New Relatives

It was very tempting today to write about certain current events.  There were many things in the internet news reports that were irritating and that almost drove me to angry tirades of virulent prose.  If my grandkids hadn’t been around most of this weekend then you might be reading a far different bit of opinionated observation.  But the kids were here and they sent me on a different path.

 

As I watched those youngsters mess about with imagination and unbelievable energy I began considering all the new relatives that have entered my large and varied family over the years.  Not long ago I wrote about dead relatives and what they can teach all of us.  It seems appropriate to offer equal consideration to new relatives.

 

Let’s get the most obvious new additions out of the way first.  Babies.  My grandparents had babies which led to my parents; my parents had my generation of misfits and we continued the process by getting involved with our various wives and husbands until a new group of babies came along.  Then that bunch, our sons and daughters, grew up and using all the means available brought new children into the family.  And some of those youngsters are all grown up and repeating the process so that one of my brothers and some of my cousins are actually great-grandparents.  It’s amazing.

 

The thing about all of these babies is how widely they are spread across the spectrum of ethnic and racial heritage.  Not only that but a couple of these little ones were created using the most modern medical technology, methods that weren’t even dreamed about sixty or seventy years ago.  People of my generation broke some ground by marrying people of different religious or cultural backgrounds.  My parent’s generation were quite reluctant to break any of those barriers.  In their day folks largely stayed within their faith and nationality when they made marriages.  In fact they very often stayed within the same economic or social class.  My generation started to stretch things and our kids took giant steps further as they gained partners.

 

Racial barriers have developed some big cracks.  I know that racial issues have been a big part of the news-day diet of late.  There may be some grounds for that but I suspect that a whole lot of the problem is the amount of politicking and media posing that attends even the hint of an incident where race may play a factor.  And the furor over some cases seems to me, after a great deal of reading and studying, to be far out of proportion to the real situation.  But I’m not writing about that today.  I’m writing about what I see, what I hear, what I experience as I watch my large extended family grow.

 

I saw a term the other day that caught my eye and I rather like it:  blended families.  Isn’t that a neat pair of words?  The older way of describing families made up of different racial or ethnic backgrounds was usually naming them as “bi-racial”.   The government was the biggest perpetrator of the crime of labeling people in as many ways as it could.  All those forms that follow us throughout our lives, where the government wants to categorize and define segments of the population have had a part in this labeling;  birth certificates, wedding license forms, driver’s license applications, census forms, employment records and on and on.  This purportedly is done to help the government identify and protect minorities.  But I think nowadays it is more of a habit that helps government agencies to keep their people busy on the one hand and various population groups pitted against each other on the other hand.

 

In my family I’ve witnessed several unions between people of different races.  Beautiful new relatives were gained in those unions and even more beautiful new relatives were made when those unions produced children.  And some of my relatives adopted children who were of ethnic and racial backgrounds that were new to our family.  More beautiful new relatives resulted.  Our family is getting so blended we could be a product endorser for Cuisinart. 

 

But here’s the most interesting thing I’ve learned as this blending process goes on.  Older folks in the family, the folks that always seemed a little bit entrenched in their adherence to the idea of marrying within one’s faith, race, cultural background or even economic status level have become less stiff, less rigid, well let’s say it outright, less prejudiced than they ever were.  Some of them who were not cautious with their hateful language are very mindful of it now.  Some who would once write off whole population groups for all kinds of imagined defects are much more inclined to evaluate others as individuals.  And it’s truly amazing how powerful a new baby can be in helping these folks who were so hard-assed in the past.

 

When I started writing this little article I took a few minutes to try to inventory my relatives, especially the new ones, to see how blended our family has become.  Bear with me while I spit out a few statistics.   In my generation I count forty four first cousins and four siblings.  We all started out as white Catholics of French descent.  We’re all still white and of French descent but some of our husbands and wives were Protestants of several denominations, Jewish, Mormon and atheist.  Some of the places that my cousins found their partners were Germany, Canada and China.  So far the changes weren’t too drastic.  But the children of this generation have a wider mix of ingredients.  In this group, which numbers about ninety five, we have gained new relatives from Asian, Hispanic, African, African-American, European and Middle Eastern backgrounds.  I can’t even count the religious affiliations but I know they cover everything from Muslims to Christian Fundamentalists.  There are children from adoption and from other medical methods.  I’ve often wished that we could gather all these people in one place for a big photograph.  That picture would truly reflect a diverse group.

 

I know that most folks don’t have as large a family as mine.  But I’ve walked around my neighborhood, I keep my eyes open in stores and other public places and I’ve seen differences in the make-up of neighborhoods in our city and in small towns I’ve visited.  We hear so much about inequality that when some equality stares us in the face we fail to see it.  The truck driver that lives across the street from me is a black man, the hospital worker next door to him is Hispanic, the lady next door to me is African-American, and the neighbors on the other side are white folks.  Over where my brother lives, a much more upscale area, I’ve seen Asian, African-American and white people all taking their bills out of their mailboxes.  By the same token I’ve driven through a couple of low income trailer parks nearby where there are equally diverse populations cooking hamburgers and hotdogs on their grills on a Sunday afternoon.

 

So now you might understand why I’m thankful for all the new relatives I’ve gained over the years.  By gaining all of these family members I’ve learned to appreciate the blending that is possible.  And I do believe that this kind of blending can be a big part of a hopeful future.  My liberal friends often chastise me for my political views.  This article is not about politics and I wish that some of the politicians would back off from their constant use of divisive rhetoric and take a good look at the areas they represent.  They might find that the picture they’re presenting doesn’t square entirely with the reality of their districts.  And if they look at their own families they might even find they have some new relatives that they need to be thankful for.

 

So go on and have a fine day.