Mikey and me and kitty makes three
When does a couple become a family? The question sounds like a hackneyed high school writing assignment, but at some point in life, it does become pertinent. So, now that we are wed, are Mike and I a family?
The transition from living together to being married was blurry. It is hard tell when we stopped being the single folks people invited over for holiday dinners and started being the people that do the inviting. This year will be our first Thanksgiving in our own home. As clichéd as it sounds, the thought of the just the two of us sharing a holiday meal makes me feel like we really have become a family.
One thing that instantly says “family” to me is a baby. It seems that a married couple is not taken seriously until they have added a child to their home. In our case we have added a furry baby substitute, Cleo the cat. I just hope our real baby doesn’t hide in the closet all day long.
Having our own home has also contributed to a sense of family. First, it is a responsibility we have undertaken together. As much as I would like to do everything myself, I can’t, so we need each other. Second, it is a safe place to develop our own family habits. In our family, I can paint till midnight, singing Phantom of the Opera at the top of my lungs, while Mike drinks gallons of Koolaid and plays poker naked. He often says that our poor child will be in the “weird family,” but aren’t all families a little weird?
Like newlyweds everywhere, we are working out what it means to be a newly minted family. We have holiday traditions to create, kitty-parenting techniques to argue over, and a home to attend to. To answer the original question though, you become a family when you make yourself one. Family is a state of mind.
The transition from living together to being married was blurry. It is hard tell when we stopped being the single folks people invited over for holiday dinners and started being the people that do the inviting. This year will be our first Thanksgiving in our own home. As clichéd as it sounds, the thought of the just the two of us sharing a holiday meal makes me feel like we really have become a family.
One thing that instantly says “family” to me is a baby. It seems that a married couple is not taken seriously until they have added a child to their home. In our case we have added a furry baby substitute, Cleo the cat. I just hope our real baby doesn’t hide in the closet all day long.
Having our own home has also contributed to a sense of family. First, it is a responsibility we have undertaken together. As much as I would like to do everything myself, I can’t, so we need each other. Second, it is a safe place to develop our own family habits. In our family, I can paint till midnight, singing Phantom of the Opera at the top of my lungs, while Mike drinks gallons of Koolaid and plays poker naked. He often says that our poor child will be in the “weird family,” but aren’t all families a little weird?
Like newlyweds everywhere, we are working out what it means to be a newly minted family. We have holiday traditions to create, kitty-parenting techniques to argue over, and a home to attend to. To answer the original question though, you become a family when you make yourself one. Family is a state of mind.
posted by Kasmira at 15.11.04
3 Comments:
I think buying a house may constitute becoming a family, its like a child. A really big ill behaved child that leaks at the wrong times, breaks down, falls apart whenever you have just decided to sink money into another part of it. You constantly have to clean it (uh yeah that is Scott snickering in the background....at least I know where the cleaning stuff is....the closet right?) When you go away you have to have someone watch it to make sure no one comes in and takes it away or hurts it. And it never grows up and moves away.
I agree, a family is what you make of it, and if it includes a naked poker playing husband or a butterknife licking father in law...you just know it is a family because you created it.
Did you or Mike pick the name for the cat?
--Tyler
I named the cat. It was either Cleo or Nancy Reagan. (Our fish is named Ronald Reagan.)
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