The problem is that, when we get right down to it, the notion of family (read: expectations and obligations) is rather absurdly based on what are, essentially, shared molecular patterns. The very idea of permanence that arises from this and seems so comforting can actually be a trap. This DNA connection and the resulting obligation we associated with it can force people poisonous to each other to maintain a relationship that would otherwise be severed.
And here’s another problem, relating to the very concept of parenting in our culture. Take the overexposed, ultimately tragic case of Nadya Suleman. If anything, it illustrates how the obsession with having biological children instead of directing parental urges towards adoption can go awry, a problem compounded by the vast amounts of money spent on fertility technology. Yet even condemnations of Suleman, her doctor, and the insurance company don’t necessarily abandon the genetic bias. Writing in the April issue of Los Angeles Magazine, Anne Taylor Fleming admits “it is hard not to feel fury at what she has done.” However, she bristles at any implication that she finds “adoption—and by inference, adoptees—somehow second-rate” and objects to denunciations of fertility technology and the people, such as herself, who use it.
It’s hard to take her Suleman-did-wrong-but-fertility-technology-is-great position seriously, though, when she goes on to write, “When I was unable to get pregnant, I did not adopt. I was married to a man who had four boys from an earlier marriage, and I had the complicated, joyous experience of parenthood. What I wanted was my—our—biological baby. That is a natural instinct. It is not perverted or selfish.” Well, yes. Yes it is selfish. Because by her own admission being a parent wasn’t enough; she had to be parent to her own genetic offspring.
Getting Beyond DNA
We should ask if family, which encompasses more than parenting, isn’t something that goes beyond shared DNA. Perhaps we can take DNA out of the picture and propose a behavioural view and say that family is as family does, in which case family means supporting each other, caring for each other, being there for each other in times of celebration and tribulation.
Interestingly, family isn’t the only thing defined by these things. Mutual support, love, trust – these are also the hallmarks of friendship. However, the very impermanence of friendship, the possibility of it failing – the reason why family is seen as more valuable than friendship – is precisely what gives friendship its strength just as permanence gives family its weakness. It is because something can come to an end that we value it more, that we strive not to take it for granted, that we work for its betterment. In other words, we can choose our friends but not our family, yet it is the act of choosing that gives friendship its value. So why do we diminish the importance of choice in creating and nurturing a family?
This isn’t to say that family as a concept is meaningless, useless, or conceptually indistinguishable from friendship. But I submit that the notion of friendship actually influences how family works. Recently, I had the opportunity to connect and re-connect with cousins from my Aunt’s side of the family. And I am thrilled about it. However, it’s because these are all wonderful people that I’d love to get to know regardless of whether we are related or not that the contact was successful; our familial connection just provided the initial spark.
In the end, family, like friendship, is not a monolithic thing, but a spectrum of emotions, ideas, and relationships. It means different things to different people in varying degrees, and that’s part of being human. Family can take on a greater significance because it reflects a greater commitment on the part of family members. In this lies the reason why it’s heartbreaking to read bits in the news about religious right groups allegedly linking gay marriage to mass murder – one of many examples in which gay marriage is considered a threat to “family values.” We have ideological groups boxing people in with a narrow view of family – heterosexual and nuclear –and denouncing what is different as moral degeneracy using familiar sky-is-falling rhetoric. But this isn’t about preserving family values. In fact, this acts against family values because this is culture injecting tyranny into the family. It takes family away from families and places it instead in the hands of the church, or the government, or “society.” Family is here molded from conformity and obedience instead of choice and personal commitment. The moral of the story is that it’s not enough to be suspicious of governmental or corporate authority. Cultural authority should be questioned too, because our happiness and well-being depend on it.
Frédérik invites you to discuss this week's column and more at his blog.