family

The lack of emotional security of our American young people is due, I believe, to their isolation from the larger family unit. No two people - no mere father and mother - as I have often said, are enough to provide emotional security for a child. He needs to feel himself one in a world of kinfolk, persons of variety in age and temperament, and yet allied to himself by an indissoluble bond which he cannot break if he could, for nature has welded him into it before he was born. ~Pearl S. Buck

I ran across this quote while looking for inspiration for a project on the internet and fell in love with it. My family, though not always in my immediate life, is a part of me and the presence of that family helped shape me into the person I am today. Because I have this amazing extended family, this quote resonates with me.

While in a moment of inspiration, I showed this quote to Andrew and he challenged my thoughts (which I love). Though we are both from large extended families whom we love, can we say that that is what made us more emotionally secure? Are we emotionally secure?

In the midst of this election which we are both enthralled with, he brought up Barack Obama. He was brought up by a single mother who then left him with his grandparents while she went overseas. His family was his grandparents. Is he emotionally insecure? If you have read his autobiography, you will see how he struggled with his identity in his youth but was this due to a lack of extended family or his mixed-race identity? Did he achieve this emotional security on his own or was it due to his grandparents?

Regardless of what you believe, I do believe that our extended families help us feel more secure in our identities. We are bound to this group of people from birth no matter our similarities and differences. Knowing that I have that family makes me feel more secure because I know that no matter what, they love me. They are proud of me for my accomplishments and love me in spite of my faults.

My definition of this family is not bound to those who are still with us. Though I never met my grandmothers, I often feel them in my life. Having been named for my paternal grandmother and favoring my maternal grandmother somehow gave me a sense of greater connection to them. After hearing stories about them from my parents and family, I feel like I know them. They affect me and my emotional security just as much as those who are physically present.

I think it can all be summed up in (yes, you guessed it) another quote.

Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family: Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.
-- Jane Howard