what’s a family in 2007?
David on Aug 21st 2007
What’s a family nowdays, anyway?
A google search for the meaning results in a long list of obtuse and unsatisfying definitions. Few of the definitions express the real breadth and depth of the “American Family:” single parents, grandparents raising children, two moms, two dads, etc. These are all real families, and have been for decades, and it’s our job to remind people of that. These families have been the invisible majority for too long.
We know from the 2000 Census that family structures are very diverse. Talking in terms of “married men and women with 2.5 kids and a dog” actually leaves a majority of families out, not just our families.
Recently, I read a post in Constant Chatter about the very same topic. The author wrote:
So what is a family in 2007? …A family is (and always has been) an ongoing creation – if home is where when you have to go there, they have to take you in, then family are the people who take you in, no matter what. For some people, family is the nucleus of two parents and two or three children, living in a simple home. For others, family is a much larger, multigenerational structure, sometimes living together in a large dwelling, helping one another, getting into one another’s business, and raising generations of children together. For many city dwellers, family is one’s circle of friends, to whom we turn for everything from Sunday brunch to Passover Seders, acting as one another’s advisors in all things from childcare to divorce, and being there for one another in a world that can sometimes overwhelm and frighten even the toughest among us. With or without children, with one parent or two, gay or straight, we all cobble together families as best we can, because, in the end, there is something exceedingly human in our desire, our need, to be a part of a loving and supportive group that will be there for us. The world will change, our society will evolve, but our need for family, that is eternal.
The defintion of family will continue to evolve with our society, but the language of bedtime and bath time, hugs and homework bonds us all together as parents. At a speech in Dallas, TX, Family Pride executive director spoke about this universal bond of parenting.
In these coming days, months and years ahead as we continue on in our quest for equal justice, it is this that I hang on to. Because I fundamentally believe that the love of family is so universal, so powerful, that there will be no other choice for good hearted people all across this country to eventually realize that love is the same no matter who it is shared between…
To learn more about reframing the definition of family, download Family Pride’s OUTSpoken Speakers Toolkit.
