What is Family?

A friend of mine sat through a video presentation at her church from a well known Christian organization. It was a series of people telling what "family" is to them. I put family in quotes because they described family differently than the dictionary. Family was described as is politically correct ... people who love each other, but not necessarily related to one another. Most of us hear the word family and understand that it means our mother, father, sisters, brothers, grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. According to dictionary.com, a family is "parents and their children, considered as a group, whether dwelling together or not." You have to get to the seventh definition before you get to one describing a family as anything beyond mom, dad and the kids. The seventh definition is: "a group of persons who form a household under one head, including parents, children, and servants." That's obviously a historical definition.

So what I want to know is - what have they been teaching kids in school since I got out? I don't remember learning that family was just any group of people who love each other and choose to be a family. Family is something you are stuck with. I didn't get to pick my parents or my brother. I DID get to pick my husband and in-laws (by extension). For better or for worse, I'm stuck with them now ... my kids are stuck with them ... their kids are stuck with them, etc.....

If we get to choose who is in our family, I have a bunch of people I want to kick out and replace with friends. Do I have to make any kind of commitment to these members of my "family" or can I change my list on a day-to-day basis? Should people in my family have to check the roster to see if they are in or out? I guess I could publish a list on the Internet so that everyone can make sure.

Love does not make a family, God does. Or, for the Darwinian evolutionists among us, biology makes a family. Love strengthens a family. Love also binds each of us emotionally to many people who are not family. You can avoid your family and move in with your friends and call them family, but that doesn't make it so. I can call myself a monkey, but whether I like it or not, I'm human.

You can define family any way you want, but I'm holding the line with the tried and true, God-given - mom, dad, kids, etc.