Beauty and body image

Family and Framilies- What it means to me

I find it interesting when I hear people's thoughts of what family means to them. When I tell people, I adopted my daughter or when I was going to have my hysterectomy, the reaction was don't you want your own children, or having your own child is different to looking after someone else's child even though Layla was part of our family for over four years. That's that person's prerogative but don't dismiss my motherly love for my child or think I could love a 'biological' child more as I KNOW I couldn’t. It did make me think though that when their children marry, what kind of pressure would be put on them to have their 'biological' children but may not be able to due to whatever reasons. I am questioned by many how come my daughter calls me mom but why wouldn't she. She’s only known me as her mum and not her birth mum. I always think why society accepts someone as their family just because they are in a live in relationship or are married. They too are not 'blood' but a stranger you happen to fall in love and are committed to for the rest of your life so why can't that happen for a person who has been adopted? My well intentional friends say to me that Layla is so lucky to be with my family. However, this just feeds into the notion that she is not worthy of being loved and that she was lucky we adopted her. She will feel the abandonment when she grows up and think did my parents not love me enough that they rejected me. The notion of lucky means to me that I won the lottery, or I found my missing wallet. It also feeds into the notion that we as humans are not capable of loving anyone except our blood relations. For me blood is not thicker than water, as family relationships are not stronger or more important than friendships. When I say this, I’m not talking about my parents or my brothers but the more extended family. She didn’t ask to come into this world, nor did she ask to be born into a family who are unable to look after her but that does not mean we adopted her out of pity or sympathy. Growing up there was only myself, my older brother and my parents. My younger brother was born when I was 14. I knew the important and value of family and that’s why we are such a close-knit one but as there was only us, I knew the value of friendships too. My mum has taught us to look beyond the skin colour, the class, the religion, the gender, the sexuality and to just love unconditionally. When I talk about another person in my life who is my family, it confuses so many friends. They initially think he is my daughter's 'real grandad' due to the same skin colour, then when I say he has 'adopted' my daughter as his own grandchild and me as his own daughter, it throws them even more. He came into my life when I was 28 years old and we met through horrific circumstances and I can't even say it was because of that, we bonded. Why? Well, his son died, and my brother died. It was his only child; I have an older brother. I say this as when I meet other parents whose children have died, I hear most of them say they can't relate to siblings whose sibling has died or parents who have living children as their grief is different. Yet he is family to me, and he knows everything about me, and he is the only one I tell everything to except my 'family' that I live with. I actually googled to see if a word exists to explain our relationship/ friendship and guess what it does! Framily meaning that good friends are the family we choose ourselves and well that’s Shaun.

For me family does not mean blood family or tied up through a legal document, it means just that, I chose a friend to become part of my family and that does not just mean anyone. It has to be justified and for me to actually feel they are my family and for them to make me feel I am there’s too. I guess that’s why it has taken all these years for me to find someone and I chose Mr Grumpy. His love is unconditional, and he does things for me that family would do and from the heart, sometimes without me even knowing. If anyone wants to talk about luck, then I guess I can say I’m lucky as I have two people who are not related to me through blood but love as their own.