Who Asked? // What makes a family?

Family is complicated. I think this is something almost everyone can agree on. And there is no time more complicated for families than during the holidays, especially in an election year. I have so many friends who are dreading crowding around a dinner table with aunts and uncles, and even parents and siblings, who disagree with them on so many fundamental ideals. 

But even beyond our current politics, family is complex. The people who came before us and how we were raised inform so much of who we are, from beliefs to generational traumas. It is impossible to completely sever ourselves, even if we cut the physical person out of our lives. 

It is also true that even someone who loves their family more than anything will find themselves needing some space or encountering conflict. When you’ve been with someone for so much of your life, it’s impossible not to get on each other’s nerves. 

It’s becoming more and more common to see people preach that you can make your own family and build your own communities. According to them, you are not tethered to blood relatives. But how much of this is true? 

Should we cut off any and all family members with whom we have conflicts? Can the families we build have the same depth of connection as the families into which we were born? How much do we owe someone for simply being genetically related? And at the end of the day, what really makes a family? 

First, I want to start strongly with the fact that if you have a family member who does not believe you should exist, or does not accept who you love, or has abused you, you do not owe them anything. There is a massive difference between the nitty-gritty conflicts between loved ones and being hated or unsafe around someone. Just because they share your DNA or raised you does not mean you must continue to encounter someone that purely causes you psychological or physical harm. Of course, even in these extreme cases, it is natural to still feel some complex level of obligation or even affection for this person. Never beat yourself up for being unable to completely cut someone off even if they have not shown you the basic decency you deserve. 

Things only get grayer from here, however. I know many people who love their families but are struggling, especially with political differences. I’m extremely lucky to share political views with my parents, and I never fear that we could get into a yelling match about who should be president. I also know people who still love their family despite these conflicts, and I want to say, somewhat controversially, that that is okay. In the wake of the recent election, there have been many calls to cut off people in your life who voted differently than you. But I think it is too tall of an order to demand someone go no contact with their parents just because their parents are motivated to vote according to their religion or never got proper education on the economy. 

Do not feel like a bad activist for still loving or missing your parents, siblings or grandparents that may have voted against you. I truly wish you all the luck in the world with the upcoming holidays. Whether you choose to bite your tongue or try to educate the people you love, I trust that you are making the choice healthiest for you, and that is the most important thing. 

Now we move past hate and politics into the more subtle conflicts that drag under the surface of familial affairs. Resentments, attachment issues, criticisms and all the other things that get under your skin that you probably couldn’t name without years of therapy. These are the things that are inescapable for most families — to varying degrees, of course.  

Not to sound like a broken record, but I’m going to repeat the sentiment of holding two truths at once. It is important for all of us to put in the mental and emotional work to unpack our relationship with our family, discern how we are affected by how we were raised and hold compassion in our hearts as we acknowledge that the people that took care of us have their own wounds and traumas and histories that we are inescapably affected by.

It is completely normal and natural to still love someone with your whole heart while acknowledging the ways they have hurt you. Just today I found myself tearing up in the middle of Cathy thinking about my grandmother making new friends at assisted living. This doesn’t mean that I don’t still hold her accountable for the ways that being her caretaker has made my mother’s life much more difficult, stressful and triggering.

No one is ever going to have a perfect relationship with their family. Even my friend, who gets along with her parents better than anyone I know, still tells me of a blowout fight she had in middle school that almost led to someone getting out of a moving car. It’s just part of the beautiful, messy lives we live. It’s also completely normal for your closeness to family to shift as you move through life. Maybe in college, you find yourself distanced from your siblings, only to become much closer as you raise kids in the same town in your thirties. Maybe you could never have the relationship you wanted with your mother, only to realize that moving out was all you needed to finally see eye to eye. 

Family can also absolutely be your friends and your chosen community. My friends from high school are more like cousins to me, and as I listen to my roommates bicker about the definition of a vampire during Friendsgiving, they feel like sisters. Family can be the club you joined your first year of college that kept you from paralyzing loneliness, or it can be your coworker who gave you Advil after a 10-hour shift. Family can be any and everyone that you choose to have in your life. Remember to treat the people who love you with kindness, compassion and understanding, but that you don’t owe anyone anything if it means sacrificing your own well-being or necessary boundaries.

Family is complicated, but so is anything worth having.