more on "family"

One of my favorite bloggers responded  to my request to define "family."

Definition of Family

By Claudia

I believe that family consists of anyone who you are committed to OR who are committed to you for life. In some situations this commitment isn’t necessarily intentional (do you remember when you first realized that parenting was FOREVER?) When people are related by blood, it isn’t always a volitional commitment made. But this kind of commitment can be a voluntary one -- where parents choose to legally adopt a child or even to provide permanency in other ways. it can be a friend and not even a family member who makes this commitment. I have a huge family -- wonderful parents by birth, ten children through adoption, a husband through marriage vows that I meant and will keep, and many friends over the years. These friends are people that I am committed to for life and they are to me. Some of them I haven’t seen in 10 years, but I know if I were to show up on their doorstep dirt poor, sick, or even mentally ill, they would take me in and provide me with a home. And I would do the same for them. So I think that family is not a feeling, though there certainly are feelings involved. I think there are “families” created by birth that don’t have that commitment and thus aren’t would not fit into my definition of family. And one more thought -- I think that it is great if the commitment works both ways -- where both parties are committed to each other. But this doesn’t always happen, as we well know. A couple examples come to mind: 1) Us parenting our RAD kids. We are very committed to them, but they do not return the commitment, but that still doesn’t mean that in OUR eyes, they are not our family. 2) The other interesting twist is that while our children’s birthparents were not, or could not be, committed to them, some of our kids are still committed to their birth parents and thus they still view them as “family.” This leads to many adopted kids moving in with their birth families, regardless of what conditions they are living in, when they turn 18.   Claudia's definition and list of characteristics are pretty close to mine.   A family shares a history and a future. You can't be a family without commitment in at least one direction. Family will take you in when life deals you a losing hand - but not necessarily if you deal that hand to yourself, because taking you may not be the best thing for you in the long run in that situation.

Define "family" for me

I'm not looking for reaction to any homosexual agenda (although you  are free to respond as you wish).

I've left a request on several blogspot blogs for the authors to define "family" from their perspective and that of their kids. The authors all have large families of adopted children, so I'm interested in their take.

I've also posted the same request on an httpEZboard forum

I think some of my kids really don't understand what a family is even now; they've come and gone through various "families" and experienced a lot of loss, abandonment, and broken trust. 

So springs forth my topic today. I have a couple of core thoughts on this that I'll post later after I read some more responses elsewhere (and here, if there are any).

randomness

Dean, here’s a blog for you about The Christian Response to Illegal Aliens

I haven't read it all yet.

A list, stolen from my friend Heidi’s site . Heidi and her family embarked on an adoption journey several years ago, inspired by our family (of all things!). I thought her words were worth repeating and sharing, so here they are!

Top five things I've learned by parenting our adoptees for the past five years:

1.It's not personal. My children act out of their past hurts and perceptions. When they do so, my parenting of them is rarely the real issue.

2.Time may heal all wounds, but some wounds may take a lifetime (or longer) to heal.

3."Virtually indestructable" means that my boys can destroy it, much to the amazement of parents with average children.

4.It can be very difficult to separate the quality of my parenting from the results I see in my children. I know this should not be so, and I am working on changing this belief, but I mostly still believe that "good" parents have "good" kids.

5.I absolutely cannot do this job without the wisdom and grace my Lord Jesus provides! (Every time I try, I fall flat on my face... and usually take someone down with me.)

Yesterday’s soccer games were wonderful. Our teams lost both games, but the kids played well and hard, the other teams just played better. Some times the kids will return from a game and talk about the other team playing dirty or trash-talking (in spite of the fact that most of the teams we play come from Christian homeschooling groups). The games against the Batesville teams, however, are always good all around. Very few of their kids ever get out of line, and ours normally have little to nothing bad to report. All the kids play hard but with good sportsmanship and character.

In the “girls” game, two of the smaller boys got to play, since they’re really not big enough to play with the big kids coed team. Pete played goalie and did a decent job, although he let four balls get by him. One was over his head – not much he could do about that!

Liz played phenomenally (says her unbiased mom) – she gets more aggressive every year – a good thing in soccer, because it IS a contact sport. All the other parents were commenting on how she wasn’t afraid to mix it up with anybody. It’s funny, our departure from homeschooling to public school started with her desire to play soccer at the high school level before we were sure Dean was going to put together a high school team. Well, the coach rarely let her play even though her ability was comparable to the other JV girls, and she gave up soccer after one season to run.

I said for years she’d be a better runner than a soccer player because she didn’t have that “I’ll kill you and sacrifice my body to get the ball” mentality.

Yesterday the comment was made – not initiated by me – that Liz would probably be welcomed on the Varsity team by now. J I think now all it would take for her soccer ability to equal her running would be an improvement in her footwork/ball handling skills.

The only bad thing about yesterday’s soccer games was that we got home about midnight. Ugh. I still got up at about 6:30 for work.

Got David up then for his “volunteer” job – he was not a happy camper. The rest of the kids were sound asleep when we left.

One friend posted this personality test   (really related to autism and Asperger’s).

Another site posted this personality test (like a Myers-Briggs Type Indicator – same type of results)

I didn’t take this one, but from past versions, I’m an ISTJ, Ric is an ENFP(as are Liz and Henry), and Mary is an ENTJ.  I forget what David came up with when I had him take a test, but I do remember that Ric and I didn’t believe his results.   (I think David Keirsey’s site actually has better descriptions of the types, at least the last time I looked there. We’ve done a church small group class on this stuff a couple of times.)

I’m told this should be a good broadcast:

Game Day

First soccer game today - the homeschool high school (U19) team and the girls-only team both play today. Good excuse to cut out of work early and drive my part of the team to the game. Should be good times. Ric will get to spend an evening home alone.

short, moving video about adoption from the perspective of an adoptee

yeah, I'm posting a bunch of downer-type stuff lately - but the reality is, there are a lot of foster kids and adopted kids (and adults who used to be foster kids or adopted kids) who almost universally deal with the history of abuse and neglect and all the after-effects. Mostly they're not going to tell you about their deep feelings of loss, anger, resentment, abandonment, etc., unless you're a really close and trusted friend - and trust doesn't come easily for them. So I'm sharing what I've found and what I'm still learning from mine. Maybe it'll help someone else understand just a little bit.