We once considered families to consist of a mother, father and their offspring. With the rising tide of divorce, single motherhood, gay adoption, feminism, and polyamorism, what we understand as family has undergone a massive flux. hough the individual members of what we consider family have changed drastically, relationships in a household still blossom when people base their commitment on tolerance, respect and love.
In Rebecca Walker’s latest anthology, One Big Happy Family (Riverhead Books, 2009), the author seeks to explore the different ways in which people come together to form a family and the special challenges that they face as they work to ensure the ties that they have formed are lasting and strong.
In “The Enemy Within,” written by gay rights activist and author Dan Savage, we learn that open adoption comes with many challenges. As he relates the heartbreaking story of his son’s birth-mother, we confront the idea that there are those we are sometimes forced to allow into our lives to receive the larger blessing of love.
The son’s mother is a troubled homeless woman who drifts in and out of the family’s life, and the family must find a way to embrace her because she has given them the precious gift of a child. Yet Savage finds himself repelled by the circumstances of her life. Within the short pages of his emotional testimony we are forced to contrast the stability of a privileged family headed by gay males, to that of a woman who lives her life on the margins.
“We’re looking forward to seeing her too… But I’m tired. I’m starting to get anxious for this slomo suicide to end, whatever that end looks like. I’d prefer it end with DJ’s mother off the streets in an apartment somewhere, pulling her life together. But as she gets older that resolution is getting harder to picture.”
Though he grows weary of the intrusion it is a tie that he cannot break, for the love a child not born of his flesh.
“Love, Money and the Unmarried Couple” is written by Judith Levine. This story struck a chord with me, because the couple in it has chosen to disturb our patriarchal understanding of what constitutes family by sharing their lives without formally committing to each other in marriage. As they negotiate finances, they must learn to trust one another and the private commitment that they have made to each other.
Levine says,
“Marriage creates a kind of human property. Women may no longer be chattel; in spite of ongoing wage inequality, most wives are neither their husbands’ emotional slaves nor their economic dependents (thanks to feminism). Still, marriage implies ownership: each spouse owns the other.”
The idea is that rather than serving as an anchor, the relationships that we willfully maintain can free us to be our truest selves if we enter them from a position of reciprocity.
Another piece I would like to highlight is “How Homeschooling Made Our Family More of What We Wanted It to Be,” by Paula Penn-Nabrit. As a black mother, I found myself particularly able to identify with the experience related in here. Raising black children in a culture that continually tries to impress upon them that they are lesser beings can be a struggle if you are determined to fill your child with a sense of self-worth. Even though the family being spoken about here fulfills the patriarchal norm of mother, father and children, the fact that they are of color means that there are special challenges that they must face. What binds them is love and commitment to validate each other even when the world around them attempts to destabilize their family.
There are fourteen various testimonies printed in this book. Each family portrayed is unique and each is forced to employ various coping mechanisms to deal with the roadblocks that our privileging of outmoded ideas tends to place in the path of those that seek to live life on their own terms.
The stories collected here serve as a reminder that whatever you have chosen to call your family is worth embracing. One recurring thought I had while reading this was the thought that most likely, for each member of these families, the best view in the world must be the view from their doorstep, where they know that all that they love and cherish the most is safely ensconced in their homes.
What Walker has put together here is a rich tapestry of thoroughly modern life – life that is portrayed with dignity and honour.