How about being born into a family, going through life and never having anyone tell you who is related to who, how and whatever family secrets that you shouldn’t take about.
Then get to 20 years of age and everyone treats you like an idiot for not knowing that aunt Margaret had a secret affair in 1975 had an illigitiment child who is your best friend, then she got married, divorced had three other children from different men and you always thought that their father died a long ago. No one talks about any of this but you are somehow supposed to know.
One of my favourite responses from family members goes something like … how did you not know that was your mothers, uncle, second cousin through marriage, stepson’s foster child? Don’t you even know your own family?
I have a ton of family in a variety of situations either through marriage, divorce, commonlaw, one night stands, rape, incest, undetermined, suspected, or just unknown … it’s also an Indigenous family so it gets weird sometimes when you have all brown family members and then an oddball white child that came out of left field, no explanation, no one talks about it, yet the white looking child is no different in culture and language than any of the rest of the family. I have two cousins who could pass off as completely white but their first language is Ojibway-Cree and they were born and raised like brown little old me.
And it gets hilariously insane quickly too … the whole family will complain about the indian-wanna-bes and pretendians … while our white looking cousins are sitting right next to us agreeing to everything we’re saying.
Families are weird … Native families are on another level
How about being born into a family, going through life and never having anyone tell you who is related to who, how and whatever family secrets that you shouldn’t take about.
Then get to 20 years of age and everyone treats you like an idiot for not knowing that aunt Margaret had a secret affair in 1975 had an illigitiment child who is your best friend, then she got married, divorced had three other children from different men and you always thought that their father died a long ago. No one talks about any of this but you are somehow supposed to know.
Why would they have to tell you? Everyone knows!! /s
One of my favourite responses from family members goes something like … how did you not know that was your mothers, uncle, second cousin through marriage, stepson’s foster child? Don’t you even know your own family?
I have a ton of family in a variety of situations either through marriage, divorce, commonlaw, one night stands, rape, incest, undetermined, suspected, or just unknown … it’s also an Indigenous family so it gets weird sometimes when you have all brown family members and then an oddball white child that came out of left field, no explanation, no one talks about it, yet the white looking child is no different in culture and language than any of the rest of the family. I have two cousins who could pass off as completely white but their first language is Ojibway-Cree and they were born and raised like brown little old me.
And it gets hilariously insane quickly too … the whole family will complain about the indian-wanna-bes and pretendians … while our white looking cousins are sitting right next to us agreeing to everything we’re saying.
Families are weird … Native families are on another level
I FEEL that. I thought another man was my father until 8th grade.
“Who’s this Steve guy you’re talking about?”
Everyone looked at me like I just grew a second head.
This is, uhh, oddly specific…? You ok?
Feels like the same families that don’t teach you a damn thing about how to be an adult and then treat you like shit for making any mistakes in life.