Family stories that become family "language"
IdaClaire
8 years ago
last modified: 8 years ago
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lascatx
8 years agoYayagal
8 years agoRelated Discussions
my blended family is falling apart
Comments (7)I think it's going to be a hard road in your situation, even if it ultimately works out. Coming into the life of any ***teenager*** ---no matter how perfect/imperfect either the SK or the SP (or the BP) is or isn't--- there are many classic & predictable issues that must be worked through. (In addition to just the ones of classic, typical adolesence itself). Again, this isn't a sign that the blended family is failing, just going through its natural processes. Where many people unfortunately make a mistake and end up making a stressful adjustment so much worse (and into permanent rifts sometimes) is when these normal things get turned into Major Malfunctions. Somebody always ends up in therapy, but usually not together. Everyone's feeling unsure, ambivalent, yadda yadda yadda, and the impulse is to ascertain who is "The Problem". Chrisb123 correctly points out that there tends to be a 'scapegoat' in these situations. And that role is free-floating and in a constant state of negotiation. It's all too easy for an SP to feel like a scapegoat (after all, they are the "new" element). But this tends to foul up the nice new marriage and in any event still doesn't take away the tense, unsure feelings all around. It is quickly deemed undesirable as a group dynamic, especially by the parent and step-parent, who tend to have more power and means in the family and thus more ability to adjust the dynamic. Thus the next phase in the blended family adjustment is often to swiftly invert the 'scapegoat' role onto the SK. Thus, he becomes the lone 'problem' on the therapists' couch. ("See? He's IN THERAPY... He must be THE PROBLEM...") And SK gets rightly angry about it, feeling....well... scapegoated, and maybe starts to develop more serious anger with the SK. And the BP. So the therapy doesn't tend to "stick" too good at this point, in that scenario. The whole family needs to go to therapy together, period, to work together so that NOBODY has to erroneously feel like The Problem....See MoreJapanese New Year traditions: a family's story
Comments (5)My grandfather and grandmother, after coming to the USA, initially lived in an apartment in New York. I don't know which borough. (Edit: Manhattan, W 103rd x West End, very close to Columbia University.) My grandfather was a senior electrical engineer in China, in charge of major power plants. He told me stories of being bombed by enemy aircraft, hiding in the ditches by his power plant. In the USA, his degrees and experience were not recognized, so he found work as a junior draftsman at an engineering company. He went to college as he worked and eventually got his US electrical engineering bachelor's degree, graduating with my uncle who got his EE masters on the same day. By then his company had long since promoted him to a position closer to his experience level. (Edit: after working in the US for about a decade, he had saved enough to buy our family house in New Jersey. He loved owning a big house in the suburbs, mowing the grass with his riding mower, planting cherry trees and vegetable gardens on the large lot. His favorite TV was basketball, and his team was Philadelphia. I remember the championship series between the 76ers and the Trailblazers, my grandparents glued to the screen cheering on Dr. J.) Back to the New York apartment. When young Chinese came to New York from Taiwan, many were referred to my grandparents through connections back in Taiwan or China. They'd come to the apartment and my grandparents took them in, taught them English, helped them figure their way around New York, dress like Americans, find jobs, find a place to live. When my grandfather died, a thousand people came to his funeral, including many people of my father's generation. I didn't understand how they knew him until I asked some of them and learned that they'd come through my grandparents' apartment in New York back in the 1950s (edit: and early 1960s.) My father also remembers being attacked by enemy aircraft. When the family was traveling southward in China to escape the war, my grandmother was in charge of the four children as my grandfather had gone ahead to find a way out of the country. They rode on trains sometimes, other times they got rides on trucks. Imagine hundreds of thousands of people fleeing the fighting, all trying to go south and find an escape, among soldiers headed for the front and other soldiers deserting. My grandmother came from a wealthy family in rural China. Her family was rich enough that her feet were bound as a young girl; she wasn't supposed to do anything but be served. She would visit a more modern friend who secretly unbound her feet, so she retained the ability to walk although she had foot problems her whole life. She had money and connections, but with the country at war sometimes they had to walk and sometimes they couldn't find a place to stay, so they had to sleep in the fields. One day enemy aircraft tried to machine-gun them in a field. My dad remembers they ran and hid as the planes dove and strafed. 30 years later, I used to watch her cooking and cleaning in their New Jersey house, and think how different her life had turned out than, as a young girl, she might have thought it would....See MoreSo do you know your family history?
Comments (27)We never knew much about my father's paternal ancestry, as his parents had divorced when he was young. But my brother was able to access ancestry information through his career, which made tracing our father's roots, far easier than any of the rest of us would have been able to access. He traced it back as far as the 1500's to my father's great great (I don't recall how many generations) grandfather in England. My father was the direct descendant of an Englishman named Robert Cushman, who was one of the men responsible for the Mayflower voyage to America. He had to de-board the Mayflower on it's first leg, before it crossed the Atlantic, but did get to America soon after, where he preached the first sermon at Plymouth Rock. Within 2 weeks, he left on what he thought would be a short return trip to England, to bring them a document that detailed the first explorations of where the Mayflower passengers had disembarked, and a description of the new settlement at Plymouth Rock. This document called 'The Relation' (now a very important 'first' American historical record) was safely brought to England, but unfortunately, Robert Cushman passed away from The Plague, before he could return to America, where he had left his 13 year old son, Thomas, in the care of Plymouth Rock's first Governor, William Bradford. Upon learning of his death, Governor Bradford adopted Thomas, but had him retain his surname of 'Cushman' in honour of his father, Robert. Thomas took over for the first elder of the church there, and held that position until his death at 85. His daughter Mary was the very last survivor of the Mayflower voyage. A monument at Plymouth Rock for Thomas Cushman, replaces the original plaque from centuries ago, for the Cushman family members, given in recognition of Robert Cushman's part in securing the Mayflower's voyage, and his family's involvement in many aspects of the first settlement, for its passengers, in the new colony. But the funny thing is, in the 1800's, some descendants of the original Cushman settlers, emigrated to Canada. So it was pretty surprising, after always assuming my father's family had come directly from England to Canada, many generations ago, to learn that upon leaving England, our family actually could not have been more American! http://massandmoregenealogy.blogspot.com/2011/11/thomas-cushman-ca-1607-to-1691-plymouth.html...See MoreAging and family
Comments (57)I feel bad for the parents of our DIL. Her parents sent her her abroad, from China, to attend college here in the US. She was just a teen, but she never returned to China to live. She met and married our son and they now live here and have two young kids. She is a citizen and she has been here for more than half her life. But, she is their only child and our shared grand babies are the only ones that her parents have. They will be alone in their old age that is fast approaching. They are both hovering one side or the other of being 70, just as we are. They have been coming here to visit and for extended visits since the kids were born, and, of course the world is not accommodating for that right now. DIL has some idea to bring them over here, but that is such a hard and harsh change for them to come here and live in a foreign culture where they don't even speak the language. Hubs and I are in the process of making a move and I can only imagine how upsetting it would be to move to the other side of the earth at this point in our lives. I feel sorry for them. Even though we have not been to the home of our sons family since the virus thing started, we are still in a better position to be a part of our grand babies lives than they are. They thought that they were doing the right thing to send her here, but, it meant that they lost their only child to a new life in the US. Now they are growing old and the have no one. Actually, they are still caring for three of the previous generation, the great grands. The youngest of the two kids look so much like his Chinese grandmother! I wonder if , sometime in the future when I am gone, will either of these two kids find themselves in China? Who knows what will happen in this world? It will never be a culture that they are familiar with because they are born and bred Americans. They understand a bit of Chinese, but their mother speaks English to them, mostly ....See MoreSpringroz
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