First, I know you'll be back to read this once you recover, no doubts allowed!@JERUS, I grew up in a traditional nuclear family. My parents never divorced, and they never fought in front of my younger brother and I. There were some kids that I grew up with that were from single-parent homes, but where I grew up in New England - they were outnumbered at the very least 30 to 1.
Yes, in history - there were nuclear families where the fathers (and, sometimes the mothers) were caught up in sexual debauchery.
Yet, the mere appearance of a stable, nuclear family was all that was needed, as it was the gestalt for the community, and ultimately, society.
I was one of the lucky kids. Upper-middle class upbringing, Roman Catholicism (!), and even though I was molested at age 7 by a relative who went to prison for it, and living my young and adult life as a type-1 diabetic -
I had the most wonderful parents, and extended family.
So, @JERUS - I see where you're coming from, but it's just like myself looking in on a non-traditional family - I don't judge it, but I still cannot fathom it.
As it would be for non-traditionally raised kids, looking into my family example.
No worries. No offense meant. Yet, that's what took place in most of the Western Hemisphere. Imperfect, as it had been behind the scenes.
After I cleaned up my act almost a decade ago, I lost all of my friends. Now, it's just acquaintances.
Liz is my life's mate, lover and best friend. When we move to CO, I may make some new friends. We'll see.
Surgery-bound, 6 AM. Good night.
LW & Liz
But, to get into my rant that I deleted.
Personally Parents Divorced when I was in 2nd Grade... both of them loved me very much, Mother was strict initially on the sitting down to dinner, dad never was when I went to visit. Both cases I knew I was loved very much. My dad I found the quality time, whether it be just hanging watching a movie together and chatting, hanging at the beach, or even doing manual labor for him while he was working remodeling someone's home, love was never a question. Mother, well with full custody of 3 kids, her time was stretched thin and god I can't imagine having to do what she did, and I love her for it. She'd still squeak in time somehow to make us know how much she cared even when we were too young to understand all the actions that proved as much.
Eventually Dad remarried, mom remarried, I now have 2 step brothers a half brother, a former step dad, a new basically step dad and his kids, all family.
My dad was anything but your typical "picture perfect" his encouragement to me would come in the form of insulting challenges "there's no way you can do XXXX you fatass" to which my response would be to do it to prove him wrong. When he would say "I know you're more than capable of doing XXXX" I'd sit there lazily and do nothing, such is the life of my fucked up mind. So on the surface I'm sure people would have berated him for bad parenting, I look back and wish I had more of it (him passing away when I was 14). My Mother the opposite, an enabler, love her to death but she didn't get me like my father did, she didn't know how to push me to actually do things, but I still got (and get) the love from her and that was never in question and it alone has helped me through some troubling times.
To sum it up, anything but a nuclear family, but in the end I have many of the same values that I think you do, I have a respect for those same things, it just came in a different way.
Now I look at my uncle/aunt/cousins, the picture perfect nuclear family. I see my cousins declining into mediocrity and future hardships because of this. They're overdemanding of their eldest (son) because he has the potential but the pressure they've put on him has not only caused him to have ulcers when he was 12 (they took him to every doctor they could to find a medical problem, they all said it was stress, to no surprise, though the aunt/uncle won't accept that reason "he doesn't have anything to stress about") but to also fear failure and to settle for less than what he could quite easily achieve. Their daughter who is a simply amazing person (super smart, looked at my College physics work and was beginning to understand it when she was in 5th grade) and is accomplished in Ballet, yet she's been more or less ignored in favor of her older brother and has developed into an overly shy adolescent who lacks the confidence she most surely should have. Then their youngest who is criticized for being "fat" even though I'd not even call her pudgy, just not rail thin like her older sister and mother (who had her fair share of bouts with eating disorders). They do everything they can to look and act like the nuclear family, yet they don't share the love and compassion I knew as a child. And, they turn their heads to good advice when dealing with their kids blaming anything they can except the roots of the problems.
I spent the weekend listening to my uncle complain about his son because he's afraid of failing. I've tried to explain, dropped hints for years, spelled it out exactly (which did not get a pleasant response), but he simply refuses to acknowledge that the pressure he's putting on him is at the very least a leading cause of that. I use them as an example as its' the most fresh in my mind but far from the only family I know like that. And, my own upbringing isn't the only non-nuclear upbringing that I'd label as good, just easiest to use myself as an example.
So I look at my brothers and myself and thank god we had the upbringing we did, where we were given the love and understanding that we needed to grow up into good people. And this isn't to criticize the nuclear family, but to highlight the qualities that make a good upbringing and that the nuclear family isn't what creates it. It can come from all different types of situations, as long as the connection is there. If my parents had stayed together and tried to hide all that was going on I'd probably have grown up to be an untrusting hateful twat after being exposed to all that repressed anger and frustration. Instead they split up, and I think that was far better for my brothers and me. We were surely affected by the whole set of legal proceedings but the love we got outside of that washed it away without a problem. I can think of as many good friends that were raised in Nuclear families as were not and as many assholes from Nuclear families as dysfunctional ones. I can even think of a few friends who never had good families but were always surrounded by good friends and absorbed the qualities of good people.
So all that has lead me to believe that it's not about having some strict template as much as just having those qualities around you, having a place where you feel loved and the time to let that wash away the bad things that are a part of life. Nuclear Family, Dysfunctional Family, or even just good friends, with the connection and time you can still come out as a good person. Maybe a little nuts like myself, but still good.
I'll end my rant there, my other rant was going to be on the topic of this latest generation(kinda my own only being 27, though I'd consider myself kind of an in-betweener, before smart phones but after the internet).
have a great morning!
