What makes family?
I've been having thoughts this week as I read essays--Wuthering Heights essays in particular--as I thought about how the students didn't understand what they were talking about because they didn't understand pre-modern adoption (or the past or present position of gypsies in Europe).
Modern American adoption is constructed as an "as if" "reality." After adoption, the child is considered to be a member of the family "as if" that child had been born into the family "as if" they were all "blood family."
My philosophical question, then, is...if legal action can make someone "family-as-if"...then what is family? What is the difference? Is there a difference? Our language and our attitudes and the differentiations we make and the comments and corrections and clarifications and caveats--especially in the news--would indicate that there is ("Her adopted daughter," "His adoptive father," "Oh, well, she's adopted") and many of those statements are needed to clarify things that otherwise would be visually confusing (white parents with Asian child, etc.).
The statements of "But you have to do that; it's for family," break down in situations of abuse. If you "have to"...is that equally true due to legally-binding contract? Is it true because "blood" said so? Because of social contract? Because of Greater Truth? Because of societal expectation? What if you don't want to because it's unpleasant? Are you more/less/similarly/exactly the same obligated for "real"/biological/adoptive/informally-adopted family? What about close friends? When is there no "obligation" but "Well, you really ought to" and when is "ought to" just a nasty word that psychologists rightly help us deprogram?
Does Heathcliff have no "real family" because he's orphaned or because he's not accepted by the Earnshaws....or both? Our modern view would say both...but lean more toward the latter since that was the family he *could* have had. The view at that time would say only the former.
What is FAMILY? Can we define our own family? If we do, is it any more permanent than the family into which we were born/placed? Society gets squicky when we take our leave of family, even for reasons that are serious and damaging and of great significance and of potential danger/damage potential. So...where are the lines (other than "different for each case")? How do we find and negotiate them? And if they move constantly...how can we rely on any of them?
Modern American adoption is constructed as an "as if" "reality." After adoption, the child is considered to be a member of the family "as if" that child had been born into the family "as if" they were all "blood family."
My philosophical question, then, is...if legal action can make someone "family-as-if"...then what is family? What is the difference? Is there a difference? Our language and our attitudes and the differentiations we make and the comments and corrections and clarifications and caveats--especially in the news--would indicate that there is ("Her adopted daughter," "His adoptive father," "Oh, well, she's adopted") and many of those statements are needed to clarify things that otherwise would be visually confusing (white parents with Asian child, etc.).
The statements of "But you have to do that; it's for family," break down in situations of abuse. If you "have to"...is that equally true due to legally-binding contract? Is it true because "blood" said so? Because of social contract? Because of Greater Truth? Because of societal expectation? What if you don't want to because it's unpleasant? Are you more/less/similarly/exactly the same obligated for "real"/biological/adoptive/informally-adopted family? What about close friends? When is there no "obligation" but "Well, you really ought to" and when is "ought to" just a nasty word that psychologists rightly help us deprogram?
Does Heathcliff have no "real family" because he's orphaned or because he's not accepted by the Earnshaws....or both? Our modern view would say both...but lean more toward the latter since that was the family he *could* have had. The view at that time would say only the former.
What is FAMILY? Can we define our own family? If we do, is it any more permanent than the family into which we were born/placed? Society gets squicky when we take our leave of family, even for reasons that are serious and damaging and of great significance and of potential danger/damage potential. So...where are the lines (other than "different for each case")? How do we find and negotiate them? And if they move constantly...how can we rely on any of them?