Have you ever Google image searched the word family?
I feel as though the results are trying to send a certain message. The heart made in the penguin one is a bit obvious.
But I have to wonder, when is the last time your family looked like that? Do you have weekly family fun nights? Do you go out to the park and go home with snapshots of a happy family? Do you jump with excitement when walking down the street together? Or do your personalities clash? Do you disagree with each other's actions and grow irritable from too much togetherness?
When you add in extended family, do your pictures and keepsakes show smiling faces? Is everyone hugging each other?
When the holidays come around, do you want to go to the family gatherings? Do you miss everyone? Or would you rather only see some of them? Do you walk in the room and run up to hug everyone? Does everyone participate in the conversation? Is everyone immediately shrouded in a euphoric state?
I do not know what the typical family is or how these occasions play out, but I know that my family gatherings do not happen like that. We divide into factions. On my father's side there is the section for those who will end up drinking too much. There are common groups of four to five people who always talk to these same people at gatherings and rarely get up to see another person. There are the occasional outsiders that have either had a few too many children at a young age or done a few too many drugs; that no one really wants to acknowledge.
On my mother's side it is small enough that everyone sits at one table, but the factions are even more apparent. All the fathers get along well enough and often will go to watch some sport that's being aired on television. However, the rest of us are not so open. My immediate family remains closed off and separated: we are bitter because every year my mother's sisters and their families go on a vacation that they boast about to us but have never included us. As years passed, we grew more silent as I became an atheist and the majority of my family became either an atheist or agnostic. Our extended family likes to believe themselves Christians, even if they rarely go to church and have not been known to pray other than at a funeral.
But while I wonder about the way the word family is projected on society, I wonder about the way family works its way into our lives.
I've learned from experience that mentioning something about yourself that is more important than "Oh, I saw that, it was cool," or "I love you" family (or mine) doesn't want to hear it.
You're an atheist now? How ridiculous, now I demand you listen as I attack this foolish misjudgment of yours.
You mean you understand all of this? Ew, now you're going to use facts in the conversation? Go away, of course we don't want to understand any of this. This is gossip, rumors. Don't suck the fun away.
It goes on.
So I wonder: does your family know who you really are? I know, most of us live with our immediate family. If we all see each other everyday we're bound to know a good deal about that person. But what about extended family? Do you play a charade in their presence? Or do you really have that perfect family that is depicted in the media? (And if you do, how do you keep it up?)
My family is not designed for unconditional love. It's full of people who say they love me, but refuse to know anything about me. It's full of people who still fondle my hair, though anyone who pays attention to me knows how much I detest the action.
I also wonder something else, though: even in the worst of families, I think there must be someone that you whole-heartedly love: a cousin, an aunt, whomever. Someone whose presence makes you undeniably happy. For me, it's a cousin. But for big events and celebrations, such as my recent graduation, he's not invited. I'm not even the one who does the inviting. Not really.
For some reason, it is demanded that my mother's sisters and mother are invited to these events. My mother asserts it and my father goes along with it. And, though I'll fight it for months, I'm always forced to invite them personally and hide my venom.
Why? Does someone somewhere find it funny? Think it won't make my animosity grow?
Am I the only one who feels this way? Is Google right? Are most families really eternally happy together? At the end of the day, how do you feel about the family?
