 A
Nontraditional Family Can Still be a Healthy
One
By Gwenn Schurgin O’Keeffe, MD, FAAP
Your Kid’s
Health, The
Salem News
February
23, 2004
A neighbor with adult children recently commented
that “today’s family is disintegrating
before our eyes.” Her view is not surprising
if you judge a family through her traditional
1950ish glasses - not too different from the
images captures in many of Norman Rockwell’s
paintings. But is it fair to compare us to
an ideal that existed half a century ago?
If you believe that
art imitates life than you won’t be
surprised that my neighbor’s typical
family is akin to Norman Rockwell’s
“Freedom From Want” Thanksgiving
picture – you know the one with the
happy multigenerational family around a table
with a big turkey being served by Grandpa.
When picture a typical “modern”
family, however, I have in mind the take-off
of “Freedom From Want” shown at
the end of Disney’s Lilo and Stitch:
a happy bunch of mostly unrealted characters
– some human and some alien from a far
away planet, but all connected through need
and circumstance.
Lilo and Stitch is
a charming movie and worth seeing not only
for it’s entertainment value because
it’s a great metaphor for a great many
heads to earth to escape exile and finds himself
adopted by a little girl, Lilo, who lives
with her sister, Nina. A car accident had
orphaned the sisters some time ago and they
were working hard to keep their acts together
despite the attempts of a social worker, Cobra
Bubbles, to take Lilo away. A few other aliens
enter the picture to try and steal Stitch
but instead find themselves drawn to helping
the girls. The outtakes of the movie show
snapshots of all these characters doing all
the things families do from babysitting to
laundry to school to vacations and holidays.
There are clearly some
sad undertones in the movie but that does
not make the movie at all inappropriate for
little kids. If you think about it, even animated
movies borrow from real life events but in
a way kids, and adults, can digest more easily
– and often with humor. Shouldn’t
we also teach our kids that while bad things
happen there can be a happy ending? And, what
better way to learn a tough life lesson than
through the humor and antics of cute little
characters who in the end all come together
as a new family unit – a family unit
that epitomizes the Hawaiian idea of Ohana,
“which means family and family means
no one gets left behind or forgotten”.
Talk about a concrete
image of a “melting pot” that
even young kids can understand. And, another
great example of art imitating life –
afterall, families today come in all shapes
and sizes with various mix and matches –
and some may even seem like aliens! Think
about all the types of families today from
the “traditional” mom,dad, kids
to the “unconventional” or “nontraditional”
like families with same-sex parents and families
created due to remarriages of divorced and
widowed parents. And, most families today
have dual-working parents. Nowadays, marriages
cross all boundaries of sex, race, ethnicity
and religion. We could debate endlessly about
whether all the “new” types of
family work as well as the “traditional”
family but I think we can all agree that for
a child’s sake, a family of any kind
is always better than no family at all.
So, today’s family
may looks different from the typical American
family of days gone by but that does not mean
it functions any differently. At the end of
the day, if our kids are happy and feel loved
and if people have a home to go to where they
feel safe and supported – then something
is working right. A Chinese proverb says that
a family in harmony will prosper in everything.
A touch of harmony, with a pinch of Ohana
sounds like a recipe to success for any family!
© 2005-2006
Pediatrics Now.
All rights reserved. PEDIATRICS NOW is a trademark
of Pediatrics Now.
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