What a True Family Is!

Alright I have avoided this for a long time, because I was afraid I wouldn't find the right words to say what I really want to say. Yet today I read a post that made me find the words to say it. At least I hope. So here it is.

Family isn't about blood or genetics. Yes, these things can play a part, but in the end family is more than that. I know I said this before, but there were a few things I think I left out due to fear of how to word them. So here are the points I want to get across.

You don't  to donate sperm or an egg. You don't have to carry a child in your womb or go through the pains of giving birth to a child to love a child. It doesn't even take having legal custody of a child to love them. None of these things guarantee a person will love a child that has come into their lives. Trust me I know. I am tired of people telling me I don't know what it is like to be a parent. Really? So spanking a kid, grounding them, waking them up, comforting them, cleanup their puke, telling them things are going to be alright, feeding them, bathing them, buying them their needs, helping them with schoolwork, all these things don't constitute knowing what it is like to raise a child? I am pretty sure waking up in the middle of the night to feed a child or to comfort them after a nightmare is what a parent does. Granted I don't know all the things of being a parent since I was more like a nanny at times, but a nanny can know what caring for a child in a maternal way is like. It still hurts like Hell to have the child removed from your life and can still leave a huge hole in your life. So yes I believe a person who has taken care of a child for a long period of time can know what it is like to love a child that isn't theirs as if they were their own. They can be protective over those kids as a parent would be since they have also created a bond with that child that is strong. Granted the person caring for the child isn't their parent, but it doesn't lesson the feelings of having them removed from their life.

Another topic I want to touch on is adopted children. I have two Aunts and two Uncles. Three of these are Korean and adopted. It isn't my Mom's blood brother that I think of when I think of Aunts and Uncles. It is my Korean ones since I don't even remember meeting my other Uncle for until I was 13 and the next time I saw him was my Grandma's Memorial. I barely know anything about him. I heard more stories about his daughter and her family than him. I knew pieces about his life due to letters that were sent, but he was more like a distant relative. I never once thought of my Aunts or my Uncle as anything less than family. The fact they were adopted was no less to me than any other thing other than a gift that God gave my Grandma as an answer to a long awaited prayer. They were a miracle and the greatest gift my Grandma ever received. She never saw them as anything other than her children. My Grandpa never saw them as anything, but his children. They waited years. To many years for these three perfect children to be born and come into their lives. I don't care what anyone says. That Reader's Digest article about the Holt Group came when my Grandparents were giving up hope on ever having any more children. When my Grandma read that article she saw hope. When she saw the pictures of her children she felt they were the ones. She looked at hundreds of pictures and knew when she saw them they were the ones. I know this, because my Mom told me the stories. She told me how when my Grandma saw my Uncle's picture my Grandma knew that God wanted her to bring him home. I finally heard from my Grandpa how my beautiful Aunt Sharon was older than my other Aunt or Uncle when she was adopted. He worried about how she was older, but my Grandma knew she was meant to be her child. These three children were heaven sent to be my family. God chose them to be my Aunts and Uncle just as he chose my Mom and Uncle David to be born to my Grandparents. It hurts me when my Aunts and Uncle talk as if they are a separate family from my Mom. I know it feels that way to them and I acknowledge that, but never did my Mom ever talk about them as anything other than her siblings. She spoke about them the same as she did her brother David. Actually my Mom probably talked more lovingly about them than she did about my Uncle David. She loved them as her baby siblings. She loved them in the way only an older sibling can. I know I have seen that look many times from my older siblings. It also hurt when my Uncle introduced me to people and made a point to point out we don't look like family. I don't know why. I don't see the difference. I have two sisters who look nothing like me at all. They have blondish brown hair, green eyes, were extremely skinny in their youth, and tall. Their faces are totally different then mine. Hell they could be adopted looking at them. I still have no clue where their looks came from. Out of five kids three of us look alike and obviously look like Mom's side. The other two look nothing like anyone I can think of yet I don't make a point to point out the differences. To me family is family. It doesn't matter how you become family. It doesn't matter if you don't look alike or if there are years that separate you from your siblings. I have friends who have kids the same age as their siblings. No they didn't have kids as teenagers. Their parents were gifted with children later in life. My friends don't call those children their parents second family. The only time I have ever heard that term used was when a parent left and raised another family separate from each other and when my Aunts and Uncle talk. I know they mean no harm and I understand why they feel that way. Yet they are the only Aunts and Uncle I ever knew. They were the only siblings of my parents in my eyes for years. To me there was no separation. There was nothing that makes them different. They have been all I have known my whole life. As far as I am concerned there is only one family. The one my Grandparents loved equally.

So here is what I have to say. If I ever find the one or I ever have the money/life that I feel I can raise a family on my own this is what I want. I want one maybe two pregnancies. After that I want to adopted children. Not newborns that everyone wants and fights over. I want to adopt the children that are less likely to find a home due to age or problems. I don't care about race or background. Actually the more diverse the better to me. The reason being I think having children who see each other as family due to what really makes a family is better than kids who think blood is what makes family. What really makes a family is love. L-O-V-E. That is what makes a family. Marriage brings a person to a family through. . .. .. . . LOVE. Adoption brings a person into a family through. . . . . . . . . LOVE. A child in the neighborhood who needs guidance and a person who cares is brought into a family through. . . . . . . . . . Once again LOVE. What is the key here? Oh ya LOVE. Love is what makes a family. Not blood. Not genetics. Not sperm. Not an egg. Not pregnancy. It is LOVE. Everyone can prove they are related through blood and genetics if you go far enough back. Technically James Gardner is my cousin. Doesn't make him my family as far as he is concerned or I am concerned. Sperm and an egg coming together doesn't make a parent. That just means you are a donor that created a child to be loved and parented by a person. Whether it is you and the other donor, you and another person, the other donor and another person, or people who had nothing genetically to don with the child. Carrying a child inside you and giving birth to them doesn't make you a Mother. That makes you the carrier and deliverer of a child that once again is meant to be loved and parented by a person. There doesn't even have to be two people to love and care for that child. In some cases there is only one. The person who is the World to that child. A person who loves them unconditionally and would give anything to protect that child and to protect that child's happiness and dreams. That is family. It is a bond stronger than any other bond you will find. Time, money, and anything else you can think of won't break that bond.

The next time you see a family remember LOVE is what makes them that. Never when I was growing up did I think anything about the differences between my Mom's siblings. It wasn't for until I was older that I started seeing that people might see a difference. I was literally about 16 before I ever realized anyone would question them being my family and it wasn't for until I was an adult that I ever thought anyone in the family would think of the difference. So yes it hurts to think of that beautiful family as anything than one whole family. It was taught to me as one family not two and I won't and refuse to see it as anything else. My Grandparents had one family. Three girls and two boys who they loved more than life itself. Who was their World. They would have done anything for anyone of these five beautiful kids. These children were their world. Just as much as any child given birth to was. My Mom loved them just as any big sister would and was excited to have them join the family. She loved them so much that my Grandpa told my Mom that they were Grandma's new toys not hers and if she wanted one to go have her own. LOL. Spoken like a true father to his teenage daughter who wants to play with their younger siblings as a doll. I love my family. I love the lack of judgment I was raised with. I love the fact I can see past all the things most people are blinded by.