Curiosity and clarification

[kitanzi]

I'm kind of curious, and this seems a reasonable place to ask. I know a lot of people who talk about chosen family (or clan, or whatever), either in addition to or instead of the more traditional biological family. Sometimes it's in relation to poly, but not necessarily by any means.

If you describe yourself as having chosen family, how do you choose that family? What defines, for you, family as opposed to friends? Is the boundary fluid? Do you ever have people who are friends eventually come to feel like family, or do you drift away from people and eventually count them as friends instead? Are family relationships necessarily more intimate? Are you more likely to try and build a relationship with someone based on the fact that they are involved with someone you consider family, or a friend, or does that make any difference at all? I've recently seen it described as a distinction that's easier for someone from a close knit, loving family to make than someone who wasn't, based on what it feels like - does this describe what most of you have observed? Does it make a difference to you if someone you consider family doesn't consider you so, doesn't choose you back?

It's a far more complicated concept than the standard biological family where the relationship is clearly defined - you are born with a standard set of relations, and expected to evolve emotional attachments to match. My own family is definitely not close, and I do tend to feel that I have people who are chosen family, but recent conversations and observations have made me think about it a little more. Somewhat like poly, it's not a simple thing, and means many things to many people. It's also prone to assumptions people may not even realize they're making, or at least so I find, so I'm curious what other people may come up with if I get you all thinking about it too!

Comments

[sdorn.livejournal.com]

Fictive kinship (http://www.hsp.org/default.aspx?id=321) may be a useful anthropological concept for your ponderings.

[gingicat]

For me, chosen family is usually someone I *think* I have a crush on, then discover that I love that person in a completely different way. This doesn't mean I can't be romantic with chosen family, (i.e., my husband and the sweeties who live Too Far Away) but it certainly means that I don't *have* to. One of the trickier bits of this is that sometimes I start a romantic person with someone who's really meant to be a sibling... backing off carefully and keeping that person as a friend is really tricky. (There's one person I still adore who is not a close friend because I mangled my reaction to him figuring this out first so badly.)

[annonynous.livejournal.com]

I'm not one to comment on chosen family, having first heard the term only three years ago from
Autographed Doc. A Van Halen lyric (Sometimes the simple life ain't so simple) reminds me that even
traditional marriage / family can have its complications - death / divorce, remarriage, half-siblings,
fosterage, adoption.

Ann O. (thankful for whichever)

[mrpsyklops.livejournal.com]

Beth and I have had some discussions about this concept recently. The practice in many situations would seem to us to be very tricky and complicated, particularly when you consider the vast variety of experiences people bring out of their biological families, not to mention class consciousness, race, ethnicity, and the varying expectations and behaviors that center around money and finances.

[elgecko.livejournal.com]

I have chosen family... I think that it has most to do with being able to count on someone. I don't think that a friend or even a love has the level of commitment to compromise, to work within the relationship. As I type, the things that leap to mind are those of putting the benefit of the family unit above the benefit of the self. It doesn't always have to be so. A family does not mean surrendering individual freedom and identity. However, I know that if I get hit by a bus tomorrow, Tara will help raise the Sprout and assist Monica just as much as my mum or sis would, even if it meant modification of her life plans. It also means actions that show that her commitment to me is solid and secure, and her having faith in me that I would do the same for her. (Rambly, but that's the best I can do after 9 hours of travel.)

[the-gwenzilliad.livejournal.com]

People form close relationships and bonds with one another in childhood and young adulthood, and some people continue to form really close relationships with other people even as they move into old age (like me). The difference between chosen family and blood family is in my opinion largely incidental. If we lived in an agrarian society where many of us were expected to stay in the same village until we died, living on land that our fathers farmed, we'd probably be lots closer to our brothers and sisters, who would share the same set of experiences and memories that we did. In our contemporary world, people are expected to move away from home and make something of themselves out in the wide world, so we leave one village for another. Everywhere we go, we create a little village and draw to us or are drawn to people who share our experiences and will share others with us. To use my life as an example, I was born in the village of my family, which was a small town in South Carolina, but I wanted to get away from that village, so I went to boarding school, where I was temporarily taken in to another village and formed very close relationships with people there. When I left that village for university, some of the people in my previous two little worlds were still part of my greater family, but many of them faded into memory. I've built and built on those circles, and while the people I would count in my chosen family are not all that terribly many, the people I would have in my chosen village-- well, it'd be a big village.

Chosen family are, for me, the people who step into family roles when we need them. These relationships don't have to be sexual, and that's not the line I'd use to define them, because sex is not something I think of as necessarily relationship-deepening. (Often, in my experience anyway, sex stops relationships deepening right there and the relationship becomes all about sex. Not always, though.) Just because someone has had sex with me doesn't mean they're part of my family. Of course, I tend to have sex only with people who have the potential to be part of that group these days, so the point might be a little blurry.

[stevieannie.livejournal.com]

As a monogamous married person, it has absolutely *nothing* to do with gender and sex for me.

It's definitely a feeling - and one that I actually have about some friends, which I *don't* about certain members of my blood family.

Best example is probably Teddy and Tom Nanson. I've bound them as tightly to us as I can, both emotionally and legally (they are the legal guardians of our children, should anything happen to us, and also Godparents to both), but the relationship goes beyond that. It's a certain kind of *ease* around them. I don't care if I throw up in front of them, as I know Tom would hold my hair out of the way whilst Teddy rubbed my back. Had timings been less rushed, they would have been at Ellie's birth, and you don't get less dignified than that.

I know that I don't have to worry about doing or saying something unforgiveable - they could forgive me anything, and I would do the same in return. I think that's probably the crux of it for me - I can be myself totally and completely. Family don't need masks. Family don't care when you say something catty or bitchy. Family love you unconditionally, whatever you do or say. Family are always prepared to hear the word, "Sorry".

There are very few people who I'd lay down my life for. Teddy, Tom, Bill and Brenda are definitely on my "Want a kidney? Here you go!" list.

[kitanzi.livejournal.com]

I may be misreading, or you may be not realizing, but the above seems to say that apparent romantic attachments can convert into non-romantic chosen family, or you can be romantic (husband, sweeties) and also have that be chosen family, but you can't consider anyone chosen family who you didn't at least initially have a romantic interest in? That seems very limiting, to me.

[gingicat]

No, what I mean is that before figuring this out, I frequently mistook the "family" feeling for a romantic crush.

[kitanzi.livejournal.com]

Ah, ok, that wasn't clear. You've learned to differentiate them now, though? What do you find are the similarities and differences? It's an interesting thing.