Families are not just two parents and their children

Now that Kenyans are being counted, I couldn't help overhearing a conversation about what family is and how unfortunate it is that some people don't come from "real" families.

This disturbing conversation got me thinking of the most famous family in Kenya, Mr Kamau, his wife and their three children from the book Hallo Children.

INCOMPLETE

This well-known book unconsciously portrayed what an ideal family should look like. As joyful as it was in the way it covered the everyday life of Mr Kamau's family, unfortunately, it showed us only one way of what a family is. I never realised this till much later in life when I began to see the complexities of real life.

Those of us who were taught using the progressive peak English course books grew up believing that the family unit is a nuclear set up of both a mother, father and their children.

The definition of a family is still, to date, a group consisting of two parents and their children living together as a unit, yet the family concept is a deeply nuanced one. The nuances within which the family units exist versus the conditioning that family must be about two adults and their biological children, is something many of us need to unlearn.

We see it in the difficulty with which society struggles to acknowledge families who choose to not have children as incomplete units that haven't yet earned the title of a full family.

We see it in the disdain that single-parent homes — especially those headed by women — are referred to as broken and not worthy of being termed as actual family units. We see it in the way couples who struggle to have children are classified as others, ridiculed and spoken about in sarcastic whispers. Lastly, we see it in the way those who choose adoption are seen as taking the easy way out in a setting up a family.

INTOLERENCE

 This unsettling discriminatory behaviour that dehumanises those who don't live within our socialisation of what a family is needs to stop. It’s the reason why children from families that don't have both parents are stereotyped as troubled, while single parented women led families continue to bear the brunt of contempt as unacceptable family units. At the same time, childless families are terrorised endlessly.

We keep being terrible people by rejecting families that aren't composed of what we are used to. The intolerance with which we monitor people’s lives should change the same way that families have changed in their set up and evolved into constructs that don't necessarily have to involve two parents and children. Families can no longer be the people whom you share DNA, as we've seen in cases where blood has failed to be a bond and instead turned to be bondage.

We should question the whole idea of family beyond what we accept and begin identifying what truly makes families what they are. Everyone deserves to live in a joyous emotionally safe family, be they in single-parent homes, in adoptive homes or in homes without children.

 Scheaffer Okore is a policy analyst; [email protected]