Fireside Chat: Does Family Tie or Restrain?

Over the past week, I’ve been noticing just how people tend to bring up their family when it comes to whatever is relevant to what is going on in their lives at the time. Good or bad, many of these instances always seemed like a copout to me. I hear words like “It’s the way I was raised”, or others like “My parents brought me up to be a (insert disappointing trope here)”, refusing to take any responsibility for their actions. Through this world view, these degenerates see the world as nothing more than something beyond their control, and they see themselves as something which is too fragile to cope with their ever-changing surroundings.

            People blame the world and everything in it for their problems. The most convenient scapegoats are always those which are within a close proximity, and no one is closer than family. As is typical, whatever ills that one’s parents, grandparents, siblings or other kin place are seen as too traumatic in order for the “victim” to make something of themselves.

            Honestly, I believe that this is all a bunch of garbage, and I’m not simply talking about the blame sharing. Just as family ties can cause resentment, they can also hold someone back if they are too susceptible to family pressures. There IS such a thing as toxic family relations and they are some of the most damaging relationships out there. The problem with these cases is that there are less resistances towards such antagonists, justified due to the poorly made moralities which state that family ties are stronger than any other.

What makes a sperm or egg donor a parent in this world? How much time they spend around the child? By that logic, would a nanny be more of a parent than the workaholic mother?  Would a stepfather of a child whose dead-beat father spends little to no time around their kid be considered more of a father? Or is it solely based on genetics themselves? This conversation has always confused me, possibly due to my own family confusion. These questions have been asked ever since I was old enough to discover this paradox:

·         Why is it okay for a child to blame his biological parents for his misgivings if they have never been involved in his life?

·         Why do people tend to believe self-fulfilling prophecies about their failures which are connected to the way they are brought up?

·         If you wouldn’t perform some grand act of generosity for a stranger, then why is it okay to abandon those restraints when someone shares DNA or a family name?

My belief on the concept of family ties may be polarizing, but it is one which is a bit fairer than others. Only you are responsible for how you feel, how you act, how you live and how you see the world. If someone who is a part of your family is in a bind, offer moral support, but nothing more. The best thing a family can teach is self-reliance, not self-indulgence.