I love talking about my family—its structure, uniqueness, and the love we have for each other. We are a family far from perfect, but very close-knit and intimate. I love my family and I feel proud to include them in this assignment.
A Little Background…
What is the most unique thing about my family is our unconditional love for each other. Sometimes I don’t get to see my sisters or parents as often as I would like to, but we all know that we are there for each other always and until the end. And while that is true, that doesn’t automatically make things easy on a child growing up in a divorced household. Although divorce is quite common among families today, I often felt like I was one of the only kids growing up 10 years ago with divorced parents. It used to confuse me and make me upset at times, but now I see how lucky I am to have these people in my life, regardless of their marital status. My family has a very odd structure to it. I have half-siblings and step-grandparents, remarried and re-divorced parents. I’m very used to saying things like, “this is Katie, my half-sister’s husband’s step-sister.” There are many different families within my family. Most importantly is that all sides of the family get along well with each other! Thank goodness!
Growing up with what I felt like was an unusual family situation, it would have been easier for me, I believe, if I were more welcome to express my feelings about my parents’ separation. When I was younger, I felt a very secure attachment to my mother, but not as much to my father. Where my father tended to be distant and passive at times, my mother was almost always responsive and available to me. What is very interesting to me when researching families and divorce is that children of different age groups experience and interpret divorce differently. For example, young children may adapt more easily than other ages and may suffer less. Older children may hold their parents responsible because cognitively they are able to harbor more thoughts and make assumptions and judgments about their parents. They may assign blame to their parents as well. Adolescents can have changes in feelings and can create a kind of emotional void. They are likely to distance themselves and associate with peers instead of family. The risks are different with each age group in divorce. Laumann-Billings and Emery’s study offers the conclusion that while college-aged students from divorced families reported painful feelings, beliefs and memories about their parents’ divorce, they rarely have long-term psychological consequences. The close attachment I had to my mom did help me get through some of the rough patches during the time of my parents’ separation, but a more open communication would have been more effective in helping my sisters and me through that time. In the article “Focus on Kids: Helping Children Understand Divorce”, Kim Leon and Kelly Cole recommend that keeping an open dialogue with children going through parental separation is a key part of their development.
Family In Action…
When I am at family gatherings, I see a very different side of my family. On Thanksgiving this year, my dad, his girlfriend, my sister and I went to Connecticut to visit my Uncle, Aunt and cousins. Every time I visit with them, I know in advance that it is going to be a very different experience than what I am used to. I am accustomed to the kind of family that is split-up and spends much time away from each other (my parents are divorced, and I see my mom and sister only every other week or so). I am used to brief interactions lasting not much longer than a meal. After that amount of time, I start to lose my patience and feel the need to get out. For this Thanksgiving, the plan was to stay for three days...
When we arrived, we spent about the first hour hugging and reminiscing about previous visits and family gatherings. For instance, last time I was at my cousins’ house, I pulled a Kimberly Stewart and lost control of the motorbike and let it fly out from underneath me. Or how about the time when my cousin Matt threw the steak at the cat… Or how about the time Erika ran into the plate-glass door… My family is a story-telling group, especially on my father’s side. I can’t get past my grandfather without hearing “about the time when…” As Rebecca Leonard’s says in her “He Said, She Said” presentation of Tannen’s book, “men use talk to establish and defend personal status and ideas by asserting themselves, telling jokes and stories, etc. . . . Communication is a way to exert control, entertain and enhance status.” This kind of communication demands attention, like my grandfather--the one telling the story! Most of the time I’ve heard these stories a million times before, and almost all of the time they are exaggerated. But it makes our family gatherings so much fun! Although my cousins and I snicker behind my grandfather’s back when he tells those long, drawn-out, repetitive stories, we appreciate them because they bring us together and make us laugh. We have, in a way, become our grandfather as a result of exposure to constant story-telling! When we come together for a family gathering, holiday, birthday or otherwise, we reminisce about past reunions and who-did-what. It is possible that someday we will have grandchildren of our own who roll their eyes and snicker at us behind our backs when we tell our own stories.
While I’m on the topic of communication within the family, there is one more example I must use. The night of Thanksgiving, after all the food had been eaten and the “adults” (parents and grandparents, age 50+) had gone to bed, the “kids” (children ranging from age 18-25) decided to stay up and play Taboo. In Taboo, the object of the game is for a player to have their partner(s) guess the word on their card without using the word itself or five additional words listed on the card. We split up into teams: the guys versus the girls, and we had 4 on each team. The girls’ team won by about 30 points! My theory is that women are far more accustomed to talking and being sensitive to word usage, word choice, picking up on the nonverbal cues, and paying attention to the little details such as not saying one of the words on the card. This game brilliantly illustrated the communication types between men and women! I highly recommend this game for any family function, and to make it really entertaining, divide the teams first with a mix of guys and girls, and then into guys-versus-girls for the next round and see what the difference is!
A Little Background…
What is the most unique thing about my family is our unconditional love for each other. Sometimes I don’t get to see my sisters or parents as often as I would like to, but we all know that we are there for each other always and until the end. And while that is true, that doesn’t automatically make things easy on a child growing up in a divorced household. Although divorce is quite common among families today, I often felt like I was one of the only kids growing up 10 years ago with divorced parents. It used to confuse me and make me upset at times, but now I see how lucky I am to have these people in my life, regardless of their marital status. My family has a very odd structure to it. I have half-siblings and step-grandparents, remarried and re-divorced parents. I’m very used to saying things like, “this is Katie, my half-sister’s husband’s step-sister.” There are many different families within my family. Most importantly is that all sides of the family get along well with each other! Thank goodness!
Growing up with what I felt like was an unusual family situation, it would have been easier for me, I believe, if I were more welcome to express my feelings about my parents’ separation. When I was younger, I felt a very secure attachment to my mother, but not as much to my father. Where my father tended to be distant and passive at times, my mother was almost always responsive and available to me. What is very interesting to me when researching families and divorce is that children of different age groups experience and interpret divorce differently. For example, young children may adapt more easily than other ages and may suffer less. Older children may hold their parents responsible because cognitively they are able to harbor more thoughts and make assumptions and judgments about their parents. They may assign blame to their parents as well. Adolescents can have changes in feelings and can create a kind of emotional void. They are likely to distance themselves and associate with peers instead of family. The risks are different with each age group in divorce. Laumann-Billings and Emery’s study offers the conclusion that while college-aged students from divorced families reported painful feelings, beliefs and memories about their parents’ divorce, they rarely have long-term psychological consequences. The close attachment I had to my mom did help me get through some of the rough patches during the time of my parents’ separation, but a more open communication would have been more effective in helping my sisters and me through that time. In the article “Focus on Kids: Helping Children Understand Divorce”, Kim Leon and Kelly Cole recommend that keeping an open dialogue with children going through parental separation is a key part of their development.
Family In Action…
When I am at family gatherings, I see a very different side of my family. On Thanksgiving this year, my dad, his girlfriend, my sister and I went to Connecticut to visit my Uncle, Aunt and cousins. Every time I visit with them, I know in advance that it is going to be a very different experience than what I am used to. I am accustomed to the kind of family that is split-up and spends much time away from each other (my parents are divorced, and I see my mom and sister only every other week or so). I am used to brief interactions lasting not much longer than a meal. After that amount of time, I start to lose my patience and feel the need to get out. For this Thanksgiving, the plan was to stay for three days...
When we arrived, we spent about the first hour hugging and reminiscing about previous visits and family gatherings. For instance, last time I was at my cousins’ house, I pulled a Kimberly Stewart and lost control of the motorbike and let it fly out from underneath me. Or how about the time when my cousin Matt threw the steak at the cat… Or how about the time Erika ran into the plate-glass door… My family is a story-telling group, especially on my father’s side. I can’t get past my grandfather without hearing “about the time when…” As Rebecca Leonard’s says in her “He Said, She Said” presentation of Tannen’s book, “men use talk to establish and defend personal status and ideas by asserting themselves, telling jokes and stories, etc. . . . Communication is a way to exert control, entertain and enhance status.” This kind of communication demands attention, like my grandfather--the one telling the story! Most of the time I’ve heard these stories a million times before, and almost all of the time they are exaggerated. But it makes our family gatherings so much fun! Although my cousins and I snicker behind my grandfather’s back when he tells those long, drawn-out, repetitive stories, we appreciate them because they bring us together and make us laugh. We have, in a way, become our grandfather as a result of exposure to constant story-telling! When we come together for a family gathering, holiday, birthday or otherwise, we reminisce about past reunions and who-did-what. It is possible that someday we will have grandchildren of our own who roll their eyes and snicker at us behind our backs when we tell our own stories.
While I’m on the topic of communication within the family, there is one more example I must use. The night of Thanksgiving, after all the food had been eaten and the “adults” (parents and grandparents, age 50+) had gone to bed, the “kids” (children ranging from age 18-25) decided to stay up and play Taboo. In Taboo, the object of the game is for a player to have their partner(s) guess the word on their card without using the word itself or five additional words listed on the card. We split up into teams: the guys versus the girls, and we had 4 on each team. The girls’ team won by about 30 points! My theory is that women are far more accustomed to talking and being sensitive to word usage, word choice, picking up on the nonverbal cues, and paying attention to the little details such as not saying one of the words on the card. This game brilliantly illustrated the communication types between men and women! I highly recommend this game for any family function, and to make it really entertaining, divide the teams first with a mix of guys and girls, and then into guys-versus-girls for the next round and see what the difference is!
2 comments:
I absolutely love the part talking about story telling!
"Or how about the time when my cousin Matt threw the steak at the cat… Or how about the time Erika ran into the plate-glass door… My family is a story-telling group, especially on my father’s side. I can’t get past my grandfather without hearing “about the time when…”"
We are unique! ;)
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