Family: What It Means To Me

What It Means To Me
Family, defined by the Online Merriam Webster Dictionary is, “a group of related people including people who lived in the past.” I believed that the wording of this definition is important because of the word related. The Online Merriam Webster Dictionary defines related as “belonging to the same group because of shared characteristics, qualities, etc.” This goes to show that a family does not have to be lineage, heritage, or chromosomes. There are many different types of families, and though many people think of a nuclear family when they think of a family, there are so many more qualities to consider when deciding how to personally define family.
A nuclear family and a model family are essentially the same thing,

Cambridge Dictionaries Online define this as “a social unit of two parents and their children.” I have learned through a Family and Consumer Science class that it means that the parents are typically married and their children biological. But, a nuclear family isn’t the only kind of family out there. There are extended families, adoptive families, blended families, and the families in which we choose, which are our friends. All of these families tend to have different values.
As each family has different types and sets of values, everyone is going to grow up learning that some things are more important than others. While other families will raise their children to feel the order of importance one sets may be considered “wrong.”
Values is defined as “traditional or conservative kind which are held to promote the sound functioning of the family and to strengthen the fabric of society.” Each type of type of family has a different set of values. For example, a couple that has adopted because they could not naturally reproduce may hold the closeness of family higher than a blended family might. And a blended family may old a marriage status higher higher than a biological family does, due to the fact that they would not be a family if it was not for the marriage. There are numerous aspects of life that can contribute to the list of values a family holds, making it nearly impossible to write a list of values every family holds dear or lives by.
Another big contributing factor to the values a family could have would be their religion, assuming they have one. Many families base their set of values and morals on what the Bible says or Book of Mormon suggests is right. I’m not saying that is wrong, because a family’s ability to do this is exactly what makes a family, a family. It is also what makes a person, their own person.
Bebe Campbell shows and gives great examples of different types of families in her essay, “Envy.” In her essay she explains that she became angry with another student and threatened to stab her teacher.

In result, Bebe’s mother told her she was disappointed in her, then sent her to her room, leaving her alone with her own consciousness, and leaving her alone to think about what she had done. On her way to her room she stopped to watch her neighbor, who was beating his son for something that was seemingly less important than what Bebe had done herself. She recalls a time when all the kids, the neighbors, her siblings, and herself, had all gotten in trouble together and the neighbors had said he was going to beat them all (128). Even though the neighbors boys were beaten and spanked they continued to get into trouble and do the things that caused them punishment, knowing they would get into trouble for it. Yet, even before Bebe's mother told her she was disappointed in her, she felt guilt and remorse, due to the way her mother had raised her, instilling values in her that saying and doing certain things wasn’t acceptable. This is one of the main examples of how there is no specific set of values, and that each family gets to choose their own values and how they instil them in their family.
My family is a little different than most. I have two families; I have my mother’s side, which I live with, and I have my father’s side, which I only see about once a year. My families are

very different on each side, and I think that has a lot to do with my personality and why I have so many views, and why some of them may seem completely contradictory.
My mom’s side consist of my mother, my step-father, my sister, an adopted daughter, my mom and step-father's daughter, and my step-father’s son. This is the side of the family I spend the most time with, and that I generally get along better with. My mother’s side is very down to earth and they understand things that my dad’s side typically does not. My mother’s biological side came from a long line of hardships and that’s helped to frame me and make me into the strong person I am. My mom’s side values quality time and family events more than most families would. My mom’s side of the family loves doing things like baking and going out together, because it reminds us that no matter what you can go and do things with you family and have fun doing it.
Her values are a bit all over the board when it comes to parenting and things like that compared to most parents with children her age. When it comes to parenting for us kids, she’s very lenient on our rules, or at least mine. Most parents nowadays aren’t like that.
My step-dad’s families is a little different, so our family being blended is hard at times. His mother raised him on her own, since his father died when he was young. He was raised as an only child. He was raised in a very religious home and raised with very “traditional” values. He was also raised with the mindset of work, and he instilled that inside of me. Being raised by a single mother, he was handed everything, and nobody thought twice about it. Obviously in my house that isn’t how things go. He also believes in the thought that women are suppose to stay home and clean, while the men go and work, so him and my mother disagree about that a lot.
My biological father grew up in a more financially stable family and valued money and personal items substantially more than one person should have.

People on his side of the family are always hunting for money, yet none of them are ever wanting to work for it. When my father turned thirty, he married a woman that worked at a great job and her parents made fabulous money. He married into money and his head has been the size of a hot air balloon ever since. They had children together and he didn’t really care about my sister and I after that. His values on family are nonexistent. He doesn’t care about family as long as he is getting money some

way.
I relate to Bebe in multiple ways. My biological father never felt the need to be there for my sister and I because of the fact that he had other children. He never told us he was proud of us, as odd as it sounds, he was never there in the disappointing moments, even though we wanted him to be.Now that we’re growing up, he won’t be there for the life chaning moments either, like my sister having her baby in May, or my graduation in May, or either one of our weddings. i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i
In Bebe’s essay she says “In my house there was no morning stubble, no long johns or fruit of the looms on the clotheslines, no baritone hollering for keys that were sitting on the table.” Explaining how there was no father figure in the house. She learned to value her mother that much more because her father wasn’t around.
My dad told me once, “it’s not hard to make decisions once you know what your values are.” This quote stuck with me because it’s incredibly true. “It doesn’t matter what you’re doing, as long as you know the value in it.” I always try to stick to my values even if it seems hard or if people don’t like what my values are.
Being who you are and sticking to your beliefs is the most important thing you can do in your life. Everyone has different beliefs, even members of the same family, but finding a system that works for each person and doing that help everything to go smoothly.