Extended Family

Extended Family

Think of the most charming events of life: Reunions, X’mas, Weddings, and Thanks giving! Mr. Gul has a huge house in Allentown and throws an open invitation to all his relatives to reunite for a week in the month of May. The ambience is so cheery, cool breeze and warming sunshine in the backyard; one girl stands up and introduces her handsome hubby as Mike and her pretty little daughter as Lilly. People around giggle and say, “Oh my God, when did she marry? And when did she have a girl? A gorgeous lady shrills, hugs and says, “Oh darling, how wonderful seeing you after ages.” A grandma embraces a cute girl and says, “Oh my sweetie pie, I’m not going to let you go back now.” People tell stories about their boyfriends, girlfriends, dating, graduations, new colleges, new jobs, and even divorces. They chuckle, sob, sing, dance, recall nostalgic moments, drink, relish delicious food, watch movies and take pictures. Two, three days later they start dispersing, taking sweet memories with them and leaving behind memorable stories. All this would not happen if there were no extended families!

It’s X’mas. Dark snowy night twinkling with candles, lights, and evergreen X’mas tree decorated with apples, berries, small toys, cookies, and ornaments; slow, soft, melodious music of X’mas carols is on, young and old are swaying with the beats of music. There is Santa and kids, gifts and cookies, ham and wine mirth and merriment. All members are bustling with joy. How could this be possible without extended family? It is an unimaginable joy to watch innocent kids sincerely keeping milk and cookies for Santa, and keep eye on chimney and wait for the surprising gifts. They are dumb with wonder to receive letter from Santa Clause, or phone call from Santa Claus not knowing that it is none but one of their extended family members. Indeed there would be no charm in life if there were no relatives! New Year, Weddings and Thanksgiving are no less exciting events than this. All this can happen only in extended family! How would you know what is compassion without grand children or grand parents!

Research has shown that there are several advantages to living in extended families. Living in an extended family provides many things that a nuclear family does not. “In many cultures like Asians, Middle Easterners, Africans, Eastern Europeans, indigenous Latin Americans and Pacific Islanders, extended families are the basic family unit. Grandparents often take the leading roles due to the fact that they have the most experience with parenting and maintaining a household. They are also responsible in teaching the younger children their mother tongue, manners, and etiquettes.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_family) The main advantages of an extended family are economic, social, emotional, psychological support. It is seen that children who grow in extended families learn cooperative work and develop a sense of brotherhood and caring for others. Though there are advantages of living with extended family members, there are some problems too. If there is large number of members in a family then one cannot have privacy like in a nuclear family. Sometimes you do need to do certain things all alone. There is a chance of conflict over many issues like authority, spending money, and decision making.

Considering both sides, it can be easily deduced that though extended family has some disadvantages the advantages outweighs the disadvantages.