When I was growing up, family was considered firstly to be my parents and siblings and then on outwards to include other relatives. It never occurred to me to view others in my community, or even broader as ‘family.’ There was also a strong message at the time that “you can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family.” This idea that ‘family’ comprised of only relatives and was therefore a fixed entity was widespread. Furthermore, what went on in families was considered their private business and others had no right to interfere, making ‘family’ firmly off limits in terms of closer scrutiny. This attitude continues to exist in the present day and still with a complacency and reluctance to look more deeply into what ‘family’ actually means and how it interlinks with other aspects of human life.
The dynamics of the family unit have certainly changed over time. These days many children grow up in single parent and blended family situations. There are also increasing numbers of grandparents and other relatives raising children. Same sex couples rearing children is another growing area and in Australia, the number of children in foster care keeps increasing yearly. Surrogacy and adoptee parents also co-exist with more traditional forms of child caring and rearing and family groups. Adult children are living with parents for years longer than in the past. Beyond the genetic descriptions of ‘family,’ people also often consider who’s in and who’s out of their ‘family’ along religious, political, ethnic, cultural, geographic and/or socioeconomic lines. This all suggests that the ‘family’ concept is much more dynamic and multidimensional than often first assumed.
As people move through the course of their life, the impact of their upbringing is massive. There are undoubtedly many wonderful qualities that are passed along in families from one generation to the next. The family environment is a primary teaching ground for children as they learn about life and relationships from those around them and they carry many of these values, ideas and beliefs into adulthood. The next generation of citizens is shaped, with standards set that contribute to the makeup of the fabric of society, wherever that person is living. Some may ask “So why is this topic even being raised: isn’t this all a good thing?” The answer to that is that it is not just the valuable qualities that are passed on, it is also the uglier aspects of human behaviour which we usually don’t like to be reminded about that often sprout unchecked because they originated within the largely unaccountable family setting.
By taking a wholistic view it can be seen that ‘family’ is a central background feature behind many social ills, yet seemingly there is a massive unwillingness to examine the concept in any detail.
Take for example, the fact that many individuals believe it is acceptable to behave abusively towards others if it is within the confines of the family unit. Given the central role of family in raising children, it’s reasonable to assume that the transition away from being loving and open towards others started early in life. Sadly, what such children were taught/experienced within their particular family is often then passed on, leading to the normalisation of intergenerational cycles of abusive behaviours continuing with little real accountability.
The illusions around family are exposed even more when we are prepared to stand back and honestly look at how ideals and beliefs around ‘family’ link to human behaviour worldwide. The number of refugees globally has exploded in recent years and includes many displaced children who are not accompanied by a parent or a guardian yet are in desperate need of care and protection. Who is their ‘family’? Who is responsible for protecting, nurturing and caring for them? Is it the government of the countries involved and their citizens – or the wider world? Similarly, how do our pictures of who is and isn’t family apply with other vulnerable populations such as those caught in human trafficking and/or paedophilia rings?
While these questions may cause discomfort, they do suggest that we can’t ignore looking at the part our individual views around ‘family’ have played in limiting our willingness to compassionately respond to the high prevalence of multisystemic abuse globally. They also raise questions about what we have been indoctrinated into due to our family beliefs and ideals; what’s allowable and what’s not and so forth as the following quote invites us to ponder on:
“The three basic tenets that found and make family true:
True family is about love;
it is not about abuse and control.
True family is about love;
it is not about surnames, blood, skin colour or genes.
True family is about love;
it is not an intellectual understanding, gathering or
the making from an egg or sperm.”
[Serge Benhayon, Esoteric Teaching and Revelations, Volume II, Ed. 2, p. 442]
When ‘family’ is reduced to surnames, blood, skin colour, genes, eggs or sperm, instead of love, it explains how what we do to each other in the name of ‘family’ is what fuels suffering – be it abuse, violence, domination, holding rigid expectations, isolation or exclusion.
When we experience, witness or repeat these elements in our own lives, we can collude with the status quo and ignore or dismiss them as being ‘just the way it is’ and further entrench the rot around family. Or we can start to make family about connecting with the inner heart that knows true love, and from there impulses us to live not blinkered, reluctant or wishful lives, but responsibly with awareness, understanding, compassion and joy.
When family is lived in this way our immediate family benefits, but even greater than this is the valuable contribution we are making to our fellow human global family through the expression of care and kindness on a daily basis. One thing is for sure: whichever investment we choose to make will either allow the harm to continue unchecked, or it will support universal family healing and wellbeing.
By Helen Giles, Social Worker, Townsville
Further reading:
The Corruption of True Teamwork
Family Defined by Quality
Parenting and Self-Care – Crashing the ‘Helicopter Parenting’ myth
91 Comments
Thank you Helen. It is great to explore what family means and to be honest with ourselves about what we have allowed to play out under the guise of family. When we consider that true family is about love and is inclusive of all of humanity, we have to break down the beliefs that have us in any way separate from one another.
The one place you would think you could feel safe growing up can actually be the one place where abuse takes place and is accepted because it is ‘family’ which shows to me just how corrupted the word has become.
Yes great point Mary. it is behind the closed doors of the ‘safe haven’ of family that much abuse and devastation takes place.
I agree with you Helen that the impact of the way we are raised from young is massive. I heard recently that the accepted abuse within families is massive.
I just picked these figures for the UK alone from a web site on domestic violence
Each year nearly 2 million people in the UK suffer some form of domestic abuse – 1.3 million female victims (8.2% of the population) and 600,000 male victims (4%) 2.
About domestic abuse | Safelives – safelives.org.uk/policy-evidence/about-domestic-abuse
What is it about us that we chose to live with these statistics as normal everyday family life? We champion family ideals and beliefs and yet they are actually rotten to the core and still we champion them, why?
The way we live is like taking the word ‘universe’ and cutting it down till all that is left is the U. No wonder we find it hard to live and get on when we are using such a meaningless reduced down version of the truth. There is so much more to U than just you. Family itself falls so short from the divine unity we all come from.
Universal Family and Love equal God and all else is illusion, so the understanding of how this is True deepens our relationship with evolution and thus we are feeling the connection to our Souls’ Essence, Inner-most-hearts and or Esoteric as they are all one and the same, as they are our innate connection to God. And thus we are all Gods children making up one family!
Family can be used as excuse to abuse those within or outside of the so-called family. True family doesn’t allow abuse. With this simple statement it’s easy to work out what and who is true family.
It’s plain to me that we have fallen for and accepted the lies surrounding the word ‘family’ as you say Leigh true family do not allow abuse of any kind. If there is one iota of abuse in families then it is not true. I know only too well that a person can smile and be charming to the world but as soon as the door is closed act in ways that would shock those that they have fooled by their smiles and polished behaviour to the extent that if you said what was actually going on they would not believe you.
“our fellow human global family” When we are open to humanity as one family our love expands to embrace us all as being one.
Family not based on true love but based on an ideal of what family means can give a false feeling of security which makes us insensitive to anything that is going on within the family unit or outside of it in the wider world. When we see family as a vibration then we cannot compartmentalise family by blood or surnames but it will be defined by the quality lived together.
Why do we feel so sad when we see abuse on the opposite side of the world to us? We can feel the connection to humanity, we can feel that we are all, deep down, the same, and all connected. But then we can easily turn a blind eye, especially when there is this concept of ‘family’ which makes us focus on those few who are our ‘blood family.’ The questions this raises around family really challenge my beliefs about family. I can see the tight hold that pictures of family can have on children. This was my experience too. I didn’t have the ‘perfect’ family and withdrew quickly as a child because I felt let down by the pictures of how they should be. Our current notion of family can really restrict who we love. Do we restrict it to a few or is our natural instint to actually not have these boundaries?
It takes a whole community to raise a family.
The illusion around ‘family’ is thick and sticky in such a way that we are entrenched in the ideals and beliefs believing them to be all that there is. But there is part of us that knows that there is ‘more’ and when this ‘more’ is expressed and felt it can be life changing.
How we have been raised and live with this false idea of what family is has caused a lot of damage as you show us here Helen. We have fragmented our lives and the world in ‘this is our family and you belong to us’ and ‘you are not from my family and thus you don’t belong to us’. I learned from young to not interfere in what was going on in other families, to accept things which we would not accept if this separation was not there. Absolute love is what is called for and goes right through this family illusion way of thinking.