# Did you grow up in a traditional family? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 13, 2012, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-grow-up-in-a-traditional-family/643960 "2012-12-13T21:13:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Moonlitherial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4bbf92/32.png) [@Moonlitherial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moonlitherial)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-grow-up-in-a-traditional-family/643960/61 "2012-12-14T14:49:23Z")
> [@TruCelt](#): > > It started out that way, but my parents eventually separated. It was never an ideal household, but it sucked a lot less _after_ the divorce. 100% ---
**Author:** ![chrisk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-grow-up-in-a-traditional-family/643960/62 "2012-12-14T14:58:34Z")
Yeah. Mom and Dad, brother and sister, Gabba (grandmother on my mom’s side) lived with us for a while, then moved out. ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-grow-up-in-a-traditional-family/643960/63 "2012-12-14T15:44:41Z")
Nope. Mom and Dad divorced when I was a wee lad- I was the only child of their relationship. Mom married another guy. He imported two kids from his previous marriage, plus they had a kid of their own. Dad married another woman. They had a kid of their own. Then they divorced, and Dad married another woman. She imported two kids from her previous marriage. So I have no full siblings. I have a half and two steps on each side. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-grow-up-in-a-traditional-family/643960/64 "2012-12-14T15:45:52Z")
Yes, I had both biological parents, together, while growing up. But they were riddled with alcohol and mental health issues, and it would have been better for everyone involved if they hadn’t ‘stayed together till the children were grown’. Because by the time they were grown, they had been stewed in horrid dysfunction so deeply that creating successful relationships for themselves was going to prove extremely challenging. Best way to raise children my ass! ---
**Author:** ![ducati](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/cc9497/32.png) [@ducati](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ducati)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-grow-up-in-a-traditional-family/643960/65 "2012-12-14T17:21:10Z")
I take a teaspoon of offense at the assumption that an adopted child isn’t or can’t be part of a traditional family. Haven’t people been taking in strays and unwanted cheerins for centuries? Isn’t that a tradition? I had a Mom, a Dad, two sisters, cats, dogs, snakes, owls, sleds, kites, bikes, skates, boats, and more. A midwestern family that went to church every Sunday and visited grandparents during the summer. We were traditional as fuck! Clearly you are right to exclude step-children. Their very existence is a slap in the face of any good, Christian nuclear family! Can’t trust them red-headed bastards one bit! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![DMark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@DMark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMark)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-grow-up-in-a-traditional-family/643960/66 "2012-12-14T17:39:42Z")
Mom, dad and total of three boys. Very traditional family. They were also very conservative Republicans and dad was in politics for most of his life; even older brother was a Republican state senator. Then - voila - me; screaming liberal, Gay Democrat. Just goes ta show ya - “traditional” families do not always breed “traditional” offspring. How does that affect the theory of nice traditional family producing nice traditional kids? Ergo, what makes people think non-traditional families can NOT produce normal, nice kids? At my college, we have lots of students who are on the right path to a great career and have great personalities, are grounded in reality and will do very well in the future - and some of them have come from the most fucked up families you can ever imagine. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-grow-up-in-a-traditional-family/643960/67 "2012-12-14T18:01:28Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Pray do tell.😉 Nothing much to tell, really. My now 70 year-old mother is rather open-minded about such things :). Not that I was really aware of the nature of that relationship at the time - I was way too young to pick up on it ( 3rd grade ). She was just another adult who lived in the same house as us. I was somewhat used to such arrangements as when my folks were married we at one time shared a three story house in Dorchester with a couple of other families ( no, not a commune ). I didn’t cotton to the reality of the situation until many years later. Didn’t last, at any rate. By 4th grade they had broken up and we had moved. By 5th grade we were in a different state and my mother acquired said boyfriend. The end of _that_ turned out a little ugly ( and off camera for me, as I was on my summer break visiting my father at the time ), hence me ending up with my father thereafter. ---
**Author:** ![ZPG\_Zealot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e47c2d/32.png) [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-grow-up-in-a-traditional-family/643960/68 "2012-12-14T18:50:17Z")
> [@ducati](#): > > Haven’t people been taking in strays and unwanted cheerins for centuries? Isn’t that a tradition?[/SIZE] 😉 > **[Adoption](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adoption#Middle_Ages_to_Modern_Period)** > > Adoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting of another, usually a child, from that person's biological or legal parent or parents. Legal adoptions permanently transfer all rights and responsibilities, along with filiation, from the biological parents to the adoptive parents. > Unlike guardianship or other systems designed for the care of the young, adoption is intended to effect a permanent change in status and as such requires societal recognition, either through legal or relig... Not really, the concept of taking unrelated children into a family and making them same as blood relations is rather recent in the West. In many subcultures, it still does not exist. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-grow-up-in-a-traditional-family/643960/69 "2012-12-14T19:00:25Z")
Very traditional for me. My wife grew up in an even more traditional family - her aunt lived with them also, and two wage earners and one stay-at-home worked very well. But I had friends who grew up in a single mother household - in those days you didn’t talk about what happened to the father - and they did fine also. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-grow-up-in-a-traditional-family/643960/70 "2012-12-14T20:46:18Z")
> [@ducati](#): > > I take a teaspoon of offense at the assumption that an adopted child isn’t or can’t be part of a traditional family. > > Haven’t people been taking in strays and unwanted cheerins for centuries? Isn’t that a tradition? Of course they have. That’s not the point. The point is that Traditional Families are One Man, One Woman (married before sex) with 2.2 biological children. In Very Traditional Families, Dad works, Mom “doesn’t work” (except for all that cooking and cleaning and laundry and sewing clothes and shopping and canning and making sure she’s put on a fresh coat of makeup and made Dad’s highball for him at the stroke of 5:12 when he walks in the door and she takes his coat and shoes and offers him his slippers and a shoulder rub before dinner is on the table at 6:00 sharp.). Traditional Families are the families of 50’s and 60’s television. Except for My Three Sons, that doesn’t count. Or Andy Griffith. Or The Rifleman. Or The Courtship of Eddie’s Father. Or Lassie. Or Bonanza. Or Petticoat Junction. Or other filth of that nature which undermines Traditional Family Values. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-grow-up-in-a-traditional-family/643960/71 "2012-12-14T21:24:12Z")
My parents divorced when I was 6. It was finalized the day my little sister was born. Mom could no longer take living with an alcoholic. Had 2 step-fathers. One was alcoholic asshole that mom stayed with because he was good provider. Believe me, we would have rather fended for ourselves. Last step father was an OK guy. Not the healthiest fella, and died after 8 years of marriage. My older sister is an alcoholic and seems resigned to a life of drinking. Both her daughters are addicts. One is in recovery, but she is still young and stupid. I am an addict. Been in recovery for 25 years. Little sister had a bout with anorexia nervosa. She almost died, but recovered after intensive therapy. Now happily married with 3 kids of her own. Oddly enough, she is the best adjusted of our brood. So traditional male role model didn’t work out _that well_ for us. If mom had a lesbian life-partner, I don’t think it could have been any worse for us. ---
**Author:** ![Palo\_Verde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/65b543/32.png) [@Palo\_Verde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Palo_Verde)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-grow-up-in-a-traditional-family/643960/72 "2012-12-14T21:39:20Z")
No. My parents were divorced when I was little and he didn’t have much to do with us after that (which was a relief, because he was yucky). My mom raised us on her own until she remarried when I was 12. My step-father and step-sisters were (and are) wonderful and life seemed more ‘traditional’ after that. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGrenze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/dbc845/32.png) [@KarlGrenze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGrenze)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-grow-up-in-a-traditional-family/643960/73 "2012-12-14T23:09:36Z")
Sorta? My parents were married and are still together, 30 years later. But, my dad had previously married, and had two kids (my half-siblings). So I grew up sort of “only-child”. But, since both my dad’s ex-wife and my mom, and their respective families, had such a strong sense of “family first”: - Long before I was born, my siblings met and made friends with my mom’s nephews and niece (my cousins). Sleepovers, adventures, parties, etc. - My aunt and cousins got to meet my paternal family before my parents married (and before I arrived). My aunt remembers meeting my great-grandmother, who died shortly before I was born. - As a reversal, when I showed up, my siblings’ mom babysat me, and I got to play and visit my siblings’ maternal family, to the point that my siblings’ cousins are my cousins too. To this day that’s how I refer to them, they are my cousins. Going a bit further back, my biological paternal grandmother died quite young, and my paternal grandpa remarried a few years later. The woman he married is/was my dad’s (and his siblings’) step-mother. But she is the only grandmother my cousins and I have met, she is our granny. So I have a “step-granny”, but most of the cousins ignore the “step” part. And even though my grandpa died, my dad and his siblings still visit and take care of their mom. AND, just to add to this, my grandma is friend’s with both my grandpa’s family (as they were in-laws, after all), and with my biological grandma’s family (no blood relation there). ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2012, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-grow-up-in-a-traditional-family/643960/74 "2012-12-15T15:39:49Z")
Mother, two older sisters (who were out of the house by the time I was ten). Brother enlisted in the Navy right after my second birthday. Father was in and out of hospital most of the time beginning when I was one or two; he was home occasionally, for a month or few at a time, but not often. By my standards, I turned out perfectly normal. ---
**Author:** ![ChickaPicosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b19c9b/32.png) [@ChickaPicosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChickaPicosa)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2012, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-grow-up-in-a-traditional-family/643960/75 "2012-12-16T00:41:59Z")
My family was traditional, yes. One father, one mother, and me, along with various pets. They have been married almost 40 years now. My paternal grandparents will be married 60 years this New Years Eve, and my maternal grandparents would have likely still been together if they hadn’t both passed. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-grow-up-in-a-traditional-family/643960.md?page=3)