Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Family Affairs



* Please note that you may want to smoke something before reading this.


My son probably doesn't realize it, but he is having all of the life experiences I longed for at his age. Which makes me wonder, how does he see his life - and view his family?

Psychologists say that a common fantasy for children, teens and young adults goes something like this:

  • There had to be some sort of mix up at the hospital, maybe they sent me home with the wrong family.
  • This couldn't possibly be my gene pool, who are these people!
  • Am I adopted?
  • Someday my real family is going to find me, they'll be totally hip and cool. After all, I had to get it from someone and it sure as hell wasn't these people.

For example, my husband loves the sun - our family joke has always been that if he doesn't start using sunscreen, people are going to think he is George Hamilton’s love child.

Life is a complicated business. Even happy, loving families are going to have challenges. I'm not so naive as to think that all children are going to have kind loving families - but if you are blessed, you will eventually realize that your parents did the best they could and acted out of love. You will learn to forgive and accept that all of it - the good and the bad - shaped and made who you are.

To love your family is to love yourself.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

One of my boys even went so far as to tell one of his teachers, just before a Parent/Teacher conference, that I wasn't his real Mom.