Have you ever wondered what it would be like to dance on the head of a pin?
AUTHOR: Peter Dunne
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to dance on the head of a pin? Or to start a debate to which there seems no end, with all of the arguments becoming ever more tortuous and irreconcilable?
I often feel both these sensations whenever the issue of family is raised. For a concept that is so basic to our very construct as human beings, I am constantly amazed at the amount of angst the term seems to generate.
In some quarters, the term family is held as code for right wing moralism, and therefore anyone who expresses an interest in promoting the broad interests of families is immediately dismissed as of that ilk. And there are those at the other end of spectrum who insist not just that the diversity of their family structure be recognised, but that it lauded and actively promoted.
It is all so tiresome and irrelevant, really. The blunt truth is this: each one of us knows what family means to us, and who are family is. Full stop, end of story, actually. For all of us, family are the people that matter most to us – the people we like to share our successes and failures with, those to whom we look for support when times are bad, those who are closest to us.
Human society has always been organised on the basis of family, and then community, ultimately leading to the modern nation state. At its heart, family structure owes more to biology than anything else, and the rest simply flows from that.
So, let us stop the never ending dance on the pinhead, and the constant efforts to redefine what we mean, and focus on what matters. Tonight, as with every night, people will go home at the end of their day, to their houses in the suburbs, their flats in the inner city, or their boarding houses and hostels, to catch up with those they live with, and take a bit of time out from busy lives. That is the ultimate expression of family. It does not require a special definition of how they are constituted, or who should be included or excluded.
It is simple reality. And one thing is for sure. When they are together, all these families are not spending time discussing who and what they are, whether they fit some pre-determined definition. They are far more likely to be talking about their day at work, what happened to the kids at school, what is coming up at the weekend, and what bills have to be paid. The humdrum of daily life, if you like.
It is what we call family.