(Published on ChickClick.com)

Sometimes family isn't biological. Find out why and how women are creating their own kin.

by Elka Karl

2001-02-02

I live 1600 miles away from my family. This is the closest I have lived to them in almost four years. And I miss them a lot.

My family is really important to me, and though I talk to them on the phone and email them daily, there's no way I can get my daily dose of family time from my house in Texas.

Because of the geography, I've sought out close friends to help me form a support system that my family might usually provide. We make dinner together, discuss problems and concerns, and help each other out. Just like a family might.

My situation isn't unique, says Cynthia Lubow, a Bay Area marriage and family therapist. "Because the whole world is so accessible to most of us now, separations from families have become very practical," she says, "Yet, it seems to be human nature to gather into families and communities. So it's not surprising that people who leave their families of origin form families of choice wherever they land."

A little help from your friends

Sometimes it's not a personal choice to create your own family structure, but a necessity. Samia, an Arab-American woman, was disowned by her father when she had a child out of wedlock. During that time, she had to create new support structures to get her through the physically and emotionally trying time.

Although she has since reconciled with her father (who now is a proud granddaddy), she still can't emphasize enough the importance of her friends, who have, in fact, become something of a family to her.

"When my dad disowned me, I was forced to rely solely on friends and their generosity. They really got me through a tough time," Samia says. "And even though my family and I are on great terms now, they decided to move back to the Middle East. Because I have such a close relationship with my friends, that transition was easier."

Samia also says that her friends have really helped her out with her child. "Since I'm a single mom, I have a harder time getting out by myself. But my other single mom friends and I have set up a babysitting network that lets us get out of the house and blow off steam -- and we don't have to worry about our kids being with some weirdo, or dropping a lot of cash, since we exchange babysitting."

Out with the old, in with the new

Erin is another woman who was forced to rely on the support of her friends. When Erin came out to her parents, they were not supportive of her homosexuality.

"Most of my gay friends' parents are cool with their kids' homosexuality," Erin says. "But my parents are really strict Christians and believe that homosexuality is a sin. When I came out two years ago they told me that they didn't consider me their daughter anymore. That was awful. They've come around a little in the past year, and we spend time together, but my friends have really become my true family."

Erin, whose friends are a mix of gay and straight people who she knows from work and school, says that if her friends hadn't been there for her two years ago, she doesn't know how she would have gotten through the experience.

Since family members of gay people are sometimes less than supportive, gay people have been establishing their own alternative family structures for decades. For instance, Alternative Family Project, a gay and lesbian organization based in San Francisco, works with gay and lesbian families to provide support through programs and events that unite different gay families, providing them with the equivalent of an extended family. Lubow, a member of an alternative family herself, says it's common for people who split from their biological families to seek the comfort and safety normally associated with family, with other people.

"Young people who feel alienated from their families due to abuse, mistreatment or intolerance want to bring together a group of people who do not abuse them, but rather mirror, or tolerate their difference," she says.

We are family

Expanding their already large families was the goal of four friends who moved into a house together last fall. Three of the household members, Isaac, Anthony and Nathan, have known each other since kindergarten, and consider each other brothers. Erica, the fourth household member, is Nathan's girlfriend, and a relative newcomer to the group. Though Erica admits that it isn't always easy living with three guys, she says that it's a lot of fun anyway.

On Wednesday nights all four prepare and eat dinner together, and on the weekends they participate in volunteer service projects together.

For all the advantages of the chosen family, is it possible for such a flexible, relatively new idea of family to be healthy? According to Lubow, yes.

"I think the flexibility to consciously create a group of people who can love and support each other can be the healthiest kind of family. The inflexibility of proscribed gender roles and barriers between families [seen in the '50s] created a very unhealthy environment, which bred abuse, hidden unhappiness and all kinds of unhealthy secrets."

And though I love my biological family to pieces, my cross-country moves have meant that they're often geographically unavailable. And that's why I'm grateful to have surrogate family members across the country who've seen me through rough spots I might have had trouble navigating on my own.

Elka Karl's family is huge. She recently wrote Kissing Cousins for EstroClick.