European Graduate School EGS - Media Communication Studies Program
5
Family
"My family is not always like it's supposed to be"
The denotations surrounding the concept of family are numerous while the
connotations of family are more agreed upon. There are many variations of
family 'structure', but the general, almost universal connotation of 'family'
immediately implies a closeness of relation, distinguished from other less
'connected' associations. Explaining the term concisely is difficult as
there is no one accurate definition for 'family'. The 'nuclear' family can
be defined as "a unit of sexual reproduction - distinguishable from
other social units consisting of relatives." 1
An anthropological definition states: "families
are composed of persons who are related by blood or marriage, but not always.
Sharing the same roof, food, dining table, money, material goods, or emotions
could define any group as family." 2 This basis extends the types of relationship family
'members' may have beyond defined social roles. Family does not have to
be restricted to actual biological relations or strictly defined social
positions, nor does a family member have to occupy a traditional anthropological
definition to be considered family. Family can be seen as a "dynamic
social entity extending, potentially and actually, beyond the confines of
house and home and really only to be understood as a process." 3
The dynamics of family as a social entity are
complex and problematic, ensuring that there are no indisputable boundaries
to family. "The family is not a thing to be understood in its composition
so much as it is a system of relationships that change over time.....The
family should be understood in the terms in which family members themselves
define it." 4
Each of the girls has a different immediate family composition and, as with
most of the population, the organization of the family members is in flux.
Extended members of the family, including step siblings, cousins, uncles,
aunts, related by marriage and related by unknown associations all occur
in the girls' experiences with family. The girls define 'family' in various
but also similar ways.
The girls describe family:
Renalda: A family is your mother, your father, your brothers,
sisters, aunts, grandmothers, but for sure your mother and father.
Keisha: My mother is not a part of our family. It's like that a
lot. Sometimes people leave, they divorce or just leave. And sometimes they're
still around, just not in the same house or somethin'.
Elva: There's a lot of types of families. Everybody I know has
a different family. But it's important to have your family because you need
them and they are supposed to be more dependable than other people - boyfriends
and stuff.
Keisha: Yeah, a family can be anything - my family isn't like it's
supposed to be. I live just with my two sisters and my baby. I have brothers,
too, but they don't live with us. They did at one time but they don't now
'cause they have their own thing. And my father has his own thing, you know,
I don't see him hardly never. He has another girlfriend after our mother
died. He gives us money sometimes, though, 'cause he cares, I guess.
Sister G: You know, family is some of the time a lot about money
and having a place to live 'cause when things happen to you and you don't
have no good job, it's your family - you first have to ask for them to help
you.
Keisha: And if you have a baby and you are still young, you got
to have a place to live and some help with watchin' the baby 'cause you
still got school and stuff to do. Yeah, it's your family that you need for
times like that.
LJ: But sometimes family is not anything you can rely on. You know,
like when the father leaves or the mother is fucked up or somethin', then
there is no system at home and all the kids have to make their own thing.
The girls consider whether close friends are like family:
Sister G: Sometimes they are, but you can never know for sure.
It's hard to trust everybody. You got to keep a edge for yourself 'cause
if you get soft and think somebody is there for you and then somethin' happens,
then you are messed up. So you got to watch out who you get close with.
Elva: Some friends are like family. My mother's friend, I thought
she was my aunt or somethin' 'cause I stayed with her when I was little
and later I found out she was not my mother's sister. She just didn't have
no husband and her and my mother shared takin' care of their kids.
Renalda: I like my girlfriends like family 'cause I can talk with
them and ask them for help if I need it. Yeah, and they are my same age
so we have an understanding - we are down, you know? It's not like that
with other people and bein' like that makes a difference. It's like family.
LJ: I can say that my brother's friend is like my brother, too.
'Cause he looks out for me and we are down, too. He's older, but he can
still talk my scene.
The girls have friends of varying degrees; peers their own age, teachers,
counselors and coaches, friends of their older siblings, friends of their
parents and grandparents, etc. Some of the individuals the girls are associated
with are casual acquaintances and some represent more secure relationships.
The term 'family' to the girls refers first to the people that raise them,
even if they are not on the best of terms with their parents, guardians
or caregivers. They label certain of their close friends as family. When
asked to deliberate over whether a friend, teacher or other associate could
be regarded as 'family', the girls at first had different responses, but
then conceded that it was possible especially if you could rely upon or
trust the person.
Sister G: My teachers, they don't really know me, and I make
it that way, I guess, 'cause they are so busy anyways, they can't know all
of the kids there. But there was one teacher last year and she helped me
a lot when I was pregnant, and so did my friends, but my mother didn't help
me till the end, 'cause she was mad with me. She said I had to get my baby
aborted, but I didn't want to and Mrs. Heppner said if I was goin' to keep
it I had to get to the clinic. She helped me get set up there, but not my
mother, so that's kind of rot, you know.
Keisha: We have a PE teacher and she is a cool lady. She doesn't
just make us go through the class, but she talks to us and she says that
what we want to do makes a mark on everything we do, so like with sports,
basketball or somethin', she says that playin' the sport is like ourself,
like what we want to do, she doesn't force us to do somethin' just to do
it.
Renalda: Yeah, in PE we can talk to her about stuff that's not
just about the class. We still have to do the exercises, but she is more
of a friend than just the teacher. But that doesn't call her no family,
though. She is just different, better than most of the other teachers 'cause
she's like a friend.
Keisha: At my job, my boss is a cool guy, too. He asks me about
what I do and he remembers stuff I tell him, not like it's just somethin'
to pass off, like he's interested. And he is a really different guy than
everybody I know, like a flip, kind of white guy. But at work I like rappin'
with the dude, 'cause it's o-k with him, but if you saw him around here
girl, you would not know that he is my friend at all!
Notes
1 Silverstone, 32, referring to David M. Schneider,
American Kinship: A Cultural Account (Chicago: Chicago U Press, 1980).
BACK TO TEXT
2 Lull, "The Family and Television in World
Cultures," World Families Watch Television (London: Sage, 1988) : 10.
BACK TO TEXT
3 Silverstone, 33, referring to Jon Bernardes,
"In Search of 'The Family'," Sociological Review 34.4 (1986);
Patricia Wilson and Ray Pahl, "The Changing Sociological Construct
of the Family," The Sociological Review 36.2 (1988); and Elizabeth
Bott, Family and Social Network 2nd Ed., (London: Tavistock, 1971).
BACK TO TEXT
4 D.S. Pitkin, The House that Giacomo Built (Cambridge:
Cambridge U Press, 1985) : 16, Qtd. in Silverstone, 32.
BACK TO TEXT