"Family" has never been only the nucleus family: parents and children. On the contrary, family use to mean not only extended family (grandparents, parents, children, grandchildren, and so forth, and never once before 800 CE was this family centered around the fantasy of one man + one woman = family. The Bible, Koran, Torah, etc. all speak about the numerous wives various men had (Jacob "married" two sisters who were his cousins, Abraham allegedly married his sister whom he sold repeatedly into sex-slavery, Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines, etc) and the issue of child abuse is rampant: from Abraham being told to kill his "first born" (according to direct descendancy, the Muslims are correct in claim the sacrifice was to be of Ishmael, the "handmaiden" (slave) of wife Sarah; while Christians claims the sacrificial token was to be the first legitimate son: Jacob), that permeates other texts.
I remember my mother wailing in agony and misery that when she tried to abort me she failed, and I have lived with that guilt trip ever since, frequently wishing that she had succeeded so that we both would have been happier. There is nothing special about life (after we die we just give up that particle of energy that returns to the universe and corpus rots), and nothing sacred (the myths of heaven, hell, and so forth appear no where until the late invention of Christianity--as even John Paul II rejected the concept of eternal damnation and an everlasting fire--by Constantine I and the redaction of what became known as Gospels (after those of more historical and older writing were destroyed in the fires set to dispose of the writings of the priest Arius) about life as it was easily expendable in the numerous and senseless wars.
Fortunately my family avoided me like the bubonic plague. I cannot remember the last time I saw my brother Richard Ide, who know lives in Sapporo Japan--and his children ignore him; as for my sister Mary Helen Potter of Waterloo, Iowa, she spent all of her energy on making sure that there was a rift between myself an my mother who may or may not be dead since she told me in 2003 that I was never to trouble her again or see her again--which I haven't. My father was removed from the family when I was a small boy because of child abuse, etc., and the only time I saw him was when he was 82 and dead--to make sure he had died.
Love is not an inborn characteristic or part of mortal psychology. It is learned and exchanged. I never loved my family nor extended family as not once did I visit any of them, save for one aunt in Waverly, Iowa, and then only rarely as she was on "the wrong side".
To worry about family or consider it essential is absurd. When I was very young, I reserved a special promise that I would never marry (I did not want it to end like my parents brutal existence until they divorced) nor have children (I was too afraid they would be like my sister and brother), so I stayed single, spent my time with my real family: books. It is in books that one can live another and happier life. One finds adventure, delight, and fulfillment in the novels of Jules Vernes, Samuel B. Clemens (Mark Twain), E. M. Forester, Jane Austen, and others. They give tokens of love in printed words, they express tenderness and humor in countless quips, and all contain a special message that no one is alone nor forgotten.
A real family is boring (self-centered), arrogant (if you do not belong to their political party or worship their deity in their particular cult you have no place at the table), and vile (bullying begins in the home, is usually orchestrated by the parents and then carried out mercilessly by the siblings; I remember the hundreds of times that Mary Helen and Richard encouraged me to hang myself, once locking me in the basement in Cedar Falls, and only opened the door when mother was about to drive into the garage, as I banged away with the broom handle, making a nice sizeable hole). Families are not the ideal groups so beautifully painted by Norman Rockwall, but are more like the broods on The Simpson: filled with violence, envy, greed, and sloth.
If there was a Devil, his name would be Father, and his children would be the tormentors who massacre reason and justice. The family has never been sympathetic or empathetic, only pathetic as with the illusion of Jesus' family where his mother commands him to turn water into wine at a wedding (actually the text reads to make wine--toiling while everyone else is having fun), and while he was allegedly dying gives his own lover John to Mary while his brothers escaped Jerusalem in fear of their individual liberty and safety.
I want no family. I need no family. I surround myself with books and find the only heaven (peace) in them.
exactly
