Somewhere around forty, or maybe fifty years ago, a North American family unit typically involved enough kids to fill one teams starting positions on a basketball court or a hockey rink. In fact, when I was growing up, an only child situation generated a sense of sympathy because of an assumption that the single child parents must have some sort of reproductive difficulty.
This sympathy was whispered amongst adults, but even as a child I was left with the sense that the commiseration had a touch of judgement associated with it that implied an inferiority. Depending on who was providing the faux sympathy, the innuendo suggested either a genetic defect or a lack of enthusiasm for the process.
Either way I thought it was mean spirited and an all around shitty way to behave, and any doubt I may have had about the shittiness was dispelled as soon as I discovered that the conduct was church sanctioned. Because even at a tender age I had already noticed that the church had a difficult time discerning between holy spirited and mean spirited.
In fact, if a woman was approaching her thirties and hadn’t delivered at least two lambs to the flock then it wasn’t unusual for a priest or minister to pop around for a chat to see if everything was ducky in the dormitorio.
Also, there were a couple of ministerial messages that needed to be delivered. The first was that God is a bareback advocate. So make sure your parishioners understand that using Lucifer’s latex is a sin. The reality was that protected recreational romps prevented pews from being filled with the collection plate donating flock. But religions have always been very adept at labelling anything that didn’t directly benefit them as a transgression against the lord.
The second message was that the church controlled copulation. Not so much where, but definitely how and when. If a woman were to become pregnant out of church provided wedlock then she was a sinner whore. And if she was a Catholic whore then they wouldn’t even marry her after she decided to make it official. So a church marriage was like a permission slip for guilt free sex. As long as you were a paying member and had promised that sex was strictly for populating the votary of course. Otherwise the fornication wasn’t sanctioned and therefore shameful, primarily for women.
So with no oral contraceptives, and no women’s rights movement, almost every couple had four or five kids, and that statistic was much more than a census number. It was a primary determining factor in our societal behavior.
Purchasing trends for example, where station wagons, bunk beds and five bedroom homes were considered a necessity.
But times have changed. At least in the West where relative affluence and birth control have provided options that were unavailable a couple of generations ago. As a result, the family unit is smaller across the board, and community purchasing habits are only one aspect of our conduct that has been influenced by that reduction.
I’m on the fence regarding whether the reduction is a good or bad thing. It’s convenient for example to have four siblings if you’re in a bar brawl or you’re roofing a garage. However, not having four siblings means that you don’t have to participate in a deluge of non-stop clan drama. This good or bad scenario also applies to friends, because once everyone stopped birthing a starting lineup, the friend pool has also diminished accordingly. So the same plus/minus scheme exists for both friends and family.
The challenge is to create a balance where dependence and provision are roughly equal. But this is called a challenge because it’s fucking challenging. For starters, some people are better at providing assistance and some people are better at receiving assistance. Eventually and inevitably the result is drama. But, bitching about the ebb and flow of assistance is only one aspect of friend and family drama. There are a host of other contributors that make real life soap opera’s unavoidable. We’re pretty inventive as a race and can always find something to fight over, and the more people you add to the mix the better the odds that rivalry and resentment will eventually breed conflict.
Also, there’s a substantial number of people that think all that conflict is perfectly normal, and part of the all inclusive package called life. I’m not one of those people though. I don’t want to be involved in any interventions, and I’d prefer to not even be aware of what triggered the decision to interfere in someone elses life.
Friend or family. It doesn’t matter, I still would rather the person in question quietly and privately get their shit in order without a group effort being required. That’s not to say that I won’t honor an obligation to participate, but I’m not comfortable or happy with the situation. And I will likely have to be made to feel guilty first. The good news is that there’s always someone in the friends or family that’s more than happy to guilt compel you into participating in whatever uncomfortable and awkward situation is about to go down.
It’s not laziness on my part either. I don’t mind literally lending a hand as long as it’s not every weekend. What bothers me is the expectation that I need to be there for people when they’re struggling emotionally. Whatever that emotion may be, I invariably find out some information I could have lived without, and I can’t help but feel that I’m intruding on a matter best kept private.
But, like I said some people love that shit.
Everyone knows that one person in the extended family or circle of friends, that relentlessly pursues drama enhancement. The more people that you have in your contact group, the higher the chances you’ll be drawn into one of these events.
But there’s a ratio problem to contend with as well. If you have twenty relatively close relatives and friends, and one of them is in a fucked up situation, then your odds are 1 in 19 that you may be summoned. It’s like jury duty where your prejudices and availability will be determined by the parties involved and then a determination will be made if you’re acceptable to serve. So the trick is to be either useless or an asshole. Sometimes both roles can be filled and you’re a useless asshole. Although not the best title to carry around there’s a hidden benefit in that no one asks for your help. It’s like being emotionally bankrupt and so no one asks you for an empathy loan.
However if you only have ten friends and relatives then the odds go up that you’re going to be selected, simply because the participant pool is 1 out of nine. So it’s in your best interests to be selective about friends, because there’s nothing you can do about who’s in your family.
Even with selectivity there’s no possible way to avoid the drama. Unless you have zero friends or family, it’s a certainty that someone close to you is going to suffer some degree of tragedy, and your participation is going to be mandatory. So, I guess what I find puzzling is why a person would be inclined to manufacture more of these moments. Personally, I find the inevitable and unavoidable misfortunes sufficient enough that I see no reason for a supplement.
But as noted, many people disagree with me and love being knee deep in all the trials and tribulations of friends and family. It’s like participassion I guess, where life is considered an emotional marathon that needs to be run.
I’d rather be the guy at the water station, handing out plastic cups of aqua and watching the marathoners fade into the distance. Useful to the overall race but essentially a spectator.