My toddler recently told me that our family is special because we dance together. I think what makes a family is a sense of belonging. I have several families.
My first family was my 'childhood family'. My childhood family is the family I grew up with. We have remained a family throughout my life and despite separation, because we hold similar values, have a bonded history and because we look out for each other, often to the point of agitating each other... I still have a sense of belonging with my childhood family not just because of the times I catch glimpses of my mum, dad or sister in my features, but because we have each contributed to the sculpting our individual identities and continue to mould our interpretations of and interactions with the world around us.
My second family is my ‘friend family’. My friend family are the people who, together, we survived the hilarity and horrors of puberty and beyond. We have seen the full gamut of each other through our teens, our twenties and now into our thirties, and we still crave each other’s company. I have a sense of belonging with my friend family, not just because they gave safety and perspective to me in facing my hurdles but because I have also been able to offer a sense of security and kindness to them in facing theirs. Together, we have powered through ‘growing up’ and are pleasantly surprised to be fully functioning adults.
My third family is my ‘pride family’. My pride family are the other women, men, non- binary and gender fluid humans of the world who understand what it is like to grow up inside childhood and friend families, and still not fully belong to the culture of those families. My pride family have helped me navigate beyond the social, political, religious and cultural judgements of not identifying as hetero-normative. I have a sense of belonging with my pride family as we unite against ideologies that threaten and hurt us. We are determined to claim a better future for rainbow children, paying our achievements forward, in the same way our rainbow ancestors have paid their achievements forward for us. Some in our pride are out and proud, others are neither, but we survive by belonging to our pride family.
My favourite family is the family I helped to create. It is a combination and culmination of all my familial belongings. Born from the healthiest love I have ever known are my two spectacular children who challenge and extend me every day, in every way. My best friend is also my adoring partner, the apex of nurturing and support for whom I strive to be a better person. All together we are a rainbow family who are connected by our love, our laughter, our fears, our tears and our experiences. And, in our family, we dance together.
There is so much more that can define ‘family’. My families are where I have a sense of belonging.
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