We are Family

I’ve always thought about family - what it is, what we learn from it, how we survive it. This hasn’t changed since becoming a parent. Now I think about what kind of family I’m building for my daughter. More than ever I wish we had more extended family in the area because I imagine that only having me for most of the time must be lacking. She’s only five so of course she hasn’t said much about the matter. But she’s a smart, observant kid and occasionally I’ll get questions about why she doesn’t have siblings or father. Somehow in picking a daycare I seem to have chosen one where it seems as if we’re the only single parent household. I could be wrong, obviously, and it’s not as if I can stop each parent I see to ask. But in the 3 years we’ve been there all I seem to see are 2 parent homes (and each traditional in the mom/dad variety).

Family is an interesting thing if you think about it. I made a choice to become a parent but at no point did I poll the other family members to ask if they were interested in becoming an aunt or uncle. That my mother was ready to be a grandparent is such a cliche that it’s not even worth mentioning.

I often wonder if I’d had a more functional upbringing, if these questions would even occur to me. A more stable, happy childhood would maybe have wired my brain to not even question that of course family is always happy and ready to expand. Which isn’t to say, of course, that people in any way resent their new roles. But it is a curious thing, especially in this day and age where we are all learning the importance of consent to say, hey, you had no say in this but now you have to be the best aunt/uncle ever!

I’m told I’m weird to think these things.
But I’ve been told I’m weird all my life so this is nothing new.

I don’t know that this is the most articulate post ever, it may not make any sense at all. It will do for now. From the moment I started blogging 24 years ago, I’ve struggled in deciding what and how much to share. So many years later and that hasn’t changed. And yet, I still have this desire to have this online home. Weird. So we’ll see. At the rate I’m writing, I’m probably on track to post about 3 times a year. Makes you wonder what I get out of this, if anything. Maybe that will be the focus of the third post. I suppose we’ll have to see…