Either you never met them at all, or you knew them when you were young and then something made your parents decide not to allow further contact. Does that describe the black sheep in your family too?
My dad was the 5th kid in his family, b/g/b/b/b/g, and I have never met my older aunt, my brother has never met her, nor as far as I know have our slightly older cousins Leo or Vanessa who are the children respectively of my youngest uncle and my youngest aunt. Not by an accident of distance but because our parents thought she was a bad person.
I get the sense that she was always considered flakey, but the needle that broke the camel’s back happened shortly before Leo and Vanessa were born. Our aunt had a baby who was very ill, and eventually she and her husband split up. Her ex got custody, which was unusual for the 70s, and he set about caring for their son. Unfortunately, though doted on by his father, my cousin’s heart defects proved to be fatal at age two.
When my aunt was informed that her toddler son had just died, she wasn’t too broken up about it. And she informed the family that she couldn’t attend the little boy’s funeral because she was going go a folk festival that day. She kept her plans…
…and her 3 youngest siblings never spoke to her again.
Anyone else have a story about the black sheep you were shielded from?
I’m pretty sure I had a pedophile uncle because every single child in my family was told to NEVER be alone with him and one time when me and him were in the kitchen by ourselves just to wash our hands with noone around my parents seemed HORRIFIED when I told them I had been around him alone.
Once I became a teen though they stopped telling me that and he seemed nice from the few times I talked to him.
I was the black sheep. Basically, when I was in high school, I fell in with the crowd your mother warned you about. But they were more down-to-earth and honest and candid than the shallow “popular people” were. My parents disagreed with my choice of companions, but I made some good friends out of fellow black sheep, and we’re all still in touch.
Anyway, I remember when my nephew was born. I told my sister (who, to my parents’ delight, after having dealt with me, would become one of the “popular people” at high school) that I couldn’t wait for him to grow up, so I could teach him how to play craps, bet horses, drink beer, and smoke cigars.
Unsurprisingly, I really don’t know my nephew (who is now in his twenties) at all. Sis made sure that I never got to know him.
I’m the black sheep, although (with a few exceptions) they all speak to me.
My mother’s side is filled with evangelical Christians (who, FWIW, aren’t of the Religious Right variety) who are in church every Sunday. I’m agnostic, and though I don’t wear it on my sleeve, it’s not a secret either. Fortunately, this hasn’t caused any drama or anything.
My father’s side is filled with secular Trumpers. At least one uncle and two cousins have stopped speaking to me. Ah well.
I’m not sure - there’s a branch of my family that I don’t know but it’s not exactly because any one was a black sheep and it wasn’t exactly that I was kept away. My mother’s aunt and uncle did something that pissed my mother and one of her cousins off and mom and her cousin never spoke to them again. Which means that me, my siblings and the cousin’s kids never knew aunt and uncle or their kids - but it was a side effect of my mother not speaking to them , not because she specifically didn’t want us to have contact with them.
I am the white sheep of my family. The rest are naturally deep dark brown, I have to work on getting a tan but then my butt is still snow white. I grew up being called white boy. Oh the shame!
I suppose there are a few white sheep in my family… The closest I have to what the OP describes is a long-lost cousin: One of my uncles had a youthful indiscretion, after which the girlfriend (and subsequently mother of his daughter) wanted nothing to do with him. The daughter eventually looked him up and connected with him, as an adult.
My father was the black sheep of his family. He rejected the religion of his family, married someone outside both the faith community and ethnic community (calvinist dutch american family, while my mom was a methodist of german ancestry) and he moved away from the community. This got him shunned by many relatives.
He was kind, patient, tolerant of others with differing beliefs, backgrounds, and orientation.
He was my role model. He still is, decades after his passing.
My Aunt Cheryl was probably the black sheep; she was a strange cat. She spent much of her childhood telling my mother such wild stories for her amusement.
But her parents favored her over my mother. They gave Cheryl everything, and they didn’t even go to Mom’s high school graduation. So maybe Mom was the black sheep. My grandfather died estranged from me and Mom. He never liked me.
Mother’s uncle. Moved to San Francisco in late 60’s or early 70’s. Later put 2 and 2 together to figure out why. (religious family)
Me. Religious, far right wing family. I moved across country in my 20s. Partly to get away from constant religion/rightwing stuff. I’m the “liberal” in the family but actually more middle of the road. Still friendly (from a distance), but had to unfriend some on Facebook because of political/religious comments.
Brother. Something happened after I left. I wasn’t there and only got one side of the story. He keeps himself from the family.
I guess my mom was considered the black sheep, but she wasn’t shunned exactly. She was just the first female in her family to divorce and so she was looked down on and that kind of flowed down to her children.
On the contrary: my parents sent me out to stay at my brother’s place during the summer. He was a rebel as a teen and an alcoholic as an adult. Fun to be around, but also dangerous, and not exactly a role model.
In my mom’s family there was some kind of schism. I think it was because one of her sisters married a non-Catholic. My mom moved to California, married here, and had her family here. The rest were all in Ohio (except for one in Michigan, a smaller split years later to Florida). We didn’t have a lot of money for travel, so we only went back a few times. Because it was such a rare thing, people were on their best behavior when we were there.
The third time I went back, at about age 15, there was a big family reunion in a park and shunned sister and her family were all invited.
The shunned sister was the one my mom was closest to, so I’m thinking they didn’t want to exclude her too obviously during these rare visits. And, eventually, everybody forgot the dumb schism. We didn’t care about the whole dumb thing, and I think that helped them out of that rut.