10 Chapter 10: Family Relationships
Michael has always considered his family “abnormal.” When he was five, he was adopted by his adoptive parents, Jim and Tammy. However, when Michael was 10, Jim and Tammy divorced. Jim later remarried to Stephanie, becoming Michael’s stepmother. Additionally, Stephanie had two daughters and a son, giving Michael three stepsiblings. Still, Michael preferred to live with Tammy and spent most of his time at her house growing up. In a way, Michael felt closer to being a member of a single-parent household than a stepfamily. Even though he has stepsiblings, Michael actually considers his friend, Jeff, to more like a brother given how often he and Jeff support and talk with one another. Through Michael’s experiences, some of us may relate as we come to understand the complexity of families and how they communicate. Thus, in this chapter we will explore the idea of family, family communication, and introduce some of the ways our families communicate. To start, we will first explore the key question of: “What is family?”
What is Family?
A nearly universal aspect of the human condition is that people have families. Even when mentioning the word, “family,” many of us may envision our family-of-origin, or those people who raised us. Yet, if we were to ask our friends, coworkers, and classmates who makes up our families, we would rarely find people with identical family behaviors and structures. Because of this, there is no single definition of the word “family” that is agreed upon across family disciplines. Our families are a dynamic, ever changing group of individuals working together to navigate the world. However, there are some common ways we view families, and we use three lenses to describe the main types of families: biogenetic, sociolegal, and role.
Biogenetic Family Lens
If you have ever heard heard the phrase, “blood is thicker than water,” when describing family, you have heard the biogenetic lens in action. The biogenetic lens of family considers two main criteria: whether the relationship is directly or potentially able to reproduce or whether the relationship shares genetic material (Braithwaite et al., 2019). So long as a family relationship is a heterosexual spousal relationship capable of reproducing or we share “blood” (i.e., genetics) with another, we would consider that person as “family” based on these two criteria alone. In Michael’s family from the introduction, he likely would not have considered his family to be biogenetic as he lacked shared genetic material with his parents. In the United States, the biogenetic family lens is the dominant lens for how we view family (Scharp & Thomas, 2016). Many of our customs and laws are centered around the idea of biogenetic family. For example, if an individual dies without a will, in many cases the person who is “next of kin,” or the individual’s closest living blood relative (note: some jurisdictions do include spouses or adopted family members, Legal Information Institute, n.d.). Additionally, when claiming parental rights, Utah State Law privileges the biogenetic family lens, stating “it is in the best interest and welfare of a child to be raised under the care and supervision of the child’s natural parents,” asserting that, “a child’s need for a normal family life in a permanent home, and for positive, nurturing relationships is usually best met by the child’s natural parents” (Utah Code 80-2a-201.1.c). All-in-all, we consider the biogenetic family as the dominant perspective of family in the United States given its pervasiveness through various aspects of culture and its precedence in defining how families should function (Scharp & Thomas, 2016). However, the biogenetic lens is not the only lens through which we can view family as other lenses may account for more diverse family types.
Sociolegal Family Lens
As opposed to considering individuals family simply by their ability to reproduce or whether they share genetic material, the sociolegal lens of family relies “on the enactment of laws and regulations to define family relationships and formally sanction them into law” (Braithwaite et al., 2019). Here, it is important to note that some of our legislation and regulations, like those mentioned at the end of the previous paragraph, invoke the biogenetic lens into the sociolegal lens. However, other family relationships are further governed by legislation and regulations like adoptive families, foster families, same-sex marriage families, and stepfamilies among others. When considering the sociolegal lens, these familial relationships are exclusively defined by their legal standing as they often lack at least one biogenetic tie. In Michael’s family, he was adopted by Jim and Tammy, demonstrating a sociolegal tie. Additionally, his father remarried, putting him in another sociolegal family relationship with his stepmother and stepsiblings. Thus, although the biogenetic family is the dominant perspective of family in the United States, the sociolegal family would be considered the next level down in the United States given its formality through legislation and regulation. Still, the biogenetic and sociolegal family lenses don’t account for all family types.
Role Family Lens
The final lens of family discussed in this chapter is the role lens through which “we consider people family when they act and feel like family,” using social behavior and emotion as the key aspects to define family (Briathwaite et al., 2019). Basically, anytime someone feels “like family,” the role lens would consider those individuals to be have a familial relationship. In Michael’s case, his friend, Jeff, felt “like a brother” despite having no biogenetic or sociolegal ties. Jeff acted like family, so Michael considered him to be family using the role lens. The role lens is the most marginalized family lens, which is perhaps not surprising given the dominance of the biogenetic and sociolegal lenses in United States culture. However, it is a lens in which communication scholars are particularly interested in studying given how much the role lens relies on communication (Braithwaite et al., 2019). Thus, now that we have considered the three main lenses of family, we can form our definition of family.
Defining Family
As stated earlier, a single definition of family does not exist. Given the complexity and various lenses of family, it is not surprising to know that scholars struggle to come up with a universal definition. However, Braithwaite et al. (2019) do a solid job at providing a general definition of family that considers all three lenses of family we have discussed thus far. Braithwaite and her colleagues (2019) define family as “networks of people who share their lives over long periods of time, bound by ties of marriage, blood, law, commitment, legal or otherwise, who consider themselves as family and who share a significant history and anticipated future functioning as family.” In this definition, the authors show that family doesn’t just come from nowhere–it takes a “long period of time” to become a family and families “share a significant history.” Additionally, the authors acknowledge that family can be biogenetic, sociolegal, or role based. The authors make a final claim that family exists beyond the past and the present as family is expected to have a future together in some way, shape or form. Now that we have provided an introductory answer to the question, “What is Family?” we will next discuss the question of, “What is family communication?”
What is Family Communication?
If something like family is so hard to define, how can we be expected to provide a definition for family communication? This question eludes family communication scholars to this day, but one thing that most family communication scholars agree on is that family is constituted, or created, through communication (Baxter, 2013; Braithwaite et al., 2019). In other words, without communication, a family cannot exist. Through this perspective, we come to know that families are discourse dependent, or reliant on communication processes that build and sustain family identity (Galvin, 2006). Here, it is important to note that some families are more discourse dependent than others. As Thompson et al. (2022) noted, families who have cultural representations of family “already built for them” differ from those “who must erect their own.” For example, a heterosexual family with one or more biological children has more cultural models for how to do family than a homosexual couple with one or more adoptive children (Dixon, 2018). To further exemplify, Galvin (2006) provided internal boundary management strategies and external boundary management strategies to demonstrate how discourse dependence helps build family identity.
Internal Boundary Management Strategies
Discourse dependent families utilize internal boundary management strategies, meaning they occur within the family, to create and negotiate their family identity. One such strategy is referred to as naming. Naming occurs when we indicate our familial status or connection with another family member (Braithwaite et al., 2019). For more dominant family structures (e.g., heterosexual spouses with one or more biological children), it seems “natural” to call the parental figures “mom” or “dad.” However, this is not as “natural” as it is invoking the dominant cultural standards for these types of families. Compare this with families who have homosexual spouses with adoptive children. Immediately, we can recognize that this family structure doesn’t have a clear-cut cultural model. In fact, research has shown that families with adoptive children often explicitly discuss what name to call the parental figures, called address terms (Kranstuber Horstman et al., 2018). Thus, while dominant family structures tend to have the discourse already built for them, other families are more dependent on discourse to make sense of their relationships because of the lack of well-developed cultural models (Braithwaite et al., 2019). However, families don’t exist in isolation–they interact with the social world that surrounds their life.
External Boundary Management Strategies
Discourse dependent families also utilize external boundary management strategies, meaning they occur with those not a part of the family, to create and negotiate their family identity. One such strategy is referred to as labeling. Labeling is similar to naming in that it indicates our familial status or connection, but it does so more to provide an orientation to a situation for those outside of the family unit (Braithwaite et al., 2019). For more dominant family structures, many children would not second guess a friend referring to their parents as “mom” and “dad.” However, discourse dependent families may use similar address terms to help others understand their family identity. For example, one of the author’s former students had a stepfather. The student explained that she would sometimes be asked how she refers to her stepfather. She would tell those people that she calls him “dad” because he acted more like a father to her than her biological father did. in this way, we can see how some discourse dependent families use the terms of the dominant culture to make sense of their own family identity, especially when interacting with those outside of the family structure.