There are some nutcakes in my extended family, but my immediate family is quite functional.
The Man with the Golden Gun, you have no idea how happy I was to hear that someone else’s family discusses goatse at the dinner table. I’m not sure how this whole (har!) thing got started, but it’s an inside joke around our house now.
So yeah, we’re all way too eccentric to be considered Leave it to Beaver normal. Think of what it would have been like if The Cosby Show involved home-built trebuchets.
One thing that a lot of people don’t seem to understand about my family is that I cannot remember ever discussing feelings with any relative. We don’t hug or kiss, and we don’t talk about what we’re feeling. Yet we’re all very close, and it proceeds instead from completely random things (like being able to IM my dad a link to some hilariously gross picture with a disclaimer saying “Don’t open this with someone else in the room. No, seriously. In fact, don’t open it if you ever want to eat again.”)
My home life was pretty good growing up. My Parents divorced when I was about 8, but that was the worst thing that’s happened. Both my parents were very loving to me and my sister, and while there are occasionally arguements, never any physical violence(well, I was spanked once as a kid and it was so long ago I can’t even remember why).
My parents had their share of knock-down, drag-out fights when I was growing up. My mother reminds me a lot of Lois on “Malcolm in the Middle”–very tough and no-nonsense, a real mama bear. But they’ve been married, more or less happily, for 25+ years. And they’ve raised two ethical, educated, and happy kids. We all love each other and look out for each other. So, yeah, pretty darn functional, I’d say.
My family’s pretty functional: My parents have been happily married for almost 33 years, we’ve always worked out our problems, everyone talks to each other, etc. No substance, emotional, physical or sexual abuse.
Not to say that we’ve not had our share of problems: My sister & I had a rough time with college & our respective relationships with our parents because we both battled depression, my parents argue on occassion, etc., but we’re a content bunch overall.
And yes, my sister and I turned out well, if a little wacky for a while there.
I was raised in a functional family. My wife was raised in a functional family and we collaborated on raising a function family. There are glitches here and there, but nothing is perfect.
No dysfunction here. Not immediately, anyway…extended, maybe, but I’m not sure. We’re relatively small, so I can’t really judge. But there’s been no horrific cases in my family; my parents are great and given me every opportunity I can imagine, and somehow we always afford it. The biggest arguement is that I can’t keep my room/bathroom clean and that I procrastinate. All in all, I think the worst thing to ever happen to me was that I wasn’t able to find Mickey Mouse to hug him the last time I went to Disney.
Yep, the kids in the my functional family turned out well. Three girls. No drug abuse, alcohol abuse, early pregnancies. My sister and I had “starter marriages” but I’ve been happily married to Mr. Right for eight years and she is in a long term relationship that may or may not end in marriage (she isn’t really the marry and have kids type anyway). All of us can pay our bills, hold down jobs.
My parents were the best. They were amazingly forward thinking for parents of the 60s and 70s.
My mom and dad pushed home the importance of education and tried to steer us from “just getting married” which was still accepted as “what women did” back then.
We (our whole family, not just immediate) had huge family celebrations at christmas, thanksgiving etc, where we’d sing around the piano…the whole nine yards.
We have boatloads of “family jokes” and traditions.
My parents did fight (but it was normal married fighting, not violent namecalling type stuff), and were generous loving people.
Still are. My dad is still a goofy practical joker (which my kids roll their eyes at, the same way we did as kids), and mom is the wise down to earth one that we still turn to when we need advice or a shoulder to cry on.
Unfortunately they did divorce when I graduated from high school, but they remain friends.
