Social bonds and blood bonds are unrelated. In truth, what we define as family is as much of a choice as what we define as our favorite comfort foods. Family is who we turn to when times are good or bad. Family is who we’ve spent the time with; the people who were most involved in our continuing socialization. I must say that I have less blood-linked family than I do family of choice and it is my family of choice that I feel the most bonded with and choose to spend my time with and energy on the most.
You can be both blood and choice. As I said, they are unrelated. I have three children. As a black man in America it would surprise no one if I chose to be absent from their lives. Somehow the single mom and the deadbeat black dad morphed into a cultural expectation. Last night at the end of the Giants v. Rams game two players ended up in a fist fight because one got the other’s sister pregnant and refused to have anything to do with her afterwards. This is not a standard of wealth or the lack thereof. It is simply how culture has come to be. So, I argue that my continued involvement with my kids is a matter of choice. I choose to be a good father.
I choose to build my life around my lady. The marital (or pre-marital in our case) bond is one of choice as well. There are social reinforcements telling us to get or stay married in life, but in the end it all comes down to what we ant to do and who we wish to involve in our lives. I choose her before all others. Likewise I choose not to continue to involve my mother in my life. I don’t have a responsibility to keep her in my life. There is no personal expectation of payback for being raised by her.
This is a tough realization for many to accept, as we all tend to bind ourselves in the armor of social norm and expectation. In truth and in sum, we get to choose the life we live and the people we live it with and the people we don’t.