Sunday, March 2nd, 2008
family conventions.
there’s a good discussion of the extended family in a piece here on Pickled Politics.
having ‘grown up’ [whether or not i'm grown up is, of course, up for debate] in karachi, amongst a multitude of aunts, uncles, cousins, and an assortment of other peculiar creatures, i have to say it rings true on many counts, especially the point that relationships with extended family members should be enjoyed in moderate doses.
personally, i spent most of my time with first and second cousins - older, younger, and equal in age. i’d say the experiences were - for the most part - enjoyable, especially when i was a pre-teen. as i grew older, i found i shared less in common with most of my family members. today, i’d say i can carry on a conversation with perhaps only one of them without resorting to watching movies, watching or playing sports, or playing computer games to paper over the awkwardness. nevertheless, there is a certain comfort in rituals - going to a cousin’s house and getting out the carom board, meeting an aunt and uncle over dinner in their dining room you were forbidden to enter when you were little [but which you'd still sneak into anyway ^_^] - even if the conversation isn’t worthy of ivy-covered lecture halls.
as far as the ‘dumbing down by way of family gossip’ hypothesis goes, i’d say that’s certainly true to some extent, but then family gossip - and all the underlying drama - provides a great education in human nature, even if it is unashamedly voyeuristic. what could be more illuminating than first-hand [or second, or third] accounts of a woman subjecting her daughter-in-law to veiled misery until she gets herself a grandson? or of a man losing his wife, children, and home because of a life wasted out of simple foolishness?
thanks to the emphasis on being connected to distant relatives, i’ve been forced to meet people who are drastically different from one another, and from myself - rich and poor, callous and loving, selfish and generous, dogmatic and pragmatic. and the thing is, you can’t escape, not entirely at any rate. some of them, if i’d met them outside of the family context, i’d never want to spend more than a minute with, and never want to see them again. but that’s not possible with a fifth cousin twice removed who grew up with your mom’s brother, and now lives a 20 minute drive away. so you have to tolerate these people in your house, you have to entertain them, you may even have to live with them. it may not seem like it at the time, but i think these experiences are really useful in dealing with the world at large once you’re on your own.
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