Who is in your family?
This was the “question of the day” for my fiancée Jess’s preschool class the other day. I see the utility of this in a preschool setting. It’s an opportunity to reflect on the people in your life, who, at that age, shape so much of your reality. I imagine the four-year-olds talked about their moms and dads, their siblings, maybe their grandparents, maybe some aunts and uncles here and there.
Who is in your family?
According to Merriam-Webster, the earliest use of family referred to “a group of persons in the service of an individual.” Family comes from the Latin word “familia” which meant “household,” a designation that included both servants and relatives. A family was the group of individuals who are all obligated to serve someone.
In high school, my favorite English teacher taught us about something he called the “universe of obligation”. If a stranger came up to you on the street and said hey, I really need fifty bucks, you’d probably be like, sorry, no. That stranger is not in your universe of obligation. But if your best friend was like hey, I really need fifty bucks, you’d probably at least consider it. Your best friend is in your universe of obligation.
We’re all walking around with different universes of obligation. Membership in my universe of obligation isn’t fixed, but it isn’t completely permeable either. It’s harder to gain entrance into my universe of obligation than it is for me to release you from it. Even someone is released, there’s a part of me that’s like, really? They’re not in my universe anymore?
The seventeen definitions for family in Merriam-Webster suggest that family can and does mean many things to many people, ranging from biology to legality to plants to chemicals. The first definition of family reads: “the basic unit in society traditionally consisting of two parents rearing their children.” The next reads “also: any of various social units differing from but regarded as equivalent to the traditional family.”
This combination actually made me crack up! It’s like, on one hand, family is two parents and their kids. On the other hand, family is any social unit that isn’t that, but is regarded as that. A thing is a thing either because it is that thing, or because you regard it as that thing! Like I always seem to find myself saying!
I wonder what we’re grasping at when we try to define family. Language is an approximation, a good try, a pencil mark written and erased and written again over and over across time and culture.
A friend and I have this thing where we both call each other “mom”. We’ve been doing this since we met in high school, I don’t know why. Hi mom! Hi mom!
In high school, a friend and I were so obsessed with each other that we got married on Facebook, like everyone was doing. We’re still married. She’s coming to my wedding in October. I guess we’re gonna have to get divorced!
When I was growing up, I had these goldfish Nick and Nan. Nick died because I overfed him. Nan died soon after, of a broken heart, I believed. My parents, brother and I had a funeral for Nick and Nan in the backyard. We buried them with the teal rocks from their tank.
My besties and I call each other besties like it’s some other designation — a descriptor, a commitment, a thing to celebrate.
One of my friends calls me Mother Goose!
In Frances Willard’s diary from the 1860s, she likens her lover Mary Bannister to many different people in her life: her mother, her father, her brother, her child. Most often she calls her “My Friend.”
What makes someone part of your family? Possible answers include:
Birth
Adoption
Marriage
Choice
The people in my family are in my family. I picture a little room inside my heart or my gut. When the door opens, there are people, cats, dogs, and fish in there. Some waltzed in. Some knocked the door down. I wonder how many beings the room could hold.
I wonder if you have a room like this in your heart or your gut. I wonder how many yours could hold.