Globe Syndicate
for release Friday October 10, 2003
Another Way
by Melodie Davis
It's All In The Family - But Who Counts?
Do you and your spouse have different ideas about who counts as family? Do you
count as family first cousins once or twice removed (and do you even know what
these are)? Especially when it comes to the approaching holidays, even though
you said you were marrying him, not his relatives, relatives do matter-but you
may discover it's all relative.
Confused? Wait until you consider who you buy gifts for and how much you spend.
Then there are questions about who do you spend the holidays with? What
traditions are "sacred" and which can you be flexible about? Do you divvy up
your Thanksgiving and Christmas among four different (or more) families: my
parents, your parents, my grandparents, your grandparents. And we haven't even
mentioned the complicated relationships brought by stepchildren and
step-grandchildren.
Your wife may grow up with the expectation that she will visit her nearby mother
every day because that's what her mother did with her grandmother. You, on the
other hand, live across the country from your parents and see them only once a
year, which is plenty for you. Understanding the different ways we understand
and relate to family members can be very important agenda for couples,
especially newly married ones.
I think everyone understands regular cousins or "first" cousins. They are the
children of your aunts and uncles. Second cousins are the people the next step
down, children of your cousins. Where the "once removed" or "twice removed"
comes in is if you skip a generation or are talking about different generations.
A genealogy website describes it as "your mother's first cousin is your first
cousin, once removed." Twice removed is if there is a two-generation difference.
You are two generations younger than a first cousin of your grandmother, so you
and your grandmother's first cousin are first cousins, twice removed (www.genealogy.com
<http://www.genealogy.com>) If you can't relate to any of this you probably come
from a small family that basically only relates to a few immediate family
members, if that.
Frances Kai-Hwa Wang is a contributing editor for Asian American Village web
site, www.imdiversity.com/villages/asian <http://www.imdiversity.com/villages/asian>
, and writes in an article "What do you mean, they're not relatives?" about the
vastly different ways she thought about family from her Caucasian husband. She
first realized how differently they thought of family at their wedding, attended
by about 200 people. Frances comes from "a huge, boisterous, warm family.
Reunions are a big deal, gossip travels fast, and squabbles are constant," she
says fondly. At the wedding it seemed like most of the relatives were from her
side: aunts, uncles, cousins, great aunts, grandparents and then friends of the
family. Her husband's invitees were only a few relatives: mother, brother,
brother's wife, three college pals and two of his mother's friends. Later she
found out that his mother's "friends" were actually his mother's cousin and
wife.
"Why didn't you tell me they were relatives?" Frances quizzed her groom.
He replied, "They're not relatives, they're my mother's cousins."
For Ms. Wang, "Anyone with any trace of relationship counts as part of the
family unit, and the more of those the better. For my husband, however, 'family'
was exclusively immediate and nuclear."
Then she talks about the pseudo-relatives that Asian American families are apt
to have: lots of family friends who are addressed as "auntie" and "uncle." In
some Asian countries, you address everyone, even those you don't know, as older
brother and older sister as a sign of respect.
She points out how differently we view families when she says her husband simply
cannot understand the thing for big families: "Why would you want to be related
to so many people?" he asks.
In answer, she gives this illustration: "I always feel refreshed, energized, and
very sure of myself after a family reunion. I love being doted on by my aunts
because it does not matter what I do or do not do, what career or life choices I
have or have not made, they simply love me. Regardless of where I go or what
trouble I meet, there will always be someone I can count on there. When I got
lost in a terrifying snowstorm in Niagara Falls, all I had to do was make one
phone call, and 30 minutes later my 6th great aunt and 7th great uncle came
trudging through the snow to pick me up."
And this is the crux of the matter: it doesn't matter who you count as cousins,
as long as you value some sort of family relationships and spend time nurturing
them. The best of families give us identity and love, even if they are a little
dysfunctional at times.
Do you have different expectations for family relationships than your spouse?
Send me your stories for a possible future column. Send to: Melodie Davis,
Another Way c/o Name\Address of YOUR newspaper; or e-mail: Melodie@mennomedia.org.
You can also visit Another Way on the Web at www.thirdway.com.
Melodie Davis is the author of seven books and has written her column since
1987. She taught feature writing and has won awards from the National Federation
of Press Women, Virginia Press Women and the American Advertising Association.
She and her husband have three daughters.
NOTES TO EDITORS: text = 809 words; end material = 105 words
We would appreciate it if you would include the "Globe Syndicate" bug at the end
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