Characteristics Of My Family

Your life is changed every day and there are many points to your life. One point of my life is that family is the most important thing. Family is an important factor of everyone’s life, it’s who you are and who you have become today.

Family is a word that cannot be defined by a dictionary but only by the person who experiences their own deeper meaning of the word. My family’s culture is one of many but unique nonetheless. The typical loud mouth Italian family is a stereotype mine fits perfectly, although some stereotypes are perceived negatively some are quite the opposite. My Italian family is based off discipline, respect, and religion, all of which are a popular stereotype I’m all too familiar with. Learning appropriate manners and acting mature was a priority since the youngest age in my family. There were no excuses for childish behavior or any acceptable reason why my chores weren’t done without any punishment involved. This mindset applied to more than just

Much of this info is gathered from my dad’s memories. From my generation to present, there is a much richer detail provided. I am unable to express adequately in the diagram the level to which my own father was fused with his family of origin. He was the only sibling who ever lived out of town. We returned home for all holidays and vacations. Once here, my parents would argue over how much time we would spend with each family of origin, as my mother was equally fused with her own family. If you will note, there is at least one person (from my generation on) who other family members focus on. My families theme could be, “there is nothing wrong with me.” “I’d be happy if (fill in the blank) would straighten up.” My parents were unhappily married and hyper focused on the three of us to the complete detriment of their own marriage. Simultaneously, my mother’s mental health deteriorated. Everyone’s anxiety at this time was focused on my mother. In both of my sister’s families there is at least one individual everyone is focused on. Had I done this genogram three to four years ago, my children’s focus would have been on me. Ten years before that, their dad. Also clear on the genogram, in my own little family, we were cut off from my ex-husband for a time. That relationship has been repaired as I have learned to focus on my own reactions and leave his to him to solve. This relationship, as well as

We have taken the time to interview a family and really get to know their lives. In this paper we explain their functioning as a whole and as individuals. We used the M family to further our understanding of a family assessment.

This assignment covers a personally sensitive subject in my family, which is the dynamic, roles, and contributions of the family members. My family is, for a lack of better words, dysfunctional, toxic, and or chaotic. Of course, I did not realize this growing up, especially that it was all mainly due to the above subjects. I did not understand that not every family screams, fights, demeans, or condescends the way my family did until I started going over to other friends’ houses and getting to experience the vastly different dynamics. These past few years, most of my immediate family members and I have come to serious realizations about our family. It consists of my emotionally and mentally abusive, narcissistic, “main provider” father (Robert “Bubba”, 50 years old), my overly-coddling, superhero of a mother (Kelly, 49 years old), my combative, narcissistic, bold, unique older sister (Kayla, 24 years old), me, the overly emotional and sensitive, sarcastic, peacekeeping basketcase, (Abby, 20 years old), and two younger, misbehaving, shy, obnoxious, adorable twin sisters (Emma and Sarah, 11 years old.) My mom, dad, older sister, and younger sisters all live together in DeMotte, Indiana, and I live in a house in West Lafayette, Indiana, however, for the sake of this assignment, I will consider us all part of one household before I moved out on my own.

I saw my neighbors through the window. Reluctantly i had agreed to hang out with them a few hours earlier, mostly because my mom forced me to. I popped in a ear bud, a song by my chemical romance corsed through my blood. I stepped out to the warm sun, the smell of freshly cut grass hit me, they were the feelings of summer.

My family could be the most dysfunctional family in the whole United States. But without them, I would not be the compassionate and emotional person I have become today. The first part to this is the fact that I have a huge extended family. An extended family can be defined as, “a family consisting of two or more generations living either within the same household or very close to each other,” (Hodge 2016). In my house at one point it contained, my great grandparents, my grandparents, my parents and me and my two siblings. And then two towns over, my aunt and 3 cousins. You could say we were raised by a village. Today, the only ones missing from my house is my great grandparents and my grandfather. The main reason why my family is structured like this because of my ethnicity. Being Hispanic, family values are instilled with in us from a young age. An example of this is the fact that I

A family is represented as love and comfort from people who are really close to you. There is also the biological term as in your parents and siblings where scientifically they have to be your family. But the point is that a family is very important and sometimes interesting. You can take it from my family. My family for instance is a very fascinating group of people with many characteristics to describe them. Characteristics that make the Williams family known around our home town due to many things we have most families don't.

My family means the world to me, I don't know what it's like to have parents that don't support your decisions because I enjoy and honor theirs. I don't know what it's like to have parents that push you somewhere you not sure you want to go either. My father has always been the kind of guy that will question why you're doing something when you're doing it and then when you stop he'll question you why you're not doing it just to see if you know why you're doing what you're doing and making sure it's what you want to do. Now that's not to say that they left me high and dry they definitely have given me advice when I've looked for it and have helped me as best as they could.

Growing up, my family was ideal. My sisters and I were all very happy and very coddled by my father, he was my hero in my early years, he would always be the fun and loving parent when my mom would yell. My dad was into welding, fishing, and playing guitar, I thought that no dad could possibly be more outstanding or influential than my own, he was impeccably intelligent and resourceful. My family and I had not spent a holiday apart, the amount of love that took place in our home was uncomparable. While growing up in my household, I had not faced many issues with myself and my family, we had always felt secure with one another and spent our days happily together, just us five. Until one day that five became a four.

“Caio, Caio, Caio” Everyone says as I enter through the old crumbling door into the main room. The tomato and basil smells from the kitchen make their way to my nose. “Come va?” “Sembri proprio tuo padre!” Everyone is screaming to tell me something and then my grandmother screams “Okay, that’s enough!” Silence swept the room. Everyone was gathered around like they were ready for a ceremony. With red cheeks and sweat running down his face, my grandfather introduced everyone. Every person coming up and kissing me on each cheek. The small stuffy room smelled like pasta and only had one window for enough light to shine through to see the mustiness in the room. It was an only house with crosses up in every room. All of the family is Catholic and it showed immensely through their personalities. Everyone broke up and spread throughout the creaky old house.

I grew up in a quiet, middle-class Denver community. Most of my neighbors are either families with multiple kids, or older couples whose kids are already out of the house. Most of my neighbors are also Christian white families. Therefore, my family has always stood out in this neighborhood. My mother is Hispanic and my father is Caucasian, and we are the other interracial family in my neighborhood that I know of. As stated in the Newman textbook, “About 26% of married Latino/as are married to someone of a different ethnic group. My family falls into this 26%. We also differ from the rest of my community because both of my parents work full time jobs, and my mother is the “bread winner.” Most of the women who live around us, either work part time jobs or they don’t work at all. The biggest reason we stand out is our religious beliefs. Both of my parents grew up in Catholic households, and neither of them wanted my brothers and I to grow up the same way. My parents are also divorced, and we are the children in my neighborhood that have divorced families. Most of my neighbors dislike my father because he wanted a divorce, and they have very strong religious beliefs that go against divorce. While learning about families and the set or rules and beliefs that correlate with most families, I began to realize how different my family is compared to the norms that most families follow.

As an adoptive child, there has always been a little part of me that felt missing or incomplete. It was not that my family did not feel or act like family, there just seemed to be a deep-down connection or piece of the puzzle that was absent. This absence established a newly found interested in history and genealogy. I wanted to know where my biological ancestors originated and the historical events they experienced. I faced an engrained desire to obtain my biological connections which so many of my friends and family members felt with their relatives. My initial focus when understanding my family was based on biology, which, as we have studied, was not the only relationship deemed meaningful. Now, after doing DNA tests and discovering my ancestral heritage, I am able to appreciate the need to identify both biological connections and kinship connections.

When I was five years old, my aunt was involved in a really severe car accident. The accident left her in a rehab for a couple of months so she could learn how to walk and do daily activities on her own again. I would always love to visit her every weekend. Being only five years old and not really knowing the main purpose of a hospital, I thought it was a fun and magical place. They had a colossal courtyard where my sisters, cousin, and me would play. They also had an indoor playground where other children my age could run away and play with too. Let’s not forget the amazing food they would serve us during lunch time. However, the whole image of a hospital for me was tainted due to one thing, the elevator.

My family is very close and dear to me. We are small in size; but appreciative to how united we are through the years. I have my mother whose name is Olga just as mine, my oldest brother Bobby and my youngest step brother Jorge as were bonded by father. We had a rough child hood growing up as my grandmother by mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s when I was 5 years old. We all pitched in with helping her not get lost or leave the house abruptly as she usually wanted to find escape. The doctor said she was going to live a few years; but she passed when I was 15 years old. I will always remember her through all the difficulty she went through with carrying that disease. I also had to watch my grandfather grieve her lost. My grandfather and I were super close; he was like a father to me. He had always been the backbone to the family. My grandfather was like a father to me. My mother was the main provider in the house since she divorced my father in her early twenties. We were the kids to are family. Therefore now that my brother and I are older we begin to expand are small family. The highlight of my life is the birth of my nephew. My little Matthew has brought such a joy to all of us.