What on Earth is a Family?
Family is an ideal. We are not automatically granted admission into one just by being born. Instead, it must be built collectively by its members. If the builders are incompetent and the structure collapses, it becomes a guaranteed source of childhood trauma and lifelong challenges. If you happen to find yourself in one of those poorly constructed structures, take comfort in knowing you are in good company. Most of us are.
In my personal dictionary of the spirit, the word "family" represents the ideal state only. It does not apply to the broken, dysfunctional, randomized assemblages of disparate souls thrown together by the blind luck of a shared gene pool. That is called a ménage.
The spiritual definition of a family is a group of two or more individuals who share a deep love, an unconditional enabling, and a fierce protectiveness for one another. The unit is meant to be so tight that it is simultaneously self-sufficient and impenetrable. It provides an unparalleled support system capable of weathering any storm and navigating the roughest terrain. Or, alternatively, it fails as a unit because one member had the steering wheel and—against their better judgment or not—the rest participated in undying solidarity. But that is what good families do. In my entire life, I have known only a handful of people who enjoyed such ramparts. They walked with a distinct gait.
My own muddy pond of a gene pool is the aforementioned ménage, which is, of course, the most common configuration. Once I figured this out—which happened only very recently—I suddenly found peace. All my life I had been lamenting the lack of love, protection, and support emanating from my biological cluster, while simultaneously carrying an immense weight of guilt for my lack of connection to them. My inability to love my family was a heartbreak to me. My failure, I thought. But the truth is, they would be insufferable to all but the most venerated saints. They are classist despite being broke, racially biased despite being woke, and entitled despite being thoroughly regular folk. They have leaned heavily on the ideal of family whenever it suited them or whenever they wanted something, but they provided absolutely none of it when tasked with reciprocation. I always felt like the illegitimate son of an affair my mother might have had in a weak moment. I would observe the group during special events or holidays, wondering where on earth I came from and why I failed to feel anything more than a vague, theoretical kinship. Whenever I hinted at this sentiment, I invoked immediate rebuke and deep offense.
And so, instead, I long maintained the illusion that we were a family. But the illusion did not make them any more likable. Their total lack of the Yes-Principle, Absolute-Defense, and Unconditional-Love made them no better than strangers I felt socially compelled to get along with.
Living with my family is highly reminiscent of living in student digs or a crusty's doss-house. Everyone is opportunistic. Everyone forages for food without replacing it, rarely contributing anything to the communal pile other than items highly specific to their own oddball health-food-store diets. Cooking is left entirely to those willing to do it. Cleaning up afterward is best avoided, usually falling on whoever requires a clean kitchen to prepare the next meal. If you merely suggest a dish rota, you are treated like a fascist dictator and an enemy of the people.
I have never seen my siblings run a vacuum cleaner. Ever. Or a broom. I saw my brother recently use a single tissue to clean up one small spill, leaving behind the entire rest of the food debris he generated while making falafel. Another brother eats an enormous breakfast, twice, within an hour of each meal, and cleans up afterward precisely never. His girlfriend does the same. Then they head outside to have fun somewhere, leaving behind a stack of dishes, only to return later looking for dinner.
My mother, now invalided, orders meals and beverages from her Lazy-Boy recliner with the grand airs of a nineteenth-century monarch. She insists on paying for everything. My siblings complain that she is a drain on them, all while actively draining her bank account. They eat all her food while grumbling that they have to wait on her. They use all her laundry soap while complaining that the detergent is unhealthy. They utilize her supermarket discount cards and buy items on her Amazon account, all the while complaining bitterly about corporate tracking and the monopolisation of online consumerism.
All my siblings are overly sensitive. Eggshells must be walked upon at all times. The entire ecosystem is an exhausting anathema to me, just as it was when I was a child. Nothing has changed. All my life I have felt like an adult living among toddlers—not just inside the ménage, but in the world at large.
The Yes-Principle is the belief that "yes" is always the correct answer when a family member needs help or support. A bad or good decision can financially prosper or ruin a family, but that is the vow, regardless. A bad driver might take the wheel with everyone on board, but they are all in it together for better or worse, entirely committed to the journey throughout all the bumps, twists, and turns—even if they all end up in a ditch together. When I see families either prospered or ruined by the actions of a single member, I see real families. Families who embrace the Yes-Principle. That is what real families do.
Absolute-Defense is when protectiveness is so core to your being that you will willingly risk life and limb to defend your loved ones from harm or hardship. As a schoolboy, I regularly jumped in to defend other kids from bullies, usually to my own detriment. On one occasion, while I was the one being customarily beaten up in the school hallway, my brother walked past with his friends. He looked right at me, took in the situation, and laughed. My mother observed quietly with that same flat indifference—probably born out of fear—whenever my abusive stepfather bullied us. No one in my ménage sticks their neck out for another. In essence, we are no better, and sometimes significantly worse, than strangers. We are certainly not a family in spirit.
Unconditional-Love is the true heart and relentless devotion of the enterprise. It is slathered over the former two qualities like thick icing on a grand familial cake. It enables us to trust like no stranger can trust, to forgive like no friend can forgive, and to offer support when everyone else has walked away. That is family. I hope you have one. If you don't, go out into the world and build your own. Cherish it like the hearth fire it is. It sustains. It warms. And it keeps the wolves at bay.
As for my biological family, I hereby vow to love them purely as a proximity cluster within the members of our species. I happened to be spawned into them, spewed forth into a gelatinous pool like a bunch of tadpoles, each of us entirely responsible for ourselves from hatch to grave. It would be much easier to be angry and stay away. Yet, for some inexplicable reason, it feels like there is a riddle or a lesson buried down there in the silt, and I am compelled to discover it.
One day, perhaps. And if not, at least I tried.