Would you rather your family were close-knit or high achieving?
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Anonymous
| My family of origin is very high achieving -- a lot of Ivy League degrees and a lot of success, but a lot of coldness and dysfunction. I look at my "Uncle Fred" who is much less successful and less educated than my parents and whom my parents have always basically sneered at, but his kids are close, loving, and attentive to each other and to their parents. Am I romanticizing this? My family is successful and smart and I share my parent's political values but I don't feel my sibs are there for me, or that my kids have cousins who are there for them, other than Uncle Fred and the second cousins. Thoughts? |
Anonymous
I want my family to be happy and fulfilled. And birds of a feather.. .
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Anonymous
| I'd definitely rather have close family relationships, with parents and kids who are affectionate and supportive. I'm not sure it's necessarily one v. the other, but it can be. The fact that your parents sneer at someone because they don't have the same level of education and money is a sign that their values are skewed. |
Anonymous
| One does not preclude the other. It's hard for me to imagine that anyone doesn't *want* to have a close knit family, but at least in my case it's virtually impossible for the personalities involved. That's one of the things I love most about DH's family and what we're hoping to have for our kids. |
Anonymous
My family is the same way. A boatload of degrees and high powered career highlights, but not a thimbleful of sense when it comes to basic human interactions and the meaning of family. At any given time, there are so many warring factions that, except for my siblings, I just don't invite any of my relatives to anything any more. I already know that I am going to treat my children lovingly and raise them to treat others kindly first and foremost. Degrees mean nothing when held by mean, heartless people whose marriages and lives have crumbled around them. The personality traits that ruin families will also destroy the rewards of high achievements in the end. My parents squandered over a million dollars dragging each other through a nasty years-long divorce and they tanked the value of their properties to spite each other. Now, both have their finances in shambles and much less accomplished people have far exceeded them. |
Anonymous
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I don't think it has to be one or the other! But as someone who comes from a very supportive and loving extended family, no I don;t think you are romanticizing it. Its pretty awesome. My DH feels so at home with my extended family and that warms my heart. When we go visit (they are all about 5 hours away driving where my parents also live) they spoil my DS rotten with the amount of hands on playing he gets during those visits from young and old alike.
That said, I know a lot of people who for various reasons don't have that and have wonderful and happy family lives on a smaller scale. Often they tend to try to be the one that starts that for their own kids. |
Anonymous
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I vote close knit!
Our families are neither close knit nor high achieving... |
Anonymous
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Close knit without being too clannish or stand offish - if that is possible.
DH's family thinks they are close knit, but only when they want something. Also, they are very exclusionary, and proud of it. They are awkward and awful. My family is high achieving, and usually close knit, though we don't have to live near each other to be close. I would feel terrible if my family needed to be located close by in order to be close - that would actually not be "close" at all, to me. |
Anonymous
| Both. My family is and I love, love, love it. |
Anonymous
+ 1. In fact, I believe that the high achievement is because of the closeness. People don't do well in isolation, we need the village and the emotional support of belonging with a family - so that we can achieve. |
Anonymous
OP here. What if there is an obsession with achievement? |
Anonymous
| closeness. To me, life is about connections, relationships, not necessarily about achievements, although that is great, too. |
Anonymous
| Closeness. We are not high achievers in the traditional sense but have all gotten lucky through street smarts and found creative ways to get wealthy. I think that the lack of pretentiousness has freed us from being focused on who has what, and instead had allowed us to be free to be who we are….we all love one another ~ My parents and siblings all live within 8 miles of one another, so there are 8 grandchildren under 8 for my parents to dote on. Its really a great way to grow up, and my SIL's and I all SAH so the family bonding time is a real gift. |
Anonymous
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High achieving all the way - who needs closeness when you can wrap yourself in your dollar bills!
What a silly question - the way you framed it like they're opposites and leading to one "good answer". Maybe your question is how do you create closeness regardless in a family? |
Anonymous
| I do think in some cases these characteristics are mutually exclusive. Families of people who are very competitive with one another regarding their degrees or jobs are probably not that close. I have experienced this, and have also witnessed the collective pity for the side of the family that is more normal and less superstar (but apparently totally happy and well adjusted). |