History Of The Family Of Origin

There are varying definitions out there for the term Family of Origin, but most of them seem to be along the lines of how the LGBT Aging center defines it, “Persons who are biologically-related, such as parents and children, siblings, grandparents, and other relatives” (LGBT, 2011). This definition surprises me because I think it needs to be broader and more open-mined, which you would expect from a LGBT center. I like to think of the Family of Origin as the group of immediate family member(s) that you spent the most time living with while growing up, whether that be parents who adopted you, biological parents, step-family members, etc., who raised you and shaped who you are today. The number of traditional mother-father families has become a minority in the past 35 years (Bigner, 2010, pg. 249). Therefore, there is an increasing number of families who have members that are not biologically related due to divorce, death, and remarriage but still consider each other family in every sense of the word because they live together, eat together and grow together.
My family of origin happens to all be biologically related to me except my step-grandfather. My biological parents are divorced and my mother is 52 and my father is 51. I am a triplet so I have two biological siblings; one sister who is 21 and one brother who is 21. When my parents got divorced my dad moved in with my step-grandfather (his step father) who was 83 at the time, which is why I am including him in my family of origin. My siblings and I spent the majority of the divorced years at my mother’s house but occasionally slept at my father and step-grandfathers house for a week or so at a time. My mother got remarried last year but since I am in college now I onl...

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...talked about it a little more initially instead of going straight into his belongings. Aside from these negative aspects of my family, the atmosphere was generally the opposite of cold and negative. My parents are both generally very positive people and these vibes reflect greatly on my siblings and I. While they were together they were very good at keeping their arguments behind closed doors and any conflict that was in the open, whether it was between them or other family members, was solved in a calm and humane manner. When my dad moved out it wasn’t too hard on me because I was already used to him being gone every three-four days. Also, my mom had my siblings and I go to a therapist for a little while initially just to make sure we knew that the divorce wasn’t our fault and to make sure we were not significantly affected by it.