We Are Family!

We planned on spending some time with our relatives over the holidays, but this isn't always an easy task. Many of us are scattered all over the country. My family never really has believed in the concept of putting down roots in one place. We prefer to believe that we are rooted to each other and not to a particular spot on the earth. We are a close-knit family even though we are physically far apart from each other. We get together whenever we can, and we stay in contact through phone calls and email. When it comes to my teenagers, the family tree isn't really balanced very well. They have one living great-grandmother on my side who is 91 years old and has Alzheimer's disease. They have one living great-grandmother on their father's side who is 88 years old and doesn't know them at all. They do have four living grandparents--my parents and their father's parents. They see my parents more often--his parents are in bad health and cannot travel very often. Still, my daughter is fairly close to my mother, but not really to the other grandparents. My son really isn't close to any of his grandparents. They just don't seem to have very much in common--they have very few things to talk about when they do get together. I know they all love each other, but there does seem to be a distance there--mostly a huge generation gap. There have been many misunderstandings between these two generations.

On my side, they have one uncle. He has been divorced twice and has no children, so there are no cousins there. At one time he was married to a woman with kids, and my kids felt as if these kids were cousins. However, when they divorced, we never saw the kids again. On their father's side, they have two aunts by blood, one uncle by blood, and one aunt by marriage. Their two blood-related aunts are divorced and my kids never really knew their exes as uncles. Their uncle sees them maybe once every two years or so and has a brief greeting and that is about all. They really don't know his wife very well at all. They do have five cousins on that side of the family--however, my teens are the oldest and they really don't have a close bond to their younger cousins because of the age differences. The one exception is my daughter--she enjoys getting together with her cousin that is about a year and a half younger than her. They do girly things together like shopping and talking about boys. The other cousins are much younger than her and just don't have the same interests. She is a good "big sister" cousin to them, but it just isn't the same. There are all girls except for my son and one boy cousin. My son is left out in the cold--lots of young girl cousins and one boy cousin that is MUCH younger than him. He really gets bored hanging out with the family because he feels "pestered" by all
of the little kids around him. I wish there was someone closer to his age, but there just isn't.

All in all, our family is really kind of small--and, for the most part, my two teens don't really have anyone that they feel close to within the family (except maybe my daughter and one cousin). I would have loved to have had a different situation--I wish my teens had grown up with lots of cousins near their age. But you just can't choose exactly how you want your family to be--it is what it is. So these dynamics really affect things when we get together with family members. My teens really and truly get bored because there is no one they can identify with and do things together with someone. Except for my daughter and one cousin, they feel left out and out of place. They stay on the phone or the computer with their friends and they beg to leave so they can hang out with other teenagers. I try to connect them with other family members, but it just isn't happening. Some family members just aren't interested in bonding with my teens--they say hi and are polite, but that's about it. It's kind of sad really. Some of it is the age thing, and some of it is just lack of closeness.

When I said we are close-knit, I guess I was referring to my relationship with my family and not so much how my teens feel about it. I am close to my mother and brother, and semi-close to my father. That's about all there is on my side. Well, I am very close to my teenagers and I will continue to give them a sense of family, even if it is just our immediate family. I just wish there was more of a connection between them and their extended family. Still, no matter what, I think that there is a connection of some kind--if my teens were in trouble, family would help them out. But it doesn't seem that they will be there to guide them into adulthood--no cool aunts and uncles who can give them a perspective beyond their parents' views. If they get mad at us and wanted to stay with other family members for a few days, I'm not sure where they would turn. I think they would be more likely to stay with friends than family. Not that I am expecting them to want to leave home any time soon, but there is something good about going to a safe place to cool off when parents and teens have major clashes. I'm not sure where they consider their cooling off place to be, other than friends' houses. This is making me feel kind of sad so I will end here. I love them more than anything in the world--even if it is just us, "We are family!"