Yeah, I know what a family is traditionally suppose to be. I have great parents, brother, sisters and so on.
As I was growing up we had a great family. We did not have money or sometimes even food on the table, but we always had each other. We always had a sibling to torture, play or fight with. While my parents were not perfect, we always had mom and dad at home taking care of us. They found time to spend with us, just each other and they had hobbies, but us kids were never alone or neglected.
But what is a family these days?
My idea of a family is that it is a group of (married or not) people (with or without kids) that choose to live in the same household. They help each other with finances, cleaning, friendship and so on. They choose to spend time together, eat a meal at the same time and in the same room, maybe even at the same table together. They share hobbies, likes, dislikes and more. They CHOOSE each other over other things in life.
But, I am very saddened that even though I am married and have a teen child that live under the same roof as I do, I don't have a family.
I am married, but not a wife, I have a child but I am not a mom.
Both me and my "husband" work a full time job plus other jobs on the side. We strive to be able to have a good life style. I am not talking a 5,000 square foot house and a Luxury SUV, but to have a nice home, car and be able to have a meal every night. We work hard to have that, but by the end of the day the concept of a family has gone out the window. I feel more alone now than I ever have before.
For the past 13 years (I was married for 4 years prier to that) I have been a single parent. I have worked hard to stay off of state assistance and I had a good life. We lived in small and at times very hard to deal with places, we did not have luxuries in life, but I had a family, I felt like I mattered, even though it was just the two of us.
Now I live in a nice home in a nice area, have a nice car, am married to a nice man, have a great job, but none of that matters because the family aspect of life is missing for me. We don't spend time together as a family. We don't eat dinner at the dinner table together, we don't watch movies or TV together, we don't even know that each other exists unless one of us needs something from the other (usually them needing something from me). I make dinner every night. I am the last one to get my plate ready to eat and by the time I sit down at the table (on the days that we are home at the same time), the others in the house have already finished eating and gone up to their caves. Most days, they just get their food and take it to their caves to eat it, leaving me to sit at the table alone and sad.
While I have TRIED to have some sort of a family, the others are too self absorbed to care.
Dave gets on his computer before work, right when he gets home and is there until he finally goes to bed.
The DQ sits in her room watching TV and playing video games not acknowledging that anything else exists.
I am just left to feed and clean up after them.
So as you can see, I don't have a family. I guess if I change my expectations to what a family should be, then I have the perfect one. But, I don't think that I should have to change my expectations of a family just to have one. So, I will learn to be happy in my lonely sad world without a family.
A side note on this subject:
This Valentines day was the first Valentines that Dave and I have had together as a married couple. Maybe it is because I am a girl that this really pisses me off, but he did not get me ANYTHING to say that I am special to him. He did not get me even a card or a single rose. But, he had time and money to shop for and purchase DVD's and 14 music CD's for himself! Yeah, I feel special, appreciated and cared about.
