To think “chosen family” is a concept people use when they want loyalty without accountability?

[ByTealPeer]

I get that some people have toxic relatives and need to create support systems. But I’ve also seen people use “chosen family” to build echo chambers where they expect unconditional support but offer very little reflection or accountability in return.

You can’t just collect people who always agree with you and call it family. That’s not loyalty - that’s curation. AIBU to think “chosen family” is sometimes just a way to make yourself feel righteous while avoiding hard conversations?

I hear you. I don't receive those examples as family though.

Maybe I need to explore exactly what family means and how we define it - beyond blood ties.

As I write, it all feels unnecessary and complex. Isn't it just your family in law for example - and you happen to love them and think they're great. Or you don't.

Without having looked up everything associated with the definition of family - my understanding would be something like ongoing lifelong commitment to maintaining the relationships. I feel this possibly unspoken bond ( healthy families of course not ones like mine) would not apply in a chosen family so easily. You divorce - bye bye in laws or daughter in law ( no matter how fab). Etc etc.

The natural conditions I feel are not the same. I believe there is a biological imperative that drives family sustainability. I appreciate there are small numbers who would persist against all possibly challenging odds in non biological families ( adopted for example; mum's usually who would continue love and support).

I don't buy this use of the word ' family ' in the contexts you use tbh.

I think people who say this are incredibly naive.

Im NC with my family, so I get wanting it.

Don't care what we call our circles, but it's really important to have people around who will tell us we are being a shit, or we have a bad idea, or we are damaging our health or call out whatever nonsense we are planning to do. It takes courage and commitment to do that. If we only have friends and family who agree with us, we are sadly lacking.

Sure but this isn't dictionary corner. Lots of terms are used and understood even if they don't adhere to strict definitions and sometimes that's the exact reason they have meaning/impact because they're subverting the standard definition. Family by definition is not chosen, hence choosing one is a liberating act that frees a person from the standards set by everything from society to dictionaries.

Fair enough. It does seem to be one of those words that brings up very emotive and/or rigid (I don’t love the word rigid here but I can’t think of an alternative) ideas and feelings.

In my 2nd example I am Susan (loosely based), and I do have a Chosen Family ™️ although I’ve never used that term and think it’s a bit twee. I think the biological imperative is not a factor in many cases.

For example I’m not sure I would notice my sister if I passed her on a busy street. I have no feeling of affection or obligation towards her. I have one more piece of business to settle with her and after that I expect never to see or talk to her again. I really haven’t had anything to do with her for the past 15-20 years.

On the flip side of that I have an active relationship with my neighbors that has included health issues and support (going both ways), day to day living support (again going both ways), proximity changes (they’ve moved house), big life event support (both ways), and all the stuff that you would normally experience with traditional family members.

All of the above developed while my traditional family was still intact.

I believe the term came from the sayings “You can choose friends but not family” which is usually used in a negative context about family and the Chosen Family ™️ term was used to reclaim the word family.

And I’ll say it again…I think the OP has a very strange take on the concept and I would say that their idea about it is very very strange.

It reads to me from the perspective of a traditional family member who is lashing out that their ‘Susan’ has developed this Chosen Family ™️ relationship with someone else and is jealous.

Ah. Yes, I think this is exactly it. OP has a family member who has pulled away due to the family’s reaction to something s/he had done, and replaced them with a “chosen family” who are more accepting. OP believes said family member is thereby avoiding being held accountable.

I am a scapegoat to a hideous narc family cult whom I am NC with.

Your post may have been in reply to mine I think.

I understand the experience of feeling totally abandoned and alone because of what we have had to endure and then do ( NC).

I don't seek family despite all this. I look for that deep love and connection elsewhere. Maybe it's because I've never truly experienced it in ' family' that I have that approach.

You need to do more research into what chosen family means and how it originated.

For instance it is a concept closely associated to the LGBTQ+ community who found themselves rejected by their biological family and instead sought support from others who were in similar situation and those who had more open minded views.

The basic principle is that being related to someone does not mean you get on with them or that they can provide a healthy support network. As a result many people instead become closer to friends and choose other role models instead than family members.

You are not explaining yourself very well or making a cohesive argument for your claims so I really don't get what point you are trying to make about lack of accountability...

@saltinesandcoffeecups yes that makes sense to me. And it debunks a biological imperative aspect to what ' family' is.

Because my family and experience of love is messed up - my inner barometer on family and love of a family is possibly not ' optimum '. 🤷🙂

I've had to re learn and still do how to relate.

As time goes on I love being alone with just me more and more. I have a long term older friend who I have much more loyalty, trust, faith and love for than my mother or sibling.

Would I call her if desp and say I need a £100 loan, no way. I would have my mum though. That's a 'family' thing to me.

Not anymore tho family wise as I think on it. Money used as a tool for manipulation in mine.

As I type - it reaffirms what I say ref no healthy personal experience at all of what ' family' does and feels.

@Pleaseshutthefuckup I think most people have a somewhat fucked up sense of family 😁 I’m sure some would say I do, but it is what is.

I think you (in the general sense) just do the best you can and hope you find those relationships as you muddle through the world.

It sounds like you (in the personal sense) have found that family relationship in your older friend. Like I said earlier I think it’s best not get hung up on a label and just roll with it.

ETA: I’m glad the OP started this thread. It’s been interesting to hear the different perspectives.

I was just replying to the thread in general

But therefore they’re not a family because they’re spontaneously chosen. It’s not being pedantic to point that out — it’s like people on the Mn royal family forum who identify as pro-monarchy but then say in the next breath that while they liked the late queen, they don’t think a lot of Charles, and thought he should have abdicated in favour of William.

Monarchy, like family, is about lack of choice. You get who you get.

But that’s the whole point of the term. It’s a CHOSEN family, as opposed to the one you were born with which you didn’t get to choose.

It’s not the chosen part that’s the problem. Everyone agrees on that bit. But you can’t just call it a ‘family’ and thereby make it so.

To those of you who adhere to this line of thought – are there any institutions which you would say shouldn’t be subverted, or from which it wouldn’t be a ‘liberating act’ to remove oneself?

Yes you really can 😁🤷‍♀️

You may, of course, disagree with the term’s usage but that doesn’t make someone wrong for using it.

If we’re being pedantic the definition includes a group of related things with no mention of related being biological.

To those who (wrongly) suggest that the term 'family' can only mean someone you are related to by blood or marriage: that concepts fails when you consider that some kids are adopted and that they are no less part of a family they have no genetic link too.

Anyway, the whole point of adding 'chosen' in front of 'family' is to help define something that feels like a family, just not one that is made of blood relatives.

The Post Office? I dunno, plenty of institutions are fine. No one's saying it's a line of thought that people have to vehemently adhere to as revolutionaries. I don't get what the big hurdle is with grasping this term/concept. People have explained it well and no one's inflicting it on anyone who doesn't want to use it.

It’s more trying to get the mentality straight in my mind really. The way I think about it, if an institution has a set of core requirements then I wouldn’t think of myself as subverting it and reclaiming it, I’d see myself as building something else. But there’s definitely a trend towards that way of thinking, whether it’s ‘chosen family’, ‘same-sex marriage’, ‘trans women’, or whatever. Some of them catch on very successfully.

On the other hand, your post also suggested that the priority might be about rejecting any obligations that are imposed from without (or indeed at all), basically as a matter of principle. Hence the emphasis on ‘chosen’, or ‘liberated’.

Obviously it might be both, but they don’t necessarily go together and the starting-point seems quite different – the former would be subversive in favour of some other order, whereas the latter is at heart about hardcore individualism. Andrew Sullivan talks about debates about whether to push for gay marriage organising around those two poles. I was interested in what the driver might be for those supporting ‘chosen family’ as a concept.

I’ve not personally observed anyone use it in that way.

I agree and disagree @ByTealPeer I have a family, my husband and children, I have friends and acquaintances. I am NC from my extended family in the main and DH is estranged from members of his family who are very toxic but not from others. The chosen family thing makes me gag a little and it has cult like connotations but then sometimes people just mean their support network which somehow seems less therapyish and more normal.

Your OP even acknowledges that there are toxic families as well as echo chambers so you have started a thread asserting what something is whilst knowing it can be for other reasons also.

So your post is pointless. Yes. Sometimes it may be to create an echo chamber like you said and sometimes it may be because you have a toxic family as you yourself said and sometimes it’s because people moved to a different country or their family is all dead or or or or.

😐

Why not, though? Why can't family mean a group of people who love and support one another, without a biological component?

Its just an expression people use to describe friendships as close as those you'd find in a healthy family. Sometimes when people have no blood family. Sometimes when they have a bad one. Sometimes when they have a great blood family but are lucky enough to have fantastic close friends too. I honestly think you're overthinking a harmless expression to honour special friendship.