How do you define "Family"

This morning on a local radio station here in Atlanta the ignorant DJ who shall remain nameless (no free press on my blog) asked the people poll for the day. Apparently, there was a daddy, baby and girlfriend that wanted to take a vacation together and baby momma wanted to come along to look out for her baby. How you feel on that is a whole ‘nother topic. If I were uncomfortable with my baby going out of town in a situation like that, she just wouldn’t go. Anywho, others called in with their opinion and one woman stated that she, baby and baby daddy were going on a “family vacation” together and she didn’t want the girlfriend to come along.

Well, this set the I-DJ off on a tangent. I suppose he was having flashbacks about his dysfunctional relationship with his baby momma. He jumped all over her phrasing of “family vacation” because in his OPINION they were not a family. In his view, the only real families exist between people who have been married and lived together and have had children. His intern or whoever the hell she was did her best to persuade him otherwise as she apparently still considers her ex’s family to be her family, but to no avail.

Is family not something that individuals can define for themselves and therefore can consist of not only biological ties, but whatever other commonalities people choose to identify as the ties that bind us? I mean, by his definition how do we then classify married couples without children? Or couples with children who are not married, but live together? He made it clear that he didn’t think parents who were never married and who don’t live together were not a “family”. (His arrogance is astounding.) I say differently. They may not be a “family unit” pre se, but they can definitely define themselves as family if they so chose.

I have biological family members, who if I could mark them out of the picture today I would, and then I have friends that I most definitely consider family because of all we have been through. My Girl for instance, she IS my sister. As I have said before, she has seen me through some dark years and she probably doesn’t even know all that she has done for me. She invites me and my children to pretty much every get together she has with her family and we feel like we are just as much apart, but that’s how she and her husband are with their friends. We don’t even have to ask permission to walk through the house. Some people just don’t understand that kind of openness though.

But back to the situation at hand, I have two baby daddies, for lack of a better word. One is more of a Spermanator (I would like to take this moment to shout out Neme) and the other was a bit more involved, but even his parenting could have used some improvements. All of that aside, I still consider them family because we have children together, but even before that we had a friendship and a relationship. My family (on my dad’s side anyway) considers them family on GP alone. I also have relationships with their family members. Am I now suppose to disown that just because we are not a couple? I don’t think so.

Even with that said, trust that we won’t be going on any vacations with me, him, baby and girlfriend/wife.

On a completely different subject, I haven’t done this in a while and this one is waaayyyyy overdue. If you only call up your girl, or your boy when shit ain’t going right in your relationship and you need someone to listen to you bitch, then I have to question your commitment to your friendship and you too get an Ooh Darryl.