Dbq Essay Family

As a wise blue alien named Stitch once said,“Ohana means family. Family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten”. Family dynamics have changed throughout history and this phrase has remained true. A family is something different for everybody. It can be a group of friends, blood relatives, or perfect strangers thrust together by circumstance. Regardless of the who the members are, it is a group of people who support and rely on each other through the hardest of times, growing stronger through each obstacle they face together.
Families come in many shapes and sizes as proven by sociologist Philip Cohen through a 2012 census of children’s living arrangements. In it, only about 23% had a once typical family with a stay at home mother and breadwinner

father, single mothers made up approximately 22%, and cohabiting parents approximately 7%.

More modern households have increased diversity and no longer fit into traditional models as they once did (Doc A). Even families with the same living situation can often be very different as seen in Jane Shore’s poem “Happy Family”: describing 2 scenarios with married parents and children, with one being somewhat dull, and the other more full of life. She elaborates, “not all happy families are alike”. Happiness is a key element of any family, even in the smallest of ways (Doc C). Friends often make the best families as shown by Truman Capote in “A Christmas Memory”, explaining “We are cousins, very distant ones, and we have lived together - well, as long as I can remember. Other people inhabit the house, relatives; and though they have power over us and frequently make us cry, we are not, on the whole, too much aware of them. We are each other’s best friend”. He and his friend became their own family, each needing and looking out for the other. They were at their happiest when they were together, with Capote also saying “home is where my friend is” (Doc B). John Steinbeck also draws on the idea of two friends who have each others backs in his novel Of Mice and Men, with

George and Lennie becoming almost brothers to one another. After Lennie’s Aunt Clara passes away, George sticks with him and looks out for him, no matter what happens to the both of them. They often say to each other "Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They don't belong no place...With us it ain't like that. We got a future. We got somebody to talk to that gives a damn about us. We don't have to sit in no bar room blowin' in our jack jus' because we got no place else to go. If them other guys gets in jail, they can rot for all anybody gives a damn. But not us." (Steinbeck 15) Many other farmhands find their relationship peculiar, but regardless George sticks with Lennie until the end, finally doing what he knows is best even though it’s difficult.
People are relatives by blood, but a family by choice and compassion; they make each other happy, and are always willing to do what’s best for one another. Families can be and often are dysfunctional, and tend to fall apart with a moments notice, but despite this, more emerge and grow stronger with every passing day, pushing through obstacles and welcoming whatever life throws at them with open arms and a loving heart.