quote for the day....

[katekat]

I am a great believer in found families and I'm not a great believer in blood. Although I love my family, even the ones I grew up with, to me I've always felt that the people who treated you with respect and included you in their lives were your family and the people who were related to you by blood might happen to be those people but that correlation was a lot less [strong] than society believes it is.  ~ Joss Whendon

Probably more than half of you have heard this.  It's one of the loveliest things I've run across today, though, so I thought I'd share it.  Also because it expresses a better concept of family to me than many others out there (and for me it means I don't have to be quite as depressed when my parts of my almost blood-family don't make the attempt to include me in their lives).  This concept of family lets me honor the people who have honored me.  That's worth it, I think.

Anybody else prefer a found family?

Comments

[kaffee-spinne.livejournal.com]

My family helped take in one of my oldest best friends when she was kicked out as a teen. She and her kids are almost regularly a part of our holiday gatherings. My older brother stepped in many a time when her kids were younger and they were lacking a father figure to take them places. Likewise, another family of a friend of mine took in me and my other best friend as teens - providing a place to hang out at as a second home. She is now married to their son and they have a happy family of 3 kids. I visit them when I am in town and they still feel like a second home that I am always welcome at.

[kaffee-spinne.livejournal.com]

Not entirely in line with your post, but I would say that my family has expanded to encompass some of my friends and I am part of some of their families. It takes a village, this is something I feel strongly about with my current friends and their kids.

Growing up I was very close to many of my mothers friends and considered them like aunts or second moms...their kids are like cousins and everyone was at my wedding, and they keep tabs on new pics of my son and our house, etc. even though we're far away.

[katekat]

It takes a village

I completely agree with this! Would that all villages were in the same vicinity that they used to be - now sometimes I feel as if my village is strung out across half of the US.

[kaffee-spinne.livejournal.com]

Strangely we keep in touch a lot with Facebook and MySpace and Vox.

[katekat]

It sounds like you have the best of all worlds - great family that is willing to extend and incorporate new people into the flock. That's awesome.

[kaffee-spinne.livejournal.com]

I think it was a combination of 1) my strong closeknit Italian family values + 2) my mother's rebellious hippy preference for second families among her friends.

Once the old-guard passed away and people were moving away - her generation, cousins, friends started to try and keep in touch more + use the internet to help keep friends and their kids etc. together in communication.

But I still miss how my mom's friends used to drop by unannounced, make themselves a cup of coffee, letting themselves in (b/c our back door would be unlocked) and wait til we got home. Those were simpler times.

[dara-starscream.livejournal.com]

I don't think the concept of friendship is inclusive enough for the people I meet. In the course of adult life I've had several acquaintences, some friends, a few close friends, and two or three people about whom my feelings aren't covered by the concept of friendship. They're the kind of people I wish I was related to; part of the Cousin Brigade or my older brother/sister. I wish we'd been a part of each other's lives when we were all young and still being made, if that makes sense.

Then again, there are times when I think my blood family was specifically created so that everybody in it will never lose sight of the fact that life isn't fair. Ever.
-BJ

[katekat]

I agree - there are so many different definitions of "friend" that the word is wonky. And it's rubber-bandy to extend to people I'd trust to drive me to the emergency room and to people I'd talk to on the street to say hello. I like that - I wish I was related to certain people too. It totally makes sense.

*pets* see, this is why I think the people you'd want to have grown up with should get to be called family too - so that there can be a counter to some of the heavy shit, you know?

[khaoschilde.livejournal.com]

Lovely indeed. I certainly prefer found family.

[katekat]

*grin*

[elizabuffy.livejournal.com]

I totally prefer my found family. I try to pretend I'm not actually related to many of my blood relatives. *cough* Uncle Asshole */cough* That being said, a lot of my blood relatives are included in the "found family." They're the family I chose who just happen to be related to me.

~e!

[katekat]

i think there's totally room for the blood relatives in the found family - hell, sometimes i think that it's like the cherry on the top to actually *find* family you're also blood related to (like my relationship with my dad - which i really don't think i had until i became an adult). That's the nice part about the whole thing - finding can go both ways. :D

[sahiya.livejournal.com]

To be the voice of dissent, I have been extraordinarily lucky in my blood family and I wouldn't trade a single one of them for the world (this is my immediate family; there are members of my extended family I'd trade for a pack of cigarettes and some soap).

I have found family that I love as well, though.

[katekat]

It sounds like you have a fantastic immediate family, which is wonderful - and I didn't necessarily mean to imply that blood-family can't be part of the idea of a found family - just that sometimes we live in a world that doesn't acknowledge the whole village aspect of the world, and that those relationships we make are sometimes as important as those ones we are born into. :D

[lostgirlslair.livejournal.com]

You sound like you could use some hugs! ::huge, huge hugs:: I am all about the found family idea. I mean, being related to someone is an accident, but the people you choose to be around are bounds built on something, and are less random. *G* Not that I don't love some of my blood relatives. You know, the not evil ones. *G*

[katekat]

I'm doing ok sweetest - back and forth between a weird enui and sort of burying my head in the sand ;) And exactly - I love my blood relatives (some of them) lots and lots too - just that I love my found family in much the same way. And that concept begins to explain why I'd ever consider doing some of the things i've done for friends - cuz friend isn't quite a good enough word, you know? *squishes you*

[lostgirlslair.livejournal.com]

Aw. ::more hugs:: I hope things get better, darlin'! And, yeah, that's exactly the way I feel about it all. There should be a word that means 'might as well be family'. ::nods::

[aesiron.livejournal.com]

I like the concept. I've yet to experience it.

[katekat]

it's out there, promise