Family Ties

By Adam Kuhn
Posted Tuesday, June 19, 2007

A few months ago, I wrote an entry called "It's about Family". It was about how I decided that it was safest for everyone if I stayed indoors for the holidays. While I was snowed in at my mother's this weekend, I learned something.

Family is a difficult realm. There is no relationship, no boyfriend that will ever have a connection as deep, complicated, or exhausting as the connection you have with your family.

Recently I found out that a friend's parents cut him off for being gay. They found his MySpace, called him a fag and a whore and told him they never wanted to see him again. And I thought I was dealt an unfair hand. While I was busy running from Pittsburgh to New Haven to New York, I was turning my back on the only real relationship I was ever going to have, the only foundation I'll ever have to stand on.

Much like any relationship, there are rules one has to play by to keep things running smooth. When those rules are broken, the results can be disastrous. And if you don't know them, the results can be even more painful.

I admit I'm not too familiar with my set of rules. While my parents were divorcing, I stayed away. While most kids my age were applying for college, I was signing my first lease.

The majority of my friends, some older than me, still live with their parents. They work, some go to school, and have no living expenses. Some live "on their own" and their parents foot the costs.

Either way, people were saving tons of money and I was missing out.
I don't understand the secret behind this untapped resource. Were these people lazy? Smart? Or both? Didn't they yearn for their own lifestyle? I couldn't understand why anyone would want to stay under the rule of someone else when they were perfectly capable of supporting themselves and living their own lives.

Sometimes, even after you fly the coop, you still can't escape the family ties. In the case of my friend, the lifestyle he worked so hard to achieve was kept hidden from his family. Their knowing was against the rules.

After high school, the "normal" thing to do, the scenario I wish I had, is to leave for college far, far away, and come home and do the family thing over vacations. You get to live your own life most of the year, then go home to your old bedroom and your loving, supporting family between semesters.

So where did I go wrong? What steps did I take to ruin that for myself? And was it too late to try to and save it?

I thought long about it. That weekend, I broke tons of rules at my mother's, but at least I was finally learning them. And don't worry, my friend's parents still love him, and they've been talking. The most important thing I've learned: You can never break up with your family.

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