Diamonds are Forever Like Family
How important is a family?
A dysfunctional family is better than no family at all.
As the rain poured in undulating waves that evening, these wise words by my cousin imprinted their value in my brain.
It’s strange how we came to this conclusion. She is the one family member, extended family, whose meet-ups I enjoy because we have such discussions. They get deep and windy and both of us leave having learned something new.
The only other friend who we might share such discussions is miles away, in the world down under, Australia.
So whenever I meet my cousin, I know we will have a good conversation. This evening was no exception.
It started when I asked her what she considers mature. She is older than me and felt I would benefit from getting her perspective.
In her line of work, she interacts with people who buy homes. They have small families. Her nuclear family, not her own but that which she was brought up in, was large. Four children and she is the firstborn.
She averred that a man is not mature if he has not raised a family. In addition, a woman is not mature until she has experienced childbirth. I challenged that with an example of a shipping crew that has stayed for years in the open waters with the crew members sticking with each other through the unpredictable waves of life and the seas, but it boiled down to the family that one was brought up in.
A family was irreplaceable.
If there is anything I will remember this year, for the rest of my life, it is this single statement that we agreed on about family. Here’s my armchair analysis.
First, a viewpoint from evolution
Of course, I had to look at it from an evolutionary point of view.
Take the example of the mammals close to home — cats. Cats don’t just give birth to a single kitten. They produce a litter. Even in the absence of a father, the mother rears the kitten often by herself. There is little the father offers. I use this example to feature the single parents out there doing the most to keep their families intact.
Kittens, as they grow, indulge in the reasons we tend to like having them in our houses — play. Get a string, dangle it in front of one, and witness the little animal take out its claws trying to pin it down. Or light up a red spot and watch how it chases it down.
Play is an essential component of animals as they grow up. Of note, however, was that in the absence of these modern products, kittens still played.
Picture that moment when you whacked your brother or sister so hard they started crying. You could then offer that they beat you just as hard to avoid the confrontation you would otherwise have gotten from your mother or father. Often from your mother. At times from your elder sibling.
Play teaches one to be aware of the vulnerable states. It even makes one position themselves in vulnerable positions. I recall when playing ‘police and robber’, how I could flirt with police who I was sure could not outrun me. I could tease them a bit. I could make myself a wee bit vulnerable to tease the other into playing.
For the kitten, they do just that. Having several of them, rather than a single one, helps them exploit these offshoots of a large family. By playing among themselves, they reap the positive outcomes of letting loose and losing control.
Subjecting oneself to vulnerability is exposing oneself to unpredictability. How you react in this state better positions you for future unpredictable states. The difference is that this one is done in a fun way. Fun gives it a chance to happen again in the future.
Iterating the playing process does more. It lets the kitten know when they have crossed the line, what is acceptable, and how to fit in. In my theory of Organismal Selection, I argue that a family is an organism since it is stronger than solitary individuals. This becomes evident when the cats, such as lions, begin hunting as juveniles.
Large families are micro-environments for nurturing the members even in the absence of the parents. The firstborn often acts as the authority figure. They will learn how to settle disputes, ways of executing ‘justice’, and when not to intervene by just letting things evolve as they should. The young one is playing with a candle flame? Let her learn. Only in a large family does one get the confidence to let the events unfold without intervening.
As J. Cole says:
Hurt brings wisdom
Wisdom brings a whole ‘nother sort of understandin’
By knowing how to fit in, what’s acceptable and what’s not, and how to interact with others, one can also start a family by approaching a member of the opposite sex after years of being chiseled by these qualities.
Large families are a nexus for creating moments of awareness that are absent in small families. It could explain why many social species give birth to many offspring. It could explain why a mother cat does not just rear a single kitten.
In urban times
I don’t have children.
I am not married.
I just turned 30.
In the 1700s, I could have been lucky to clock this age. Humans were used to dying right around this time. The luckier ones would get to 40.
I live in a house, but I don’t have a home. I don’t have a wife (yet). I don’t have children. Nobody feels it’s abnormal. I cleared campus at 28. I started working immediately and finished my internship at 29. Totally normal, especially for someone who did medicine and surgery in their undergrad.
Now, imagine if someone just like me had a single child. This child would not have this very important micro-environment we have already seen in the litter of kittens. They would not know how to fit in. They would not know how to make decisions in the absence of the parent. They would not know how to play or the subtle techniques of mischief. Mischievousness is healthy once in a while when playing but they will not learn this.
In studies done on rhesus monkeys raised as solitary offspring, they have been noted to be more aggressive or lonely than those who have been raised in bigger families. The ones in large families know aggression will not always give you what you want. They know how to consider.
Circling back to the question I asked my cousin, we centered on a single trait we both agreed on — being considerate.
To be mature is to be considerate.
Those who have grown up in large families learn to be considerate of others because they were once given this luxury at home. Grace is a better term than luxury. They know mistakes happen. Grace and understanding allow you to resolve these micro-situations when they occur.
Fathers, having raised such families, know the importance of being patient and considerate. Mothers, knowing the pain of childbirth and the hardships that come with raising a child either alone or with a support structure, know the importance of patience. They are considerate. That is a central trait of maturity lacking in many arguments I see on social media.
Social media.
That deceptive phrase. It makes you think you’re engaging in social behaviour. A like is not a marker of approval. Many people like your status just so they can slide to your DM and initiate a conversation hoping it results in conjugal handshakes. Or for them to sell you their product, a habit often seen on LinkedIn. Or a follow-for-follow strategy, a pointless strategy honestly. There’s nothing meaningfully social about these actions.
If I am in the presence of my brothers and sisters, and I take a large piece of ugali, what I used to do when I was younger, I would get stares that would kill the hardiest of warriors. I learned to consider the rest. I had responsibility. On social media, responsibility is a foreign concept, especially with usernames that hide away your real-world identity.
You can be in groups, but not talking. You could be in communities but don’t engage in communal activities. You could have joined a page but only see the admins chatting. These are not social.
If you’re a single parent and are already struggling to raise your single child, it might not be your fault that your child will lack these essential features. They lack the molding micro-environment that comes with having a large family. If you have opted to go to school and start your family in your thirties, then having a single child sets it up for future challenges.
First, this is a precious child. You won’t want it to be hurt. You raise it in a bubble of safety. The world, however, is not safe. Picture the kitten and how they alternate between vulnerable (prey) and controlling (predator) states. They learn early enough how to respond to unpredictable states. Overt protection does not position your child to better respond to how the world operates.
Constant online engagement makes them have a distorted reality of what social engagement is. They could be the chattiest online but lack the skills to initiate and most importantly, sustain a conversation with others.
Social media.
But that’s not all.
Air BnB has a role in this. Most house owners prefer letting apartments as Air BnB spaces rather than families. Families have a history of delayed or unpaid rent. It makes entrepreneurial sense to have the space for people who pay immediately than those who wouldn’t pay at all. The rates are even better than letting the spaces to families. The rates even improve over time much faster.
The result is families get hit. Families need to have a space where they can grow. Reducing this space in the name of business destroys the environment that has existed for millions of years. New York has already started changing laws for those renting their spaces for these services.
J. Cole reiterates:
Look at the youth just like a precious pebble
Meant to be protected, mentally we let this
Poison of Western philosophy make it sloppy
We forgot we are the chosen
In the absence of an environment that nourishes a family, individuals suffer. A single hurtful event gets shared online, gaslit and everybody joins in on the hate. Aggression reigns, patience dwindles, grace fades.
In the past, families that had despicable parents would still find ways of sticking together. The mother and the children would know early enough the different traits of the young and the elderly; when to act and when to remain silent; when to forgive immediately, take time, and when to draw the line.
It is not surprising that a council would be called to settle disputes. The council comprised members who have raised successful families. Successful, might be stretching it, but they had families to take care of.
Beyonce shocked the world when she spoke of Jay-Z’s extra-marital affairs. Yes, one has the right to be mad. But we don’t know how they handled it. They are still a couple, stronger than ever. When you look at their families, Jay-Z had two other siblings. Beyonce has four. I cannot say that it is the reason they are still together, but I can bet that it helped the family during that tumultuous period.
What gets shared online is the ills, gossip, and shame — the perfect recipe for sharable content. It confers aggressive behaviour rather than patience and considerate stances. These can get shaped in large families but sadly don’t get shared as much on our most used platforms. Everybody thus ends up having a distorted form of reality.
So…
What I’m trying to say…
Families are invaluable, irreplaceable, and inexcusable.
Natural Selection did not exclude it for a reason.
That’s precisely why I’m blessin’ you with clear-cut messages
Not quite clear cut, but you can be a wee bit considerate and notice that I tried.
