Meme: Today's subject is Family
Dec. 19th, 2013 12:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pensnestIn a broad sense, I have rather a large family.
My mother's mother was one of about a dozen children, and she produced five who survived to adulthood. There are eleven of her descendants in my generation, and several of us have children too. I have vague notions of the existence of grandmother-level cousins (and, consequently, their offspring), most of them in the vicinity of Bedford. In fact, one such cousin died a couple of years ago and left me some money, completely to my astonishment. I suppose he had a much more complete picture of the family tree than I do, and, without children of his own, left them to his cousins.
Speaking of family trees, my aunt and her husband have done a fair bit of research, and came up with a tree for the descendants of John Uff and Elizabeth Norman, the umpty-great grandparents of my mother. John Uff died in 1580, in Buckinghamshire. There are a lot of Johns and Williams in it. And Elizabeths, like my maternal grandmother. If you are an Uff, you are related to me. Hi!
I have no idea what family exists on my mother's father's side. None at all. Only that he had a very Bedfordshire name, so there are probably tribes of relations across the county.
My dad's mother, by contrast, was born illegitimate in London's East End, and all I know of her is that her mother had a common surname, her grandad drove a brewer's wagon, and she thinks her father was a gentleman (hah!) who was the son of the woman who owned the hat shop where her mother worked. But my paternal grandfather has quite a bit of family around, mostly in Coventry. I'm barely aware of them, but some of them are probably called Sid. My father's second name was Bertie, a family tradition; it was generally coupled with Samuel, or Reginald, or Sidney. My brother and I were compelled to laugh uncontrollably through the first twenty minutes of "Independence Day" because the president shared our surname, and we just could not help ourselves.
None of the family members I know about is noticeably rich, so it's nice to see odd quirks of family tradition and inheritance (see my Art post) running through perfectly ordinary families.
I have no doubt that the reason I know virtually nothing of my extended family is that my mother died many years ago. It usually seems to be women who do the work of keeping in touch with family, I think—and of course, my Grandma had no particular reason to keep in touch with the cousins nth removed from the maternal side. Then again, my Nana managed to leave me and my siblings out of her will, when she died some thirty-five years later than her elder daughter. Hmm.
So my Family, the important ones, are my own husband and children, my sister and her husband and children, my brother, my uncle and his wife and son (my godson, but we've never been very close due to his mother being my uncle's divorced first wife), and my in-laws, Beast's father and brother. Plus, on the edge, my mother's sister and her husband and children, of whom I am rather fond. It's an exclusive group, particularly since my father died in 2008, after which his wife seemed not to be interested in remaining as stepmother, and I only keep in touch with her children in an occasional way (Christmas cards, and birthday exchanges with the eldest).
We're geographically quite well spread, in a wonky line across the bottom half of England from Norfolk to Devon (plus, ahem, an outpost in Tasmania), and we're not closely communicative. Now that my Bun and Boy are adults earning their own livings, we don't keep in touch on any kind of regular basis. My Dad used to phone every Sunday, for many years, but I've never established that kind of routine with my own children. Boy will indulge me with online chat at weekends, and Bun sometimes calls or texts. Same with my sister—we email, and occasionally phone, but have never got into any kind of regular routine with it.
There are probably some people reading who'd find that horrifying. Some people who call their parents/children every day, just to say hello. Actually, my stepmother is like that—she and her daughters are constantly on the phone to one another. I would find it stifling, and, well, weird. Possibly that's as much my dislike of talking on the telephone as my inability to understand why people can't just leave one another in peace! Anyhow, it works for us. And when we do call, or get together, we all get along very nicely, and don't go in for drama or family grudges or anything of that sort. Pretty healthy, as far as I can tell.
There are so many ways in which family can be painful. I've not had to deal with most of them, but even so, the pull between original and new family was quite saddening in my father's case. I was not, truth be told, that bothered that he favoured his last wife's grandchildren above his own, because my own kids had grown up while he was abroad, knowing and being loved by their paternal grandparents, and never saw a lot of him anyway. I always had a comfortable, quite intellectual, relationship with my father, and we got along very easily whenever we met. My sister, though, was deeply upset that he showed so little interest in her children, whom he never really got to know, whereas his new wife's daughter had two children who lived but a couple of miles away, and became the favoured grandchildren. Geographical distance is a significant factor, of course, but so is the will to visit, which was not lacking when it came to travelling to where one set of faraway kids lived, but was in very short supply regarding the other set. It's one of the things I was angry with my father about, and never told him (the other being the way he treated his mother, compared to the way he treated his new in-laws). I guess it is another aspect of the fact that women are far more likely to do the work of family-contact maintenance than men are, and my Dad just went along without ever noticing what he was missing.
I'm glad not to be an only child, but I'm also glad not to have a vast brood of relations with whom I need to maintain a relationship. I wonder if perhaps the fact that my sister and brother and I spent most of our childhoods apart makes it easier for us to get on together now? Sister and I attended different boarding schools, and even so people had a horrid tendency to describe me as 'the clever one' and her as 'the pretty one', which as you can imagine, does little for either's sense of self-worth. I know my sister was grateful not to be following my academic trail through secondary school. Our brother is nine years younger than I am, so we didn't have a lot in common until we were all quite grown-up.
I'm glad I have a nephew and a niece, it is fascinating to see them grow up in a completely different style to my own children. I do hope that there'll be a grandchild or two in a few years, but that's not something I can order or predict. I hope for friendly son- and daughter-in-law at some point, and will be willing to share Christmases. Or even to expand them enormously, if there are many agreeable in-laws who'd like to join in the fun. I believe it is possible to rent a large house for as much as a week at a time? Must look into this.
I'm also glad that I can rely on the members of my family whom I actually care about to behave decently when called upon to do so. A couple of examples: when my Grandma died, her will did not name my uncle's son, presumably because she'd made it a long time ago and never updated it. (Actually, we think she did update, but we couldn't find the new will. Take it to the Probate Office, people!) So her descendants got together and agreed on a revision which put that grandchild on a par with my brother, which we knew was what she'd wanted. By contrast, when my mother's mother died, there was a lot of fuss about the will, because she had left her house to the one son who'd never married but had stayed at home and looked after her. Which seemed to some of us an entirely reasonable thing to do. There were others, however, who thought all her property should have been divided evenly so that they could get the money right away, and there was a great to-do about it. Sense and decency did prevail, I don't know how, and when he died my uncle left his property equally between his siblings/their children. Which meant I and my siblings got a share, which was nice.
When That Woman's mother died, by further contrast, That Woman didn't even wait for any little matter of legality, she went through the house extracting what she wanted on her own behalf or on her son's. The deceased in this case was rather a wealthy woman, and there was plenty to go round, but That Woman did not for a moment hesitate to assert her own requirements above those of her sister and brother.
Overall, I suppose family as a concept is not one that I'm particularly interested in. It's possible that the reason is that I've always been secure in the parts of mine that matter to me, and have a select group of friends who are important to me as well. Frankly, I have more in common with most of you reading this than with one of my cousins whom I haven't seen in twenty years. I don't think I've ever been burdened with the need to prioritise FAAAAAAMILY, and from my addictive readings of Etiquette Hell, I'm very glad of it!
Only five days still available, here.
My mother's mother was one of about a dozen children, and she produced five who survived to adulthood. There are eleven of her descendants in my generation, and several of us have children too. I have vague notions of the existence of grandmother-level cousins (and, consequently, their offspring), most of them in the vicinity of Bedford. In fact, one such cousin died a couple of years ago and left me some money, completely to my astonishment. I suppose he had a much more complete picture of the family tree than I do, and, without children of his own, left them to his cousins.
Speaking of family trees, my aunt and her husband have done a fair bit of research, and came up with a tree for the descendants of John Uff and Elizabeth Norman, the umpty-great grandparents of my mother. John Uff died in 1580, in Buckinghamshire. There are a lot of Johns and Williams in it. And Elizabeths, like my maternal grandmother. If you are an Uff, you are related to me. Hi!
I have no idea what family exists on my mother's father's side. None at all. Only that he had a very Bedfordshire name, so there are probably tribes of relations across the county.
My dad's mother, by contrast, was born illegitimate in London's East End, and all I know of her is that her mother had a common surname, her grandad drove a brewer's wagon, and she thinks her father was a gentleman (hah!) who was the son of the woman who owned the hat shop where her mother worked. But my paternal grandfather has quite a bit of family around, mostly in Coventry. I'm barely aware of them, but some of them are probably called Sid. My father's second name was Bertie, a family tradition; it was generally coupled with Samuel, or Reginald, or Sidney. My brother and I were compelled to laugh uncontrollably through the first twenty minutes of "Independence Day" because the president shared our surname, and we just could not help ourselves.
None of the family members I know about is noticeably rich, so it's nice to see odd quirks of family tradition and inheritance (see my Art post) running through perfectly ordinary families.
I have no doubt that the reason I know virtually nothing of my extended family is that my mother died many years ago. It usually seems to be women who do the work of keeping in touch with family, I think—and of course, my Grandma had no particular reason to keep in touch with the cousins nth removed from the maternal side. Then again, my Nana managed to leave me and my siblings out of her will, when she died some thirty-five years later than her elder daughter. Hmm.
So my Family, the important ones, are my own husband and children, my sister and her husband and children, my brother, my uncle and his wife and son (my godson, but we've never been very close due to his mother being my uncle's divorced first wife), and my in-laws, Beast's father and brother. Plus, on the edge, my mother's sister and her husband and children, of whom I am rather fond. It's an exclusive group, particularly since my father died in 2008, after which his wife seemed not to be interested in remaining as stepmother, and I only keep in touch with her children in an occasional way (Christmas cards, and birthday exchanges with the eldest).
We're geographically quite well spread, in a wonky line across the bottom half of England from Norfolk to Devon (plus, ahem, an outpost in Tasmania), and we're not closely communicative. Now that my Bun and Boy are adults earning their own livings, we don't keep in touch on any kind of regular basis. My Dad used to phone every Sunday, for many years, but I've never established that kind of routine with my own children. Boy will indulge me with online chat at weekends, and Bun sometimes calls or texts. Same with my sister—we email, and occasionally phone, but have never got into any kind of regular routine with it.
There are probably some people reading who'd find that horrifying. Some people who call their parents/children every day, just to say hello. Actually, my stepmother is like that—she and her daughters are constantly on the phone to one another. I would find it stifling, and, well, weird. Possibly that's as much my dislike of talking on the telephone as my inability to understand why people can't just leave one another in peace! Anyhow, it works for us. And when we do call, or get together, we all get along very nicely, and don't go in for drama or family grudges or anything of that sort. Pretty healthy, as far as I can tell.
There are so many ways in which family can be painful. I've not had to deal with most of them, but even so, the pull between original and new family was quite saddening in my father's case. I was not, truth be told, that bothered that he favoured his last wife's grandchildren above his own, because my own kids had grown up while he was abroad, knowing and being loved by their paternal grandparents, and never saw a lot of him anyway. I always had a comfortable, quite intellectual, relationship with my father, and we got along very easily whenever we met. My sister, though, was deeply upset that he showed so little interest in her children, whom he never really got to know, whereas his new wife's daughter had two children who lived but a couple of miles away, and became the favoured grandchildren. Geographical distance is a significant factor, of course, but so is the will to visit, which was not lacking when it came to travelling to where one set of faraway kids lived, but was in very short supply regarding the other set. It's one of the things I was angry with my father about, and never told him (the other being the way he treated his mother, compared to the way he treated his new in-laws). I guess it is another aspect of the fact that women are far more likely to do the work of family-contact maintenance than men are, and my Dad just went along without ever noticing what he was missing.
I'm glad not to be an only child, but I'm also glad not to have a vast brood of relations with whom I need to maintain a relationship. I wonder if perhaps the fact that my sister and brother and I spent most of our childhoods apart makes it easier for us to get on together now? Sister and I attended different boarding schools, and even so people had a horrid tendency to describe me as 'the clever one' and her as 'the pretty one', which as you can imagine, does little for either's sense of self-worth. I know my sister was grateful not to be following my academic trail through secondary school. Our brother is nine years younger than I am, so we didn't have a lot in common until we were all quite grown-up.
I'm glad I have a nephew and a niece, it is fascinating to see them grow up in a completely different style to my own children. I do hope that there'll be a grandchild or two in a few years, but that's not something I can order or predict. I hope for friendly son- and daughter-in-law at some point, and will be willing to share Christmases. Or even to expand them enormously, if there are many agreeable in-laws who'd like to join in the fun. I believe it is possible to rent a large house for as much as a week at a time? Must look into this.
I'm also glad that I can rely on the members of my family whom I actually care about to behave decently when called upon to do so. A couple of examples: when my Grandma died, her will did not name my uncle's son, presumably because she'd made it a long time ago and never updated it. (Actually, we think she did update, but we couldn't find the new will. Take it to the Probate Office, people!) So her descendants got together and agreed on a revision which put that grandchild on a par with my brother, which we knew was what she'd wanted. By contrast, when my mother's mother died, there was a lot of fuss about the will, because she had left her house to the one son who'd never married but had stayed at home and looked after her. Which seemed to some of us an entirely reasonable thing to do. There were others, however, who thought all her property should have been divided evenly so that they could get the money right away, and there was a great to-do about it. Sense and decency did prevail, I don't know how, and when he died my uncle left his property equally between his siblings/their children. Which meant I and my siblings got a share, which was nice.
When That Woman's mother died, by further contrast, That Woman didn't even wait for any little matter of legality, she went through the house extracting what she wanted on her own behalf or on her son's. The deceased in this case was rather a wealthy woman, and there was plenty to go round, but That Woman did not for a moment hesitate to assert her own requirements above those of her sister and brother.
Overall, I suppose family as a concept is not one that I'm particularly interested in. It's possible that the reason is that I've always been secure in the parts of mine that matter to me, and have a select group of friends who are important to me as well. Frankly, I have more in common with most of you reading this than with one of my cousins whom I haven't seen in twenty years. I don't think I've ever been burdened with the need to prioritise FAAAAAAMILY, and from my addictive readings of Etiquette Hell, I'm very glad of it!
Only five days still available, here.
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no subject
Date: 2013-12-22 08:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-21 08:57 am (UTC)Personally I think your way of contact with your family makes sense. Better than the bad feelings when you don't visit or call daily that I get around these parts.