Millennial Perspectives and Impressions
Friends and Family
by Laura Proctor
Found family. It’s a popular phrase now, but has been used for years in circles like the LGBTQ2S+ community and with individuals who grew up in abusive households. It originated in these groups because some community members didn’t have family members who they could rely on for love and support. Instead, they received rejection, abuse, or criticism.
When you can’t rely on your family, you make your own.
For a long time, family has been elevated above friendship in the social hierarchy. The older perspective has been that family trumps all, “Blood is thicker than water,” and even that because someone is family, that should absolve them of unkind behaviours.
To an extent, there’s something in that perspective that I agree with. We all live in a world with many people who we disagree with. For all of our sanities, and because it’s the adult thing to do, we have to find ways to communicate with each other and co-exist. We cannot surgically remove every person from our lives who annoys us or who we don’t understand.
But, that doesn’t mean we have to excuse bad behaviour. It doesn’t mean that we have to say, “That’s just the way they are,” and put up with being treated poorly. Or worse, allowing vulnerable family members to be treated poorly and not supporting them.
What can we do when faced with a pattern of behaviour that we disagree with? We can’t control the person’s behaviour. We don’t have to accept it and be a doormat. We can decide what we are willing to put up with. It might be only seeing the family member twice a year, or leaving the room when they start to cause issues. Or, it might have to be not seeing them anymore. Only you can decide.
If the behaviour from the family member is that poor, there is no reason that you have to put yourself in that position. We would not accept that behaviour from a friend. The friendship would end.
Ideally, you are raised in a supportive and loving family. But many people are not so lucky.
On the flip side, a friendship can be the most caring, meaningful relationship of your life. A friend can be your found family, who can be there and understand you like no member of your family. You can find each other and choose to be friends, finding camaraderie and a shared sense of humour, or values, or interests.
On the topic of the family-oriented social hierarchy: there is a common workplace policy regarding time off and funerals that reinforces this hierarchy. Family members are placed in order of importance, as they grant you a certain amount of days off for “close” family members dying (parents, siblings, spouses, children), and not for other family members who are assumed to be not as close. There is no mention of friends. No mention of your closest friends.
I am very close with my aunts. I was not close with my dad’s mother. I am close with my mom’s mother. The closeness of relationships cannot be assumed or guaranteed.
I have two best friends who I say are like siblings to me. It is my way to convey our closeness, even though for some people, sibling relation does not denote closeness. It’s my attempt to communicate to people, “These friendships are important to me. They’re permanent. They’re never going away.”
Found family doesn’t have to replace family. If you’re lucky, you have both a loving, close family and loving, close friends. But perhaps we could reflect on how important our friendships are to us, and how society ranks our friendships below our family members. No one is owed your time, your secrets, your generosity, or even your respect, simply because they’re related to you. The love you have to give and your time on this earth might be better spent in the company of a good friend.
—photo by Deb Halbot