A collection of essays that I wrote

The Power of the Family



What explains the power of the family to move people emotionally, socially, and politically?

When challenging the power of family, I immediately reflect on my own. I would define my family as my father, mother, and brother. I grew up in quite a stable loving household with these three people under one roof. In We Real Cool (2004), Bell Hooks mentions therapist Terrence Real who suggests that there are five self-skills that need to be present in early relationships for a person to grow up to be adult-mature. These consist of self-esteem, self-awareness, boundaries, interdependence, and moderation. I can say that I am lucky enough to grow up in an environment where these skills were indeed present. This probably shaped me into the quite emotional stable person that I am today. 

I also cannot ignore the fact that growing up in my family came with certain privileges. My family is an upper-middle class household that consists of parents that are cis-gendered, white, heterosexual, both higher-educated and are still together. The social class you grow in makes a substantial difference in your chances of becoming higher on the social ladder. Middle-class parents focus fully on a child's individual development, they promote so-called ‘’concerted cultivation’’. The parents actively foster their children's talents, opinions, and skills. This is through enrolling them on organized activities, reasoning with them, and closely monitoring their experiences in institutions such as schools. As a result of this concerted cultivation, children from middle-class families gain an emerging sense of entitlement (Lareau, 2007). From my own experience, I can say the same pattern of concerted cultivation was present growing up and I can probably say that pattern contributed to my studying at university right now. Growing up with my parents has opened a lot of doors for me since the day I was born. Knowing the people around me and knowing their backgrounds some of them had to work a lot harder to get where they are now. 

Reflecting on the people around me makes me really question the concept of family. I grew up in quite the standard nuclear family, but that is definitely not the case for everyone around me. In Bell Hooks (2004) she describes that due to pop culture the "patriarchal white nuclear family" is held forward as the model of the only healthy authentic family structure. In reality, a family can consist of numerous compositions and structures which often go further than biological bonds. Think of blended families with a mix of step-parents and biological parents. Or in the queer community, where you often come across the term ‘’chosen family’’. This can be defined as the bond of people outside the biological family with whom people develop close, supportive relationships and deem members of their family network. These relations might replace the biological family relationships in cases where for example an LGBTQ+ person is rejected by their family (Milton, 2020). But also, Mizieliska's (2022) research in Poland on older homosexual and lesbian people shows that participants have developed sophisticated ways to show kinship. The term "patchwork family" describes how couples cohabit in this study's chosen families and families of origin. Many, however, struggled to refer to their dysfunctional family as a "family" because they had only ever known heteronormativity in it. Just like Bell Hooks described they also think the "patriarchal white nuclear family" is the only way a family can exist. However, this type of family results in limited awareness of topics like parenting, support systems, gender roles, and sexuality. To reorganise the patriarchal power relations that the conventional family perpetuates, intersectional literature offers alternatives, points out flaws, and challenges and redefines the family unit (Josephson & Burack, 1998). 

Thus, if a family can consist outside the limits of the patriarchal bounds, what is it that forms a family? Here I want to go in line with Hooks (2004) who describes the practice of parenting. She mentions that the most important thing for children is to grow up in a loving home, despite who is the parent or the quantity that one of them is present. ‘’In the anti-patriarchal practice of parenting what is deemed most important for any child is that they be given love‘’. Loving each other and taking care of one another is what brings people close, despite the biological bonds. That is what makes a family.