What is "family"?

This is not a rhetorical question. Well, sort of. But I do want to know, and since everyone seems to have their own personal definition of "family" that works for them, I don't really even know if there IS an answer to this question. There are political answers, politically incorrect answers, DNA answers, ancestral answers, adoptive answers, dictionary answers, and on and on and on. I totally get that everyone is going to have their own working definition of what makes a family and what doesn't "count" as family. And this is by NO means an attempt at making ANY sort of political or social commentary on any issues related to family in the legal stratosphere. I am NOT trying to get involved in any public awareness-type issue here, at all! This is merely me, attempting to put into perspective, a question that has come up in my world recently and which has been on my mind ever since. And what it really boils down to is the hypocrisy I see in people's changing definition of "family" depending on the circumstances, and on how their current active definition can benefit them in any given moment.

When people ask me if I come from a large family, I always say yes. I grew up with only 1 older sister, so this may confound those who have a fairly narrow definition of the word. But when I am asked about my family, I don't just think about her and my parents. I think about all my aunts and uncles, my cousins, their spouses, their children, and in some cases, members of their spouse's family. Hell, sometimes I even find myself referring to my uncle's ex-wife as "Aunt So-And-So".  Even though So-And-So isn't really her name. In real life I use her name. But I won't do that here. Because she escaped the cray-cray that is our family and might want to keep her name clean from here on out. But I digress...

Here is where my definition might diverge from a more traditional approach, though. I looked it up, and there were like 12 different definitions of this word. TWELVE! No wonder our country can't seem to figure out how to define the word when it comes to public policy - there are 12 friggin' different ways to define it depending on if you are doing so figuratively, legally, literally, socially, scientifically, mathematically, biologically, chemically, emotionally, psychologically, linguistically, or politically.  This is why I think its important to be open-minded about everyone's personal definition of family. Because as you can see, there really isn't only one right answer. 

Some definitions are very limited and narrow, like "one's wife or husband and one's children". I think most of us would agree that this simple definition doesn't really encompass all those we might consider to be family. Therefore, a more accurate definition might be "a group of persons related by blood" or "a group of persons sharing common ancestry". Yeah, this sounds more like it. But then what about my little sister? She was adopted and doesn't share a drop of DNA with me or a single ancestor, but God help the person who tries to tell me she isn't my family! Or my cousin who was adopted, and his children? He and his kids are as much a part of MY family to me as anyone who shares DNA with me. In fact, I even used to say that he is the one person in my family I actually wouldn't mind being related to and share DNA with, and that it's ironic he is the one who is adopted and doesn't share DNA with me at all!  Sad but true. Again, I digress...

One of the definitions I found says family is "all the persons living together in one household". Well, then I guess there are some friends of mine who are now officially family, since they lived with my mom for a while during college when they needed a place to stay. And my cousin's ex-boyfriend must now also be family, since he lived with my mom too, when he and my cousin needed a roof over their heads. Then there are all of the additional definitions...I won't go into them, the scientific definitions of family involving chemistry, math, or biology and genus, species, etc because quite frankly, I'd just embarrass myself (more than I usually do) trying to make sense of something that actually makes no sense to me at all. Suffice it to say, there are other scientific definitions of "family" out there that don't really apply to the intent and purpose of this blog today. Whew. Dodged that bullet.

I also know there are people out there who view their pets as "family". And I'm not talking about the whack-a-dos out there who chew their pet's food for them and and then feed them like baby birds, or who dress their dogs up in children's clothes and have them eating dinner ON the table at meal times off the fine china. I'm talking about the regular, average, every day pet owner who falls in love with their pet and dedicates a sizable amount of time, energy, money, love, and devotion to this animal, just as they would a child. Before I was married and had children, I used to refer to my dog Bebe as my mother's "grand-dog". It used to drive her nuts, which lets be honest was the REAL reason I did it, but I also meant it, because at the time, she was the creature I was responsible for, that I took care of, that I tended to day in and day out, and whose needs (having to be taken out on a leash to use the bathroom before I can go to work in the morning, even though it is pouring down rain) were put ahead of my own (having to get to work on time in professional work attire and to not look like a drowned rat at my morning meeting with the principal and parents), in much the same way the needs of a child (to throw up 3.5 of the 4 oz just ingested and do so on your work clothes exactly 2.7 seconds before you HAVE to leave the house) are put ahead of a my own (to show up at work JUST ONCE not smelling like baby vomit and in an outfit that doesn't look like a homemade baby-puke version of camo). And the day my family lost Bebe was a day we all mourned and grieved, as we learned how to make it through the average day with an empty space in our lives and our hearts that used to be filled by her.  

So family can mean blood and DNA, it can mean living together, it can include adoptions, and even pets. And technically, none of them could be considered wrong. Usually, I am pretty open minded and non-judgemental about how another person might define the word "family". However, recently I have encountered a very different application of the word "family" and I must admit, I was somewhat taken aback by it. Not by the way it was defined, or the context in which it was used, but in the gross inconsistencies with which it was applied to multiple different circumstances. How its very definition seemed to change in the course of a single conversation to mean very different things in order to serve an individual's specific purposes in each of those different circumstances. This is where my mind tends to close down. This is where my hackles rise, my tolerance for double standards becomes nonexistent, and where I find it very, very, VERY difficult to bite my tongue. 

If you want to define family as "only those related by blood", then I kinda think you have to accept, therefore, that one would NOT have "family privileges" with one's in-laws, whether it be brother/sister-in-law, father/mother-in-law, or son/daughter-in-law. And by "family privileges" I mean any situation in which attendance or decision-making might be limited to "family only". Or for example, if one daughter-in-law isn't "family" because she's not blood, wouldn't that mean another daughter-in-law isn't "family" either, since she's not related by blood? Because if the 2nd daughter-in-law IS in fact family, then she would have to be related by blood, and that would mean the entire family just moved to Arkansas. Which didn't happen. So by the logic I learned in my college Philosophy class, she can NOT, therefore, be "family" either. And if information should only be dispersed within the family to those who are related by blood, one would therefore NOT be entitled to information as it concerns those who are only connected to the family by marriage, and who are not, in fact, blood relatives. Would they? No, they wouldn't.

I'm not really sure what my point here is today (surprise, surprise!) but I know that there are people in this world who don't share a drop of DNA with me, but who have loved me more truly, more faithfully, more loyally, and more unconditionally than some with whom I do share genetics. And I have watched people I love being treated in the most un-family-like manner by people who share DNA with them, and in the most kind, loving, and accepting manner by people who do not. I have watched people treat each other in despicable ways, all in the name of "family". And I think the greatest thing I have gained from these experiences is that blood doesn't make family. Love does. Blood and DNA in the absence of love is merely science. But love in the absence of blood and DNA is still love, and since love is what everyone should be building their families on, I say THAT is family. Take that, genetics.