Lessons From the Family

In my immediate family, we have a mixture of formal and informality. On the formal side of things, mom and dad made sure that my bro and I presented ourselves in a decent way to the public in terms of our mannerisms and appearance (amongst other things). In concerns with my extended family, our elders would often ask us, “ Excuse me? Did we sleep together last night?” This was a question given to us “absent minded” young ones who had the gall to walk in their presence without giving the formal days greeting.

However, things were more informal when I was in the living space of my parents home. Oddly enough we never really said the formal greetings with my parents. Usually, it was “Hey mommy” or “Hey daddy;” only when a guest was present at our house would we use the proper formalities. I was pretty irreverently dressed around the house, up to about the age of 13. Underwear was my only attire in and outdoors. I started to rethink my dress attire a bit when I showed up to family worship and my brother said, “Bey… put on a shirt!” The whole formal and informal dynamic in my family was interesting because that closer a person was to you the more informal you became with them.

In my extended family, my cousin Carl (not his real name) was the butt of all jokes. He was a bit of the black sheep, but his mischievous antics often attracted these jokes his way. Mind you, we all suffered our fair share of teasing but he was the one who suffered the brunt of it from all of our family relatives. I recall a time when he stole a piece of chicken out of my grandmother’s pot In desperation not to get caught, he threw it under my uncle's bed where I was sitting watching Macguyver. It became a hilarious family story that we still tell as adults.

My brother and I were taught to respect our elders to the utmost. To me it was honorable to fear and be respectful to them. The elderly were seen as sages amongst most of my cousins and they were treated with a sense of reverence.

A lot of what I learned in terms of education and life lessons came from my mother. I connected with her much more than my father who seemed to be reserved and distant when I was a young kid. My father interacted with my brother and I through outdoors activities such as cleaning the yard, fishing swimming and camping. I think I get a lot of my “out doorsman” spirit from my father as he is a lover of nature. I still remember our long Sunday drives out into the wilderness of Nassau and our trips to the family islands were we would spend hours fishing and swimming. I connected with my dad through activities and with my mother through conversation. All my questions about life were usually heaped upon her as I found my dads answers to my life questions to short and unsatisfactory.

My mom was the major decision maker in concerns with management of the house, our education, groceries and social events. My father was the major decision maker in concerns with family trips, church and extra curricular activities that we may have gotten involved in; I’m still a bit upset at him for pulling my brother and I out of Karate.   

There was a mixture of how problems were dealt with in my immediate family. In dealing with us as kids our parents dealt with the problem directly. For examply, “Go get the belt” was a coming remedy to settle the issue of fights between my older brother and myself.  As I grew into adulthood the way problems were dealt with in my immediate family seemed more indirect as one of us took the role of mediator and peacemaker if a dispute arose within the unit. I often assumed this position when there was a dispute between my dad and my mom.  

There’s a saying my mom often repeated to me whenever we talked about the characters and cultures of people. She would say, “To know me is to come live with me.” Most of culture is invisible, because much of it is imbedded and experienced in everyday life and in the intimate spaces of society. Much of culture is experiential learning where we receive cultural messages and lessons on a conscious and subconscious level from the moment of our birth. It is the hidden subconscious dimension of culture that leads many researchers to conclude that much of culture is invisible. For example, many Bahamians (including myself) are unaware that they recklessly stick the “mouth” of their car out of a corner into the main street because that’s how they have subconsciously learned how to drive in their experience with other Bahamian motorists. This is something that I try to be aware of now but it is something that I’ve learned on a subconscious level and practiced for many years.

   My grandfather’s building supply company was a place where I have worked since I was 8 years old. By the time I was 14 a Haitian young man named Garson began to work there; a very nice guy and an industrious worker. Over the years I became good friends with Garson and learned that he only visits his wife and two little girls back in Haiti once a year; this was before the age of readily available cell phones, Wifi and Facetime. Garson still works for my Grandfather but now as a supervisor. His girls have just graduated from college. Though he visits them for a longer period of time, he still only gets to see them once a year.

The case of Garson is the reality of many Haitian workers in my country where their desire to improve their families way of life has drove them to seek better employment opportunities in other countries. Though it gives them better opportunities to earn money, overall, I do not think the effect of globalization has been healthy for families. Don’t get me wrong; there have been many benefits that we have gained from globalization. I am pro-diversity and I definitely support individuals maximizing their opportunities in order to improve their living circumstances (after all that’s what I’m doing). However, the current world system and laws make it very challenging for people to move to another country and seek honest working opportunities. This is because of a myriad of reasons and there is often a bias against you depending on the country you are coming from.

Though my daughter was born in the United States, through her parents she is a Bahamian. It is important to me that she knows where her roots lie. In relation to this point, I believe that it is very important for children who have been adopted transculturally to learn about the culture that they come from and it is of the utmost importance that the adopted parents of these children make every effort to value, learn and celebrate the inherit culture of their child’s cultural roots. In the case of Mei Lin’s story (Lusting & Koester, 2000) we see the repercussions and negative affects on a child when their parents neglect the culture they are from.

“In the desert,” says an old Eastern proverb, “no man meets a friend.” During the times of the crusades, if a Muslim warrior crossed paths with a fellow Muslim who was a stranger to him, they would recite their family lineage back far enough to see if they had a common connection. When that family connection was found those two strangers considered each other as brothers. We live in a word where family connections are of little value especially in the eyes of our western society. However, the truth is that a person without family is negatively impacted by this lack in their life, and there is often a deep longing to know of their heritage, where they belong and where they are from. In this ever-changing world of globalization, we should cherish our family and cultural bonds, but we must never be afraid to make new ones.