If You Believe You Know What Makes Up A Family, You May Be Wrong

Even Google gets this one wrong

Today, family is so much more than the parents who gave you life or the people called your siblings.

As a young father with six children, there was a constant parade of children that looked familiar to me but were not my children biologically. However, as parents, we felt a responsibility for these children because they were ours for several hours each day.

Years later, I was living in Manhattan Beach, CA., and I invited each one of my children to spend the weekend at the beach with me. All six were invited, and each one was allowed a plus one. Wait, what? You read that right, twelve children from age 13 to twenty. Twelve boys and twelve girls and me!

They arrived in three cars, and moments later, they came through my door, waving at me in the kitchen, laughing, and moving towards the bedroom they wanted. They didn’t need me. They were already having a good time. As I surveyed my townhome, I realized that all the youth were known to me. No one felt like a stranger; everyone was someone I had known for years.

Over the years, a sense and feeling of the family have evolved in some ways not first imagined as FAMILY.

First, in the military. They were people I didn’t know. But over a brief period, we were like brothers. It felt like that even more in Vietnam.

Changes were being made long before the six children found their way into our home. First, we wanted children, but after six miscarriages, we decided to adopt a boy. Then, after a year and a half, we adopted our oldest girl into our home.

That flipped a switch, and now my wife started having children. But first. . .

When I was twenty-one, I found new family members in my hired employees. Soon clients and their families became our extended family.

Things changed on a dime when we took in my brother and youngest sister to raise them. There were no longer a few trees in our family; no, it was becoming a forest of all different types of trees.

I sold my business in Florida and started working for a small overhead lifting equipment company with about twenty-two people. I bought the company within six months, and we grew to almost forty people.

We were like family to one another. Our bond with each other was strong. So strong that when I sold the company, I sold it to the employees. I didn’t want to break up the family.

Over the many years, there were other companies I started, purchased, or was hired to take over. In each instance, we became family. Many had chosen to marry co-workers.

When I unexpectedly became single, I was lost. Now it was just me. While I did own a consulting company, it wasn’t the same.

Someone asked me, “Dr. Rawson, how do you like being single?” After I corrected them, it was just DR; I said, “I don’t. I’m 45 years old and haven’t dated anyone since I was eighteen! Am I supposed to date this one or that one, or younger?” You can see why I was confused.

The person that asked was a young woman that was 5’10” and was from two different races other than my own. She was also about twenty years younger than me. I said, “Let me ask you, your single, right? She said, “I am.” I said, “Would you go out with an older guy like me?” She said, “Absolutely.” Then I said, “Friday at 7:30, O.K. for you?” She said, “Sure, here’s my address and telephone number. I’ll see you then.”

That was in 1992. Today, the dating scene and families are even more open. We have same-sex dating, marriages, and adoptions, and it feels very much like we’re coming to the point of understanding. People are people. If you’re attracted, why not?

People are choosing not to marry, not to have kids. So two single moms living together with two kids each are now family.

People are choosing family. They are not necessarily giving birth to a family; they choose to be with “the ones they love” no matter what anyone thinks.

Why not?

A family does not have to be of the same ethnicity or sex. They don’t have to have grown up in the same house. It doesn’t have to have two parents. Distance shouldn’t control or distinguish it. They do not have to be all the same color. Should we let society define the family unit? No.

Perhaps this could be the new definition:

“As an individual, you can define who your family is to YOU. Therefore, it can be your parents with grandparents or former neighbors. It can be you and the one you love. Or, it may be your brothers and sisters in arms. It could be your best friend and you. It’s you and the foster children you love or those you met “along the way.” Today, we are fortunate that we are not bound by old definitions.”We are family to or with whoever loves, nurtures, and protects or cares for us”.

Why can’t we understand we are all people?

Leah Lynch reminds us all that it’s also important to think about who we are as she responds to the Dancing Elephants Press Prompt.

Think about who you call family. Tells us about them.