I have reached my own decisions about family — and they mirror yours. I make a point of telling others who are bemoaning their family that there is NO obligation to like (let alone love) people just because they happen to share your DNA. NONE. As you have said, your family, your REAL family, is the people you CHOOSE to be a part of your life — common DNA or not.
My parents would like your brother…yup, they voted for 45 as well. My mother speaks glowingly about how he is a Christian (choke) and my father regurgitates Faux News regularly. My brother is 7.5 years younger…and lightyears apart from me. We haven’t spoken to each other in more than 5 years — not because of fights or anger, but because we have nothing in common to talk about. (Except our parents.) All of my grandparents are dead; so are the aunts and uncles (the few I had).
My parents live more than 1700 miles away from me and I like it like that. No dropping in, no uncomfortable holiday meals. We speak on the telephone semi-regularly — about once a month (and I usually wait until they call me). I have had to set boundaries for topics: no politics, nothing related to politics, no religion, and of course, nothing about sex, but we’ve always had that rule. Their heads would spin if they knew about how I get my freak on. HAHA
I have nothing in common with these two elderly Evangelical Christian Conservative Republican people who are just waiting to die to go to Heaven and be with Jesus. On the other hand, my mother has informed me that she is not going to die…Jesus is coming again and she will leave the Earth with him. (And so will my dad, my brother and his wife and their 2 sons; because I am not a Christian, will I please go to their house and take care of the post-departure stuff like selling it all?) <beating my head against the wall because it feels so good>
And in a very odd twist of fate, my husband’s family has become more of a family to me than my own, DNA-related one. I actually refer to them as “in-loves”. They call me daughter, not daughter-in-law. We speak to them at least once a week and usually almost daily.
The Great American Family (and ALL of the baggage that brings with it) is as much a myth as The Rugged Individual and Manifest Destiny and a whole lot of other Americanisms we tell ourselves — and each other. Given the reality of life in this world, family is not, and should not be, about people who share genetic information with you. That’s just happenstance, a roll of the dice. Family is, and should be, the people who genuinely love you, care about what happens to you, cry when you cry, hold you when life is overwhelming, celebrates your wins and consoles your losses. These are the people who not only may not share DNA, they may look wildly different from you, may not share a common mother tongue, and may be people your DNA family would not like (but that’s not your problem, is it?).
Everyone needs to have a REAL family — and if yours happens to also be DNA related, that’s nice. But it’s not necessary.
Peace and blessings.