Hi all,

I am wondering how many people here get on with their family? How many of you have never fallen out with your family?

Standing back, it seems that many families break down for one reason or another - I am just wondering whether this is common or not, and if so, why is the family dynamic so weak?

I have no family but consider nature my family now.;):)

I only see my family at holidays (I figure I owe them that much), but the only way I can maintain around them is if I chief before I go. And then again every couple hours. Otherwise I get severe anxiety attacks and have to leave because I cannot maintain.

But yeah we are all one with nature.

chief?

I like them all individually, but we are totally disfunctional as a family.

chief?

Hit the peace pipe. And then hit it again. And again. And again. And again. You get my point.

My "family" in the nuclear (or even extended) sense ceased to exist during my childhood. I couldn't wait to be free of my parents and minimized our contacts while they were alive. I have no siblings. Only three first cousins out of six are still alive and I only keep in touch with one. I lost track of another in 1955 when we were twelve and don't even know his surname, and I didn't even know the third (born around 1965) existed until a genealogist contacted me last year to help in the poor lady's search for the remnants of her family.

Of all Grandma and Grandpa Fraggle's grandchildren, only two had progeny, one each, and they are resolutely childless. This family will die off when those two second-cousins do, unless they change their minds late in life and decide to adopt or something.

Basically I have no family except my wife and our many dogs.

My wife's family is a little larger and a little closer, but she also has no siblings. We kept in touch with her aunts and uncles when we all lived in the same city, and in closer touch with a couple of her cousins who also lived there. Since we all moved away to different places we keep track of each other but that's not quite the same thing as keeping in touch.

My mother's father was a widower who remarried so she had a bunch of half-sisters who were so much older that she hardly knew them. They went off and started their own families and for reasons unclear to me the two halves of the family were completely estranged. I never met any of them or even knew their names. When the last half-sister died about fifteen years ago in her late nineties her will directed that a portion of her estate be divided among the descendants of her half-siblings. Her son, my half-first-cousin (is there such a term?), about fifteen years my senior, painstakingly tracked me down and sent me a check and we started keeping touch.

I discovered that for the entire 37 years I lived in the Los Angeles area, he and his wife lived there too. I didn't even know he existed and although he knew about me he had no idea where I was. They had four children and now have about twenty great-granchildren. That entire "hidden" side of my family is both prolific and close. They take over a park once a year and have family reunions that are typically attended by more than a hundred relatives, and they all know each other and are delighted to see each other.

Something really weird happened to my mother's family when her father married her mother! Our side of the family has never had that kind of kinship. (My father's family was equally estranged, which explains why I have a cousin I didn't know about until she was in her forties.)

Mrs. Fraggle and I are always invited to these reunions. But we moved out of L.A. the very same year my cousin and I were reunited, and I've always been traveling for my career, so we've never been able to attend one. Some day hopefully!

What was wrong with your parents, Fraggle?

What was wrong with your parents, Fraggle?By today's standards, considering what I see passing as parenting, they'd probably be considered perfect. Stayed married for more than fifty years, spent a lot of time at home, we did almost everything as a family. But they kept me from having friends, generally prevented me from developing social skills and growing up. Never expressed any emotion but anger. It was a sad, lonely, depressing life that's been very difficult to recover from. There are so many things I can't feel.

By today's standards, considering what I see passing as parenting, they'd probably be considered perfect. Stayed married for more than fifty years, spent a lot of time at home, we did almost everything as a family. But they kept me from having friends, generally prevented me from developing social skills and growing up. Never expressed any emotion but anger. It was a sad, lonely, depressing life that's been very difficult to recover from. There are so many things I can't feel.

Wow. You sure do have an interesting history.

I generally tolerate my parents because they are me. Or, everything that I seek to repress of me. But somewhere i realise that. Plus.. They fed and paid me for 16+ years and going so, I figure I owe em that much.. Doesn't make it easier on me though. Particularly when they insist on extending their baggage allowance. (when travelling)

now see, when you say family, I think of my husband and kids, not my folks and siblings.
So most of you think of your childhood family as your family.