mother, who nurtured us from the womb. So it's always hard to make the decision to cut loose the bonds of a family. It's not an easy decision because in choosing to do so, you may gain what ever it is you sought, but you lose a critical part of you and ignite innate yearnings that you may never lose. How can you justify cutting a lifelong umbilical cord?
I guess the real question is,
what's worth being a motherless child?
3 comments:
So I agree with a lot of what you said, but the more I read this post the more I thought of the whole biological child and adoption thing. Does family always have to mean that you have to be bond by flesh and blood? Does a woman who raised you from when you were 3 or 5 have less of a connection to you than your biological mother? I wonder why we place such emphasis on biology and the mechanics of a family being based on blood. There are plenty of mothers who do not love their child for whatever reason, but why do they get more of a paternal right than a mother (not biological) who wants to adopt and raise a child? In NY State a mother is defined as the woman who physically gave birth to you, but what if your biological mother gave you up and you were raised by someone for 2 years and suddenly your biological mother wants you back. Why does she have more of a right than the person who raised you? This obsession that we have with biology really irks me sometimes. The one example I always seem to fall back on is Angelina and Brad, why the hell are we obsessed with Shiloh (why does she have a fax figurine?) but we don't care so much about their adopted children. Is Shiloh more of their child than the others?
Too many questions :)
wax figurine! :)
Christina brings up an interesting point. Obviously someone who raised you for most of your life should be closer and have more rights than someone who just gave birth to you and abandoned you. But I think that some people need a set way to judge who to trust and who not to. If you go by blood, it makes things simple, especially for law and stuff. If you go by who took care of you, it probably opens up a whole shade of gray. Not the way it should be, I think, but the world isn't ideal. And if it was, it'd be boring!
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