Family - #401 - 04 - Does blood make a “family?”

Sounds real simple, doesn’t it?

Well …..let’s take “family” for instance.
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Question: Is a family “blood related”?
Query: Does it have to be? Could your family be unrelated by “blood”? Could your group or gang be “family” to you? Could your community be family to you?
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Question: What does “family” mean? How is it “defined”? Do you accept the “definition”? Who “defined” family, anyway?
Query: What does family mean to you? What are its values to you? Is “your” family permanent to you?
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Question: What makes a “family”? How many people? What kind of people?
Query: Do you include relatives, old people, young people, males, females, criminals, educated, uneducated, employed, unemployed, rich, poor…. or what?
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Question: How do “family” differ from “friends”?
Query: Are all your family “friends”?…. Are all your friends “family”?…. What’s the difference?
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So you thought, at first, that this was easy?

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May I try to define “family”?.... (Can you chose what “blood” belongs to your “family”?)

“Family” should include considerations of the following:
a. People I think I want as “family”.
b. People I judge to be of special, lifelong value to me.
c. People whom I respect for at least something …. education, confidence, loyalty, companionship …… at least something that I value highly. (I better have a good idea of what I value highly before I accept or want to include them in my “family”!)
d. People whose “long term” presence gives me something rare and important to me. (note: “long term”!!!)
e. People of “any sort or type or background” that fill these attributes.
f. I would like to believe that the “family”,I have chosen,feels the same way about me that I do about them.
g. I hope my “family” will help guide and support me in my efforts. I hope they will feel free to constructively criticize my efforts. I hope they will feel free to disagree with me, in hopes that I might gain another point of view so I can make a better decision.
h. I sincerely hope that I know the difference between a “new acquaintance” and “my family”. (If I choose well, my new acquaintance may become “family” in a while.)

(There is obviously a vast difference between a “family” and a “litter”…. Ugh!)


Do you think you are better qualified now to choose your “family” having considered this definition? Do you think now that "blood" makes a family?

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