Personal Experience: My Views and Feelings About My Family

Most people’s lives are complicated by family relationships. The way one is raised can affect self-esteem and is the emotional and psychological blueprint for life. Family is the first teacher in a child’s life. One can learn morals, manners and valuable life lessons. How one is raised can add negatively as well as positively to society. Family relationships can set the tone for how one feels about family and traumatic events can challenge those views and feelings. The sudden death of my mother was the event that challenged my family to see if the ties that bind were strong enough to hold. It was also an event that would determine the outcome of my feelings about my family.
I am a product of “other-parenting”. This is when extended kin provide care for a child and complement or supplement what parents can or cannot provide (Beyond the Nuclear Family, 2011). As early as I can remember as a child, my family has always been involved in my life. Being the first born child of teenage parents - my mother was sixteen and my father was nineteen, the responsibility of raising me was shared by my grandparents, aunts and uncles; the same was true for my sister who was born three years later. Though my parents were not married, my father’s presence was so consistent in our lives, we did not miss the fact that he did not reside in the home with us. My uncle lived with my mom, my sister and I, so he served as the authoritarian when my father was not present. Growing up in a home with extended kin gave us a strong sense of security because my uncle was able to step forward and fill in the gaps.
We were raised to believe that the eldest sibling in the family had authority over the other siblings and the role of the eldest sibling was...

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...a moved to Georgia to attend school, my eldest daughter relocated her job and moved to Georgia as well because she did not want Tia to be in an unfamiliar state without family.
My views and feelings about family remains the same from childhood through adulthood. I am blessed to have been born into a family where morals, love and genuine concern exist. I grew up with a united and helpful family. The strong Christian values and morals that were inculcated in my childhood, I have passed on to my children and now my grandchildren. My family was what made me who I am today.

Works Cited

DePaulo, Bella. “Beyond the Nuclear Family”. http://www.vision.org/visionmedia/
Summer 2011 Issue. Web. 10 April 2014

Pipher, Mary. “Beliefs about Family” The Shelter of Each Other: Rebuilding our
Families. New York: Ballantine Publisher, 1996. 406-411.Print