Kinship
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language defines kinship as "Connection by blood, marriage, or adoption; family relationship," or "Relationship by nature or character; affinity." The same source says that relatedness is "Connected by kinship, common origin, or marriage." My subject, Justin S. feels somewhat differently. When we first began the interview, I first asked him how he felt about the terms kinship and relatedness, and what it meant to him. He told me that kinship meant everyone who was related to him by blood, but not necessarily marriage. The only members of his "family" he considered to be kin were those with whom he has a personal relationship. This relationship including constant contact through various forms of communication (AIM, E-mail, telephone, social functions, Etc.) and family gatherings and holidays. Having my own definition and understanding of these terms, I questioned the size of his family to see if maybe these members were all that existed. He told me he has many more members of his extended family who simply, "don't matter" These people fell under his explanation of relatedness, which
entailed "everyone who was actually blood related and kin by default." I wondered if maybe the family was spread out across the country or even international. But the family is centrally located in Detroit, Mi. and one small family lives in Los Angeles. So the entire extended family is relatively close to each other, but still the relationships do not exists, at least not in Justin's opinion. By his own admittance, he says that his social ineptitude, and disagreements or arguing among the elders in the family has lead to the decline of closeness and relationships in his family. However, Justin, himself, does carry on strong bonds and relationships with two of his eight cousins. When we agreed to meet for the interview, we decided to come prepared with all the family research done on our parts for the other person. When we went through his family tree, I found it peculiar that he would list and start with his deceased great grandparents on both his mother and fathers sides. I just figured that he was adding them to the list because that is the likely generation to start with in most family trees. But when I asked about them, he told me that they
Some common words found in the essay are:
Los Angeles, Detroit Jewish, English Language, AIM E-mail, Uncle Roger, Aunt Isabelle, Aunt Ruth, extended family, Detroit Mi, justin's family, fathers family, definition understanding, uncle roger, size family, family gatherings, relatively close, relationship relationship,
Approximate Word count = 778
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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