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  • LAVA Moderator: Shinji Ikari

Do you HAVE to like your extended family?

I like, or at least respect everyone in my extended family.

I like only having to speak to/see them three times a year.
 
^ That's how I am. I'm on good, civil terms with everyone in both sides of my extended family, as well as my wife's. I don't dread having to spend a couple of hours in a room with anyone I'm related to, and have enough to talk about with anyone I see. But would I seek out most of them more than a couple times a year? Probably not. I think of most of my extended family as acquaintances. Being at any sort of family reunion feels similar, to me, to a school reunion or a work-related social function. Yes, there's a bit of sphincter clenching -- I don't feel I can say whatever I feel, and there's sides of me I don't bring out. But it's not torture, and I'm not on blatantly hostile terms with anyone.

I'm beginning to think that in the US, it's common to be close with your aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents as children, but then grow more distant from most of them as adults. Then when you have kids, you make sure your kids spend time with your parents and siblings (and their spouses and kids), and the cycle repeats. Neither of my parents were close, in my lifetime, with any of their cousins. Nor are most of my friends my age. They'll tell stories about spending time with them as kids, though.
 
MyDoorsAreOpen said:
I'm beginning to think that in the US, it's common to be close with your aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents as children, but then grow more distant from most of them as adults. Then when you have kids, you make sure your kids spend time with your parents and siblings (and their spouses and kids), and the cycle repeats. Neither of my parents were close, in my lifetime, with any of their cousins. Nor are most of my friends my age. They'll tell stories about spending time with them as kids, though.
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Might be an isolated case, or might have to do with being 100% Italian, but my dad is extremely close with his cousins to this day. I have met one or two (of the five or six) over the years, but they're all significantly older than me, and they're all males. I am not close with my two cousins, 'cause they too are significantly older than me (the youngest being about a decade older). My mom is not close with any of her cousins and never was as far as I can tell.
 
undead said:
I feel that they offer me nothing in life and that I offer them nothing back. I prefer to avoid them more often than not anyways, but am I in the wrong?
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That's basically all it comes down to. Evolutionary practices be damned. How can you be wrong about that?

It IS good to have family in your life, though, even if you don't agree with them. Just because, in a world that largely doesn't care about you, you have this little nook of people that are supposed to care about you and have you back, and you have their's. Can you imagine a scenario where they will just leave you out in the cold when you really need someone and no one else is there to help you? If they really are the types of people to just leave you for dead when you need it most, then I don't see any point in hanging around with them. I think it's important to let petty personality differences fall by the wayside when you're talking about family, but loving them unconditionally isn't the same as accpeting all their bullshit.
But couldn't you just talk TO them about their shittiness? Tell them how it's unacceptable how they talk to you or something? Or that you'd kill yourself if you ever had their outlook on life? Maybe not something so blunt....I just think that negative family members are simply acting how they simply have grown up to act and no one in their family has called them out on it, but once you do, you can begin to have some real conversations with them perhaps. Are they really so fucked up that you don't see any progress ever being made with them?

Anyways
I think that dissociating from one's blood relatives gives some people a measure of sanity.
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This as well also too

oops almost missed this one:
there's a bit of sphincter clenching
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this as well also too, too
 
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Yeah I avoid my family. I like my parents, grandparents, and one aunt&uncle&their kids. But everyone else ... no. Why would I?
I don't often really like my family though because they are so negative. Pressure me to do stuff, get mad for no reason, insult everyone and everything, and are just generally mean/negative. Thank goodness I don't have to live with them anymore!!
 
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