Evolution of Family Structure in America

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Recommended: My definition of the family

Family is defined as “a group of people who are related to each other, a person 's children, or a group of related people including people who lived in the past” by the website of the Merriam-Webster, a respected dictionary first assembled in the year eighteen twenty eight. Previously in America’s history, most prevalent in what is roughly the nineteen fifties, the word family was referring to the nuclear family. That is, a mom, a dad, and two (or two point five, statistically) children that were given birth by the aforementioned mother and conceived with the aforementioned father, hopefully at least one boy and one girl. From the information I have taken to heart in my relatively short life span, that was considered to be the perfect familial …show more content…

It is emotional connection. It’s your best friend, it 's your love, your pain, your joy, your sorrow, all of you, laid out on a table. You 're not the only one laid out on this nonexistent metaphorical intimate table, everyone you consider close to you would be as well. It would be mostly invisible to others, but you can see one another just fine. Your family is everyone you genuinely love and who genuinely loves you. My father has always said that you should love your family unconditionally, and that you couldn 't choose your family, just your friends. I found out years later that you can make your own family out of your friends. You can be a parental figure in someone else’s life, and they can be one in yours. You can decide that you would follow this someone to the grave, but know they would never want you to. Unconditional love does not have to be reserved just for people who are related to you by …show more content…

I have quite a limited amount of trust for my immediate blood related family and often feel unsafe sharing any information with them at all. This is something me and some of my friends have in common, making it even easier for me to get close with them. I didn 't consider them family until they considered me family. To be completely honest, it was not an independent discovery at all that a family could extend beyond what it was. It was harder without knowing that, and I am incredibly grateful for the friends I have as family. I am their family and they are

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