Is family cult-ish? This is what makes family harmful
Family can be a blessing but it can also be a very limiting factor in your life
The family cult? Yes, family and cults have more in common than you’d think. Does your family not live up to the traditional expectations of the happy families you see in tv shows? A lot of them don’t. And honestly, if they do, they’re usually dysfunctional in some other, under-the-surface type of way. Family can be a gift. But the reality is that, for a lot of people, it can be more of a prison than it should be.
When I was staying in a cute little Bed & Breakfast a while ago, the decor caught my attention. I didn’t bring much in terms of entertainment during my stay. And that meant I didn’t really have much to do while I was there.
So, I inspected my room; looking at the different pictures on the wall and the generic decor items with meaningless slogans like ‘Home is where the Heart is’ on them. There were candle holders too with a quote on them. It said: ‘Family is a Gift that Lasts Forever’.
The quote sounds very sweet, but it was definitely too sweet for my taste.
It almost felt ‘propaganda’-ish.
As if someone was trying real hard to convince me that family is the most important thing in the world. And it got me thinking. About the social ideas that exist around the word ‘family’. And how the family construct somewhat functions as a cult.
Short summary for quick readers
- Families can be very toxic yet we're still loudly declaring that 'family is the most important thing'. Why?
- Most people think that family means 'unconditional love', even when the love they give is very much conditional. Most families function like any group: they have rules about what is and isn't 'normal'.
- Families function on a certain level of conformity: everyone feels and thinks the same way and if you don't, you don't fit in. Families have set dynamics that only apply to that specific family.
- Family values is presented like a universal thing but the truth is that they differ from family to family. 'Not in this family' is a phrase that some of us are very familiar with.
- This family-propaganda only seems to work in favor of abusers and bigots. Because it creates a feeling of loyalty towards these people when no loyalty was earned. And when people do step out of line, they're shamed and othered. Sometimes completely ostracized.
- The concept of family should be open and flexible and if your family isn't that, find a chosen family that is. Cause family should be accepting of who you are. No matter who that is.
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The family cult: what family means
For a lot of people, family is not considered a gift.
Some people have families who do not accept them as they are. Some have very demanding families – toxic families even. Do they have to consider their family a gift, just because it is family?
I would even go as far as to say that most families have some level of toxicity in them.
So, if most families aren’t actually that ‘healthy’ or warm and welcoming, why are we so dead set on telling people about the importance of family? When families are actually just as flawed as any other group of people can be?
It all comes down to what we learn the word family means.
Most people think that just because DNA is shared, it means we owe each other something. Unconditional love, sacrifice, our time, energy and space. If you say it like that, it does sound like a gift that lasts forever. Who doesn’t want to get unconditional love, time, energy and space?
But this only works when all of the people involved are giving and receiving the exact same energy. If everyone involved benefits in the same way.
Because: who gets to define what we give and what we receive in a family? Who makes the rules on how we are supposed to love and respect each other?
And whenever something changes in the world, or the needs of someone in the family changes, who decides whether those rules need updating?
We’re all the same here
In a cult, conformity is key. Changing your beliefs, attitudes and basically everything else to match the other members of that cult. How do families fit into that?
Families consist of a whole bunch of different humans. And they are the combination and perfect representation of all the complexity that humanity brings with it. Yet we tend to hang on to the lie that everyone in a family is the same. That we look alike, think alike and have the same ideas of what a family should look like.
But the notion that everyone in a family is alike or is somehow similar is usually only accurate in small ways.
Like the ways that are provided by genetics because we might share the same bone structure or hair color. But when it comes to our character or the things we believe in, our hopes and dreams and our values, we could share the same behavior patterns, ideas, convictions as our next-door neighbor.
Of course, if your mom is a passionate person and you are too, you might have learned or inherited that trait from your mom. But there are literally a billion other people on the planet who share this character trait.
And they are not all family.
Yet, when it comes to family, there tend to be expectations of convictions, ideas and values. And it’s those expectations of conformity that actually make families restrictive for a lot of people.
Expectations in the family cult
Instead of some genetically determined collection of similarities, families should actually be seen as tiny societies. A whole bunch of tiny societies co-existing within the bigger society that we all live in. Every part of the family construct forms its own little bubble with its own rules and values. That everyone living in it is conditioned with.
Think about how your close family patterns and rules differ from the rules that apply when you gather for an uncle’s birthday, for example. In my family, when it was just the six of us, we got to be loud and rowdy. When we went to visit our grandma, with other family present, we had to tone it down a little.
There were specific rules about how we should act in certain situations. What we were allowed to say and do. And certain things had to stay behind closed doors. Because no one needed to know or see that.
Really think about your own family construct and how this applies to your situation. Everybody born in the family learns the do’s and don’ts of that family. Everybody gets their assigned role of brother, mother; even uncles, cousins and grandparents.
Each of these roles comes with their own unique expectations of behavior.
Every family has an idea of what a father should be like, what kids can or can not do. Whether cousins are close to each other, how uncles treat one another.
Sexism and other issues come into play. Do the women serve the food and drinks when there’s a birthday? Are we accepting the fact that our niece brought home a guy who is not white? Is it OK for uncle Jeff to make inappropriate jokes about his brother’s wife? Is your brother’s coming out something that can be openly discussed?
Family values in the family construct
Families have their own rehearsed behavioral patterns that have existed for so long. They may have changed slightly in all those years. But everyone born or brought into this tiny society immediately learns and adjusts to the values of that family.
“Family values” is usually used like a broad term that can be explained a certain way. Like a concept that just provides one simple explanation. When conservatives talk about “family values”, it’s always about one certain idea of the traditional family. And there usually isn’t a whole lot of wiggle room.
But if family values are such a universal notion, then why are all families different?
Some families always celebrate the holidays together, others try to stay away from each other as much as possible. Some only send cards for birthdays while others all gather for every possible celebration. Why do some families barely speak to each other? Why is it normal for the kids to get beat up in some families but not in others?
“Family values” differ. They are different across the world, across the country, even across the street.
So how can we claim that ‘family’, and with that ‘family values’, is this divine notion that needs to be respected and worshipped at all times?
The importance of family is preached more universally than any religion. And yet the concept of family is used as a justification of just as many acts of violence or micro-aggressions. We can not agree on which God to worship. But we do all agree that family is the most important thing in the world.
But only if you do it right.
Rejected by the family cult
Because if you don’t, you are either considered not ‘a real family’ by the outside. Or you are completely cast aside and not worthy of even belonging to such an exclusive, loving group.
If you don’t manage to comply with the rules and values of the family you were born in, you will either be forced to accommodate and adjust or you will no longer be considered a member of this like-minded group of people. And even if you are lucky enough to be accepted, there might be things you would have to do or adjust when you go outside of your own little bubble.
Like having to dress ‘normal’ on family outings. When you would much rather dress in ways that don’t align with your family’s ideas of what a woman should look like.
‘Not in this family’.
A sentence so familiar to many of us.
If not in that family, then honestly, find a family in which you get to. If your family can not grasp the fact that every human is unique and different, then they do not truly understand what it means to be a family.
For a lot of people, their chosen family has been more of a family to them than the people sharing their DNA. If the family provided to you through birth is not giving you what you need, then you should be allowed to rearrange your life. And if your family can not understand your views on life and does not fit your perspective, then why not surround yourself with a new family that does?
If your family is toxic and abusive, you should not have to put up with it just because you have the same cheek bones.
The family cult propaganda
The propaganda machine of ‘family values’ only seems to work in favor of the abusers. The transphobes, the misogynists and the actual people perpetrating violence against their own flesh and blood.
Because it makes sure that the subject of their abuse feels like they owe it to their family to stay in this situation. To be a “good” daughter, sister, mother. To just sit quietly with your feelings of discomfort because family is a blessing. And if you don’t feel that way, then it’s on you.
“Family is the most important thing” keeps us stuck in feelings of guilt and shame when we don’t actually feel “blessed” by the family we have.
There’s all this subtle conditioning in the world, about what family means and what a “real” family should look like. It really feels like the ‘traditional family’ as it’s been advertized to us, is about control. About conformity and staying “in line”.
Just look at who actually loves to advertise the ‘family values’ of ‘traditional families’; a religion filled with pedophiles, misogyny and bigotry.
And this subtle conditioning is used in not so subtle ways to put people back in their place. By shaming the ones who did get away. The people who said “no more” to the family cult and cut ties with a parent or sibling.
And of course the family propaganda machine works overtime in those cases too. In the form of claiming an abusive parent is ‘still your father’.
But someone is not ‘still your brother’ if they have proven over and over again that you are worthless to them.
Genetics mean nothing if the ones who are supposed to be a “gift” that “lasts forever” are your first and only bullies.
Family shouldn’t be a cult
The concept of family should be open and flexible, ready to adjust to all its members whenever needed. Family should be open to change and rearrange. Instead of a toxic clinging to each other because 50% of our genetic make-up might match.
Every human is unique. Every human is worthy of being surrounded by people who support them and love them no matter what.
Whether this is your genetic family tree or a self-chosen group of like-minded people.
Family can be the gift that lasts forever. But only if it means that you get to be who you are at all times. That it is okay for you to be yourself, even if you change over and over again.
It means you love and accept each other, you respect each other, and you will do so forever.
