Like a family tree, this subject has a lot of branches.
The first branch I want to discuss, Family Relationships.
I often wonder if the world existed like greeting cards, and every family is so loving, doting, caring, sincere, and close. If not, how could greeting cards that drip of that goo still exist? Or is everyone playing a permanent version of make-believe?
I look at my family, The most recent I have seen any of my relatives, was over a decade ago. Most I have not seen for several decades, some I have never met at all. These are not distant unknown relatives, these are first cousins, my parents, my siblings, aunts and uncles. We did not live on opposite ends of the earth, (not even opposite ends of the country, or even opposite ends of a state) for the majority of my life the vast majority of my relatives lived less than an hour drive from each other. When I realize I have cousins in their upper 30s, and last I saw them they were preschool or younger. It has been over 20 years since I have seen either of my brothers. In the span of over 25 years (time period after I was on my own) my parents were only in contact with me for 5 years, the last contact was over 15 years ago.
Seems the only people I have ever noticed to have such a fragmented family, includes drugs and or crime, even those families tend to be closer. So I have remained baffled my entire life about my family. I have clawed my way through trying to have some form of a relationship with my relatives. The best I have managed is having access to them on Facebook, where they never respond to any thing I write (whether it is on their page, or private message). I am constantly tempted to just drop them, I wonder how long would it take before they noticed I was no longer on their list? If they ever notice at all? As a kid during Christmas, I would watch as my cousin’s exchanged gifts.. (yes I was excluded) I was invisible then, why would that change?
It breaks my heart, because everything tells me that this is not how a family should be, but was this only due to influence from books, tv, movies and greeting cards? Nope, I actually have observed happy, loving, supportive, caring, involved families.. they do exist. Which is why when someone asks me about my family, if I give any form of an answer, they look at me as though I grew an extra head or I am Charlie Manson.
Even when I see a tv show or movie that tries to show a dysfunctional or fragmented family, I get annoyed. Often I wish for that family! They always have some supportive or loving element to the family, no matter how dysfunctional.. that is by no means the case in my family.
Why do I bother?
I really truly wonder why I even bother, and would any of them notice. There are ONLY 2 family members I have any contact with, one aunt who I only hear from via email, and they have become more and more infrequent. The other family member is one of my brothers, whose calls might as well be pre-recorded. They offer nothing new (same discussion every single time), and only serve to pluck my every last nerve. He has no clue who I am, and (as far as I have been able to see) has no interest in knowing who I am either. As with every call from him, I can not get a word in edgewise, so I responded with an email about some things that bothered me. His girlfriend reads his email, and it apparently upset her, so he sent me a brief but annoyed message back (along with a dozen phone calls). His response said he does not and will not read my emails,.. this confirms he only wants to hear the sound of his own voice. Now for his girlfriend to be upset by what I wrote, she has to be one delicate little flower. She has had a relationship with my brother for quite a few years, somehow she has yet to discover what our family is. Nothing I said was even that “involved” into our family issues, just highlights of my own life since I was out of the house.. those twenty-some odd years that he and I have not seen each other, so i simply offered highlights. If the highlights of my life (since my childhood) upsets that girl, holy cow she needs to run now, far and wide away from our family. My brother still is close to our parents, and if she does not realize the evil within them by now, boy is she in for a rude awakening. The scary point that my brother and this girl are bringing a child into the world is also another item, add they live 8 hours apart, and neither of them wants to make any sacrifice of their own personal lives for the child they chose to create (it was not accident, it was planned). Oh and let me make this part clear, the email to my brother did not even mention how I feel about their non-committed relationship and that child, the email was strictly about what my brother upset me about that is about him and me, and my life.
So this leads me to that other branch of the family values: Commitment.
It is impossible to not notice the decay of the family unit. More single parents raising their children. No longer is having a child considered any form of commitment, even though two people are creating that child, apparently that does not matter anymore. Marriage has become nearly unspoken, unless when discussing a same-sex union.
There are so many upside down priorities. People really have lost sight of what is important anymore. People think how wonderful it is to have a child, but they never really think of that child. They never think of how important consistency, structure, and values are for a child. Instead single mothers will end up parading a series of potential pops in front of their children, never thinking or caring about the impact or risk that could cause to their children. How well do they know that guy? He could be a con-man or murderer.
Where did logic/common sense go?
While this is not limited to just family factors, this definitely another part of the problem…
I think about my brother’s girlfriend, if she was shocked by what I wrote to my brother (and seriously it was so tame, I really hate to think about talking to this girl face to face, I could scare her into a coma if I gave her details), again this shows me she can not know my brother, or family, and yet she has a son who she exposes to my brother and parents, and she is bringing another child into our family. ACK!
I have a friend who has 5 kids, she is not single yet, but rushed into the dating arena, and keeps coming across some of the biggest scum of the earth guys. And she is exposing her kids to these men. She is head over heels for each one, because how nice they might have been in an email, or on the phone, or they sent flowers.
A neighbor’s daughter “ended up” pregnant, when she introduced me to her boyfriend and told me the news, I asked her what the plan was. She said, oh we are going to have it. Yet my mind was not even processing the thought of abortion, so I said, no I meant are you two getting married? The look of horror on that boy’s face! Again another example of how odd that people are so trivial and casual about having children, but marriage is somehow a bigger fear? Extremely backwards priorities. Now I also asked her about her back up plans (when that relationship no doubt fails, yet avoided saying that directly) but her thought process was they had it all lined out perfectly (yet not marriage). Go figure that relationship went poof within a month or two. When she told me that the relationship ended, I said what are you going to do now? Touching on the doctor visits, delivery, and all the what-ifs, as well as raising the child, and working? She thought she had that together too, and then she had a medical surprise.. that made her opt to move in with her father. I bang my head against the wall over and over when it comes to these kinds of discussions, and how a teen can possibly think they know it all! Now she is a single mother, living in her father’s home.. and she will end up parading a series of potential pops in front of her child for years to come.
Still thinking of that same girl.. before that even happened, years before I had told her about several girls I grew up with who became pregnant in high school. I should have written out the whole story for her, and forced her to read it daily. They said pretty much the same things she said, they thought their relationships would work, they thought they had everything planned and well thought out. But reality has some sneaky things up its sleeves! There is only ONE of those high school pregnancies that I know of who is still married to that same guy. Now their children they had as teens became train wrecks, so much so they are raising their own grandchildren. But each one of those girls who became pregnant as a teen, their children also became pregnant as a teen too.
I think about when I was growing up, i had processed the thought of a pre-dating application before going out with any guy. Perhaps I benefited from the trust issues caused by my family that resulted in my defensive dating methods. But even with my overkill attitude about trust, I still met more than my fair share of nut jobs, and worse (but eventually found the wonderful man I have been very happily married to for over 12 years now). So I know the nuts are out there, and I know they always will be. What scares me is those women who I flat-out tell them (with sirens, flashing lights, and a bullhorn) all the warnings I can offer.. and they go tra-la-la skipping off into the wolf’s den. Why don’t people listen??
Family Stump vs Family Tree?
With more single parents raising children, the family tree has lost a lot of branches, it has become a family stump.
If you over prune a tree, you end up killing it. Seems that is happening to family values, they are being over pruned.
Again this is a lack of foresight, people have too much self-involvement, and that is dangerous when they choose to bring a child into the world. If they still are only thinking of themselves vs that child, what becomes of the child?
There are two main types of selfish parents.. the ones who (like my mother) was simply self-involved, that resulted in a child who was lost & lonely (among many other issues). The other type ends up over doting on their child (think of the boomers & their off spring) simply because the parents don’t want to be involved with their children (the children are tokens or trophies). These kids are so bubble wrapped, they think they can do no wrong, and so over protected a paper cut is equal to massive flesh wound to them.
What killed the tree?
Largely feminism! While there is nothing wrong with the “I can do anything better than you can” type attitude, the women’s lib movement took it to the point of chopping off its own head to prove a point. When I was growing up there were still mothers raising their children (yes they still can be found now, but should be on an endangered species list), but for those mothers who worked full-time, so did the father, the result was what I was referred to as “a latch key kid” (they self-raising child). We rarely saw our parents (which often was a good thing in our case). But this was the beginning for the end of families, more women opted to work vs raise their children, so kids were eventually being raised by others. Now we have the government opting to be the new nanny and intervening in how children are raised.
Women in many cases can earn as much as a guy, so she has decided she does not need his wallet (again forgetting that important father role in their child’s live, as well as stability, and not having a stranger raising your child, since she is living at work).
Women’s lib has long been attacking full-time mothers for raising their own children. They have completely devalued the role and importance of a mother. Again now we have the government opting to be everyone’s new mother.
Women’s lib also pushes empowerment through sex. Another reason there are more single parents, and more abortions, and now the gov’t forcing people to have birth control (regardless of religion). Again more limbs hacked off that ole’ tree.
Welcome to the newly over-pruned dead family stump!
