What is a Family?

The Family Pride Blog has a recent post on the current definition of family.  As they note, the traditional definition of family as mom, dad, two kids and Fido leaves out many families. Among them:

• Elderly couples who chose not to marry because of Medicaid rules or other reasons
• Unmarried partners (opposite sex and same sex)
• Brothers and sisters living together
• Single parents who live together with their children to pool resources
• Grandparents raising their grandchildren

Family Pride quotes a post in Constant Chatter:

"So what is a family in 2007? …A family is (and always has been) an ongoing creation – if home is where when you have to go there, they have to take you in, then family are the people who take you in, no matter what. For some people, family is the nucleus of two parents and two or three children, living in a simple home. For others, family is a much larger, multigenerational structure, sometimes living together in a large dwelling, helping one another, getting into one another’s business, and raising generations of children together. For many city dwellers, family is one’s circle of friends, to whom we turn for everything from Sunday brunch to Passover Seders, acting as one another’s advisors in all things from childcare to divorce, and being there for one another in a world that can sometimes overwhelm and frighten even the toughest among us. With or without children, with one parent or two, gay or straight, we all cobble together families as best we can, because, in the end, there is something exceedingly human in our desire, our need, to be a part of a loving and supportive group that will be there for us. The world will change, our society will evolve, but our need for family, that is eternal."

Family Pride sums it up like this:

"The defintion [sic] of family will continue to evolve with our society, but the language of bedtime and bath time, hugs and homework bonds us all together as parents."

Can't say it better than that.

Sources: Family Pride Blog, Constant Chatter