Most people love their family, and would do anything for them. What I want to know is this: is that love given because it's earned, or just because you're "supposed to" love your family, whether they deserve it or not?
Love is pretty much the highest honour you can bestow on a person. You wouldn't feel love for just any random person, because a complete stranger hasn't had a chance to earn it. So why, I wonder, should relatives get it for free?
Let me give you an example of what I mean:
I stopped talking to/seeing my father years ago, and to be honest, I never loved him. I never even liked him. He abused his wife and kids. He spent his wages on alcohol. He manipulated and intimidated everyone around him. So I turned my back on him. To this day, I get sh*t for it from relatives, including my mother (the woman he abused for so many years), because "he's still your dad." As far as they're concerned, I should still speak to, respect and even love the man, because I'm related to him. If any other man treated me the way he did, they would no doubt tell me to stay away from him, or call the police. By their logic, blood relations are an iron-clad duty to love an abuser.
But if I did love him, despite his utter unworthiness of love (from me anyway), what would that love be worth? Is love given for free to anyone who asks for it worth as much as love given as a reward for moral character and respectability? I don't think so.
On the other hand, I love my mother. I won't go into detail, but suffice to say she has shown enough moral fibre and strength of character in my lifetime to deserve love and respect.
But let's hear your opinions, RYL. Should we love our family simply because they're family? And is such love, given for free, worth the same as love earned? Is it worth anything at all?
No, we should not love them just because they are family. They are people who are capable or right and wrong and how much right they do should dictate how much they are in our lives.
You can't love what you don't respect. It can be quite natural to not love a parent who is abusive, aloof etc. The sticky wicket is that it IS wrong to hate them. Parents and kids are psychically bonded. Any kid with minimal conscience will feel a secret shame and sadness about hating a parent. A lot of people have bad self image and a self loathing. Resenting a parent is often where it started even if subtle.
I was always of the opinion that I love my family because I have to, and I love my friends because I want to.
I don't think that any more. The love I have for my mum and dad is completely different to the love I have for my sisters.
I know that I can trust my sisters with my life, and they know they can expect the same off me.
This doesn't apply to my extended family though. I quite like seeing them every so often nowadays because we've only really established a relationship whilst my dad was dying, but I like knowing they're there and I have a certain strange affection for them.
You can't love what you don't respect. It can be quite natural to not love a parent who is abusive, aloof etc. The sticky wicket is that it IS wrong to hate them. Parents and kids are psychically bonded. Any kid with minimal conscience will feel a secret shame and sadness about hating a parent. A lot of people have bad self image and a self loathing. Resenting a parent is often where it started even if subtle.
I don't feel even a little bad about absolutely loathing some of my relatives and I have a terribly active conscience. Some things are beyond forgiveness.
There are different forms of love. I think that for most of us who love our families it is because we spent years with them and they contributed to the formation of our identities. They are how we learned to interact with others. If they contributed to nothing but pain then love probably isn't the feeling that will be formed. Most of the time it is probably a combination of pain and joy that we experience with our families and bonds are formed through this, and occasionally broken. This doesn't apply to family members who we did not spend time around. For most of my extended family I care for them the same way I would care for any other fellow human being. I think the same thing can apply to friends, but we don't spend years being essentially forced to be around them. When you're a kid living at home it's easier to walk away from an annoying new friend than it is to walk away from a family member. It's easier to walk away before any kind of deep bond is formed. I can't apply what I experience to everyone of course, but I have difficulty walking away from anyone who has managed to attach themselves to me, or vice versa. As a result I've loved plenty of people who probably haven't deserved it. But for me love is free and it doesn't depend upon getting anything in return from that person. It doesn't even depend upon that person sticking around. Once an attachment is formed I can't break it. I actually commend you for being able to break away from your father, and I'm glad for your sake that you don't feel the burden that loving him might have brought you. With some people, family or not, there comes a time to walk away. Hatred tends to be self-destructive and would be a burden if you felt it, but I see nothing wrong with your lack of love for him.
I've thought about this a lot, as well. Because I hear so often, "you should respect your mother and father because they fed you and gave you a bed!"
But honestly, even though, to an extent, I agree with that statement...
I don't.
I do not expect any possible future children of mine to respect me simply because I kept them alive. I really don't. Not that I think it's not a comendable (sp?) act, but you do NOT have to love a family that hurts you. You do not have to love a family member if they hurt you.
My family gets angry when I call my grandfather by his name, instead of papaw, or whatever. It'd because he's never acted like my grandfather. He doesn't call me his granddaughter. He has never treated me like family. If anything, he's treated me like I shouldn't even be there, while he worships the ground that his other two grand daughters walk on.
Quite frankly, it's crap and I hate him for making me feel like scum at such a young age, then telling me I'm a brat for nt appreciating anything. Even though hate is bad and such... And I grew up very religious, so direspecting family was like being possesed by God-knows-what. I really felt terrible for a long time. But now I call him his name, because he barely knows mine.
So... Yeah, I have more stories. That's only one. But I'll stop. You get the idea.
I do not think you should have love your family, no matter what.
Bare with typos and such, I'm doing this all with an iPod. ^^
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
la la la la la la la la la
to the day in my new era
My love is given freely to everyone. Not just family.
And even when I get hurt, I still love the person who hurt me. The love never goes away.
Like my ex best friend, she screwed me over and over and over. I would go and pick her up during suicidal rages from her boyfriends house, that stank of cat wee, an hour away from my house. I gave and gave and she never returned it. She was less than grateful!
So even though I still love her, and would go get her if she needed me too, I can't be friends with her. I don't socialise with her anymore at all.
Same with my grandparents on my mother's side. I'll always love them but I won't meet with them or talk to them.
When I want kids I want to teach them the importance of love freely given, respect always earned and protection of the self always maintained.
Let go when you’re hurting too much, give up when love isn’t enough and move on when things are not like before. There is someone out there who will love you even more,
surely then, you will know true love.
^Just interested to know, how do you convey to your grandparents on your mothers side that you still love them if you won't meet or talk with them? Or is conveying your love for them not as important to you personally as knowing for yourself that you love them, whether they realise that or not? Because they must have noticed a change in your attitude towards them now contacted has stopped. Different balance to achieve I think (sorry if this comes across as critical, I don't mean to be, genuinely interested to know your views on this)
Have been thinking about this since you posted yesterday and still don't have a concrete answer yet
^Just interested to know, how do you convey to your grandparents on your mothers side that you still love them if you won't meet or talk with them? Or is conveying your love for them not as important to you personally as knowing for yourself that you love them, whether they realise that or not? Because they must have noticed a change in your attitude towards them now contacted has stopped. Different balance to achieve I think (sorry if this comes across as critical, I don't mean to be, genuinely interested to know your views on this)
Have been thinking about this since you posted yesterday and still don't have a concrete answer yet
That's a good point! I made a great deal of effort to maintain a relationship and include them in my life but they threw it back in my face. So in order to protect myself from more emotional harm I have withdrawn contact.
I guess knowing that I still love them for myself is more important.
With my friend who I don't talk to anymore I sent her a letter saying that I was taking a step back from our friendship because her actions had upset me.
My grandparents (who are divorced) have really messed my mum about and damaged our family. I love them because they are family but I neither respect or like them.
Let go when you’re hurting too much, give up when love isn’t enough and move on when things are not like before. There is someone out there who will love you even more,
surely then, you will know true love.
I think absolutely not. They are biologically related only and should have to earn respect and love just like anyone else. There shouldn't be any special treatment just because they have a slightly higher genetic similarity to you than the general population. I think the attitude that children have a duty to love their parents is what often allows parents/family to think various abuse or neglect is somehow acceptable. It seems to me people use the "they have to love me because i'm their family" to hide from how they are really treating their family and not be responsible for it. It just doesn't make sense to me that a parent or other family member should have any more leeway to hurt you than someone else, in fact I think parents/guardians should be held to higher standards than non-family, since they are in a position of authority, and they chose to have the child in their life, the child had no choice in it. Both the authority and free will aspect to me put them at a higher level of responsibility for earning love and respect than a friend or stranger, not lower. Not that family won't make mistakes, in fact far from it since families tend to be in closer quarters relationship wise and flaws come out easier, but they should still be responsible to show respect, love, and willingness to work at a relationship just like any other relationship, not take it for granted that family will never leave them so they can do whatever.
Stereotypes are the epitome of human laziness.
- me
