It was probably during our kindergarten days when were first introduced to the sense of family. We knew we had a family since we were little, but the sense of pride and belongingness started when we were asked to draw our family on a piece of paper. Basically, we all drew them in sticks with the family members holding each other's hands. It went on until our grade school years, the era of TV commercials featuring an assortment of products and portraying picture-perfect families that are happily eating dinner. These things made us believe that a family should be just like that—eating dinner together, spending weekends in the backyard, and basically, everything's peachy and everyone's just happy.
Yet as we grew older, we realized that sometimes parents shout at each other. And some nights dad can't make it to dinner because of work or because he has eaten dinner somewhere else. For some, there's even a day when he only ate breakfast and he never came back since then. There will also be days when mom goes home crying because she lost her job. There will be bad days and it won't always be happy. Because the truth is, parents fight, money becomes a problem and a hindrance to a lot of things, homes get wrecked, and everything can fall apart.
There are no picture-perfect families and this is a reality that we need to accept.
A lot of us have experienced this but it doesn't mean our sense of family is lesser or weaker than those of the others with complete families. Because there are people within the family who bravely take on the responsibility that parents find hard to do.
These people may be vocal about how disappointed they are with our parents, but it doesn't stop them from helping us anyway. Sometimes, no matter how much they want to provide us with everything, there are still certain circumstances that hinder them from doing so. But it's all good. We are receiving more than enough from them, given that this was supposedly our parents' primary obligation and totally not theirs. Being financially supported by a family instead of our own parents is totally not something we should get depressed about. In fact, we should feel appreciative knowing that someone aside from our parents believes in our capabilities and that we are worthy of the money they worked hard for.
This is truly something to be proud of. People are not supposed to pity people in this situation because they are actually lucky. This is not actually a struggle but a blessing.
What's your family's story? Want to write about it? Let us know in the comments below.
From The Candy Bulletin Community
