Families are so fucking crazy. The bonds you have with your family members are some of the strongest but they’re also some of the most complicated. As a kid all the emotions that correlate with the family dynamic are amplified.
There are a ton of different types of families. Some are more conservative, some are pretty out there, some strict, some laid back, some crazy and some just plain weird…the thing is we can’t see what we really have, especially as kids and teens. When your a teenager, especially in high school, you look at everyone else and wish you had their life and their family. They seem “perfect.” That isn’t real. It look a long time to learn this, but EVERY family has their issues, some are just better at hiding them.
Here’s a shortened version of my family life. My mom got pregnant with me at 25, my biological father’s mother wanted me aborted and my biological dad wasn’t close to being ready to be a parent. My mom kept me, clearly ha. She met my step dad when I was three and when I was five I got a little brother. My family was pretty nice, not too strict but we definitely had rules…most of them coming from my dad because my mom’s very laid back. My step dad had apparently been cheating for years and finally my parents split up after being together for 14 years. Now they’re divorced and don’t talk. My brother goes back and forth between households each week and I live with my mom full time with basically zero contact with my step dad. There’s the gist.
The thing about my family is the current relationship between my mother and step dad really cause the most problems. My step dad basically broke every agreement they made regarding introducing my brother and I too new partners and rules for the kids. So there is so trust there. It causes my brother to be put in the middle because he is young and can’t/won’t stand up to my step father because he still loves him. I choose to have no contact with my step dad simply because I think he is an ass for what he did to my mother and the way he just let me go, abandoning me.
From the outside, you would have no idea. You’d just see a single mother working to support her kids, but there is so much under the surface that people on the outside can’t see. A little bit of knowledge that everyone should have is that everything is pretty on the surface…dig a little deeper and you’ll be surprised what you might find. Also, don’t talk/judge if you don’t know. So many people have their own struggles they’re dealing with and you antagonizing them about it if you don’t know the truth does nothing but hurt them.
Juggling Joost 