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
36 Comments
Helen this is such a truthful and rock solid expose of what constitutes family, both true family and traditional family.
A broader brush stroke that includes all humanity certainly makes a greater model than what we have at the moment with all the turmoil we have world-wide, and this can start with simply relearning how to Truly-appreciate. Appreciation of our essences and the fact that we are all equal and this equality can also then be a part of how we appreciate, and that develops a deeper relationship with intimacy (not sexual), which is letting people in, so starting with self and the ensuing appreciativeness. Then working our way to deepen our broader family, by letting in our family-member and friends, then the broader community, which then opens us to letting all humanity in, in the most Loving way.
There is a lot of abuse that takes place under the umbrella of family. We may have a picture that we will protect the family no matter what but what exactly are we protecting.
I agree Julie. I have had a couple of conversations with people about the recent footage that has been shown on TV about the abuse that goes on in nursing homes. People have expressed their absolute horror at seeing footage of the elderly being mistreated and although I don’t condone the behaviour I have pointed out that exactly the same stuff goes on in our own families but it’s just that we don’t have cameras in our homes and no one talks about it but children get routinely screamed at, hit and worse, as do mothers and fathers. We are all absolute masters at covering things up but there will come a day when we will need to lift the cover and get honest about what’s truly going on in our homes.
There has been a lot of abuse hidden under the disguise of family, this along with many ills is to be exposed if we are truly to move on as society.
There is an unspoken law that is pretty much global and that is that you don’t ‘dob’ on family. If we viewed family as the collective whole of humanity then maybe we wouldn’t be so invested in protecting the handful of people that we happen to be related to by either blood or marriage because we would understand that the behaviour of one person effects everybody else.
Family is about love, family is about everyone when we make it about anything less it’s not real family.
…’connecting with the inner heart that knows true love…’ there is an exquisite simplicity to this, as well as an opportunity to change the world beyond our understanding. Thank you Helen.
‘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 place as a foundation anything that is not love, in any walk of life, we are holding life to ransom.
When we reduce the family to a small stream or a brook and think we are IT, and pretend the oceans do not exist, how lost are we from the fact we are part of the one?
Since young I have always known that we are all equal and we are all one. Individuality just does not work and isn’t true. Making it about true love and the all is the only way to be and live.
When I was a teenager and I observed girls at school bullying the younger girls and treating them as inferior, because they had been treated that way themselves, I was disgusted. When we model a set of behaviours, that model is exactly what we get back. If we want a more loving society then we have to be more loving within it.
Do we have a picture of family that separates us from taking responsibility for the greater family of the human race, and does that irresponsibility contribute to the world we see before us? Thank you for bringing this to the fore so we can all consider what we bring to our greater family.
Quite often the consciousness around family is that it is ok to abuse someone within it because they are ‘family’. It feels like we treat our families way worse sometimes than we would dream of treating a stranger, and yet we have accepted this as the norm.
It is great to talk about this. We have normalised abuse within families and this sets the standard for relationships very very low. Why do we treat the people we allegedly love most so poorly?
‘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.’ As a society we need to appreciate that everything we see in the world that we either don’t like or do, stems from the immediate family unit. We need to be aware of how important a breeding ground it is for the health or ill health of society. Focusing on the detail and how we are within the family is really important, but most of all how we as individuals treat ourselves and how then that impacts on those around us.
I agree with you and I have a colleague that calls their children not by their given names but just as their Kid. So for example their kid is sick, I not even know it’s name; I personally find this highly disdainful as this seems to reduce the child and surely must have a negative impact on how they feel about themselves and the world around them as they grow up.
Thank you so much for writing this article Helen. The concept of family is indeed evolving. With the breakdown of the nuclear family we now seek refuge elsewhere but without the understanding of and Livingness of the tenets of True Family we get lost in the abyss and the abuse continues.
‘the number of children in foster care keeps increasing yearly.’ Over the last few years in the UK there are now advertisements on billboards about being a foster carer with how much money a foster carer will get per week for looking after a child. This alone tells us 1. that how we are within our families and indeed our lives is not going great and 2. what are our values and priorities when we are putting out adverts focusing on how much money someone would get paid weekly when looking after children. It seems this is not putting or making it about looking after the child first and also shows what a desperate situation we are in and how many more children are now in it need care.
Growing up in the British Army we as children had many people we would call aunt and uncle and for us this was normal. It never entered our heads that these people who we thought were family were not related by blood.
While we continue to see ourselves as individuals we will fail as a society. We are not individuals we are all one and the same, we are made of the same matter as the universe …fact. We have forgotten that we come from the universe and this allows the greatest abuse to take place because we are led to believe that we are just humans. We have narrowed our lives into such smallness when actually we are greater than we could ever believe we could be.
This broader view of family being our community and all those we come into contact with, makes so much sense how we can all support each other. Despite different colour of skin, backgrounds and cultures, we are all one family.
Yes – and who defined family as being only blood family in the first place?
Whilst we may believe that family is relative only to the nuclear unit, it is clear that our hearts tell us otherwise. When I was a child some of my family’s most content moments were when we have friends to stay and where we all sat round the meal table together, to gather and share and discuss. The joy in the connection and the deepening of that connection was felt by us all and at those times there was no delineation in the love that was felt by us all for each other. To the heart there is no demarkation in the love that is felt and expressed whether you happen to share the same genes or not.
Love this line Michelle – ” To the heart there is no demarcation in the love that is felt and expressed whether you happen to share the same genes or not.” So true – listening to our heart and body -not our head – the way forward.
I remember those times as well, family was community and this was lived most when there were really good times or really bad times, we seemed to forget it in the middle so that it became our normal. Conversations like these could open the door for a stunning blended family to be the norm.
I consider those I work with as part of my family, often I see them more than I do my blood family! I love spending time with other students as well and I consider them and my friends family. It’s a lovely feeling rather than what I used to associate with family: hurts and resentment.
Yes – in the old days I would harbour the hurts that got triggered in my family, using friends as a way of dealing with them. This no longer happens – everyone I know feels like family and there are no hurts left, having taken responsibility for them. To go from the narrowness of feeling like I only had a small family to feeling like my family is so rich with 100s in it and of people that I dearly dearly love, has increased my joy in life a thousand fold!
“True family is about love;” I love the repetition. So true family can be everyone we meet.
“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.” So true Helen. Yet the (blood) family is held up to be an ideal. We know that most cases of abuse occur within this type of family, be it domestic abuse, rape and even murder. In most cases the perpetrators are known to their victims.
So true that we often allow a level of abuse within families that we would not allow from others and worse we feel it’s our right to act in that way. We act like we own each other and in that ownership we feel justified and sanctioned to act as we do, however in all this we act like these ‘private idahos’ do not affect others or the wider world; we abhor the abuse we see in the world yet ignore that the abuse in our family group may be adding to it. And in all of this we ignore that in fact we’re all connected and all impacted by how we all are with each other both inside and outside our families.
I have often wondered why we treat those we profess to love in such an abhorrent way – in a way we would never treat a stranger. And as you say we impact the world when we express, not just those in the line of fire.
” fellow human global family” When we open our hearts and minds to being responsible loving members of a global family we become aware that many of the divisions and barriers that we hide behind keep us all in separation from the love and brotherhood that we all naturally are.
Are we the only family on the tree of species that treats our other members with the disdain you have described? We are not the biggest, fastest or strongest but still think we have the right to control others. Who are we in comparison to the universe, but a partial trying to go home?
When you mention refugees and displaced children and ask ‘who is their family?’, it becomes abundantly clear that our narrow model of blood family and its associated ideals and beliefs s failing us dismally.
That struck me too Gabriele, I felt that we let down the most vulnerable in the community because we assess who are our responsibility and who are not. Sadly these situations arise because of mans inhumanity to man, so perhaps it is time to consider the family of humanity we are all part of and stop looking the other way in the micro effect and deny the ripple effect in the macro.