When “Family” Becomes an Excuse for Abuse
I used to work for a big technology company. Really big. And during the many years I spent there I worked on a few different teams. The one that stuck out the most was a fairly isolated team (meaning it was a stand-alone team that didn’t work much with other teams) that considered itself a family when I first joined. Everyone, but me, had been on the team for several years or more. The word “family” came up quite often, with the team referring to itself as such and the leaders going to great lengths to stress how much the team was like a family.
After a few months of being “in the family,” I began to realize how incredibly dysfunctional the team was. From the younger employees—who were miserable, but also incompetent at their jobs while simultaneously overflowing with a sense of entitlement—to the more experienced (OK, older) members—who managed using an incredibly backwards approach of playing favorites, using gossip, engaging in emotional blackmail, and following no standards—that would be recognizable in most professional environments—for how they did work. As work environments go, it was pretty much about the worst place I ever worked. Not to mention the quality of the work of the team was poor to downright terrible.
Within 6 months, I was looking for a way out. And around that time I read an interesting article. One that I wish I could remember where it was written and by whom. The gist of the article was this: any team within a business, or business itself, that thinks of itself as a “family” is typically going to be the most dysfunctional team you will ever work on. Companies and teams that use the term “family” are usually run by people who are not often very capable of running a professional company or team. By that I mean they are not capable of building good process, setting standards, managing consistently, etc. These groups rely on emotion, guilt, and their own personal biases to make day-to-day decisions which are entirely inconsistent and dependent on their mood. If someone left the team, they were considered a traitor. If someone got promoted, it was usually because they made their manager feel good about themselves not because of performance. And on and on.
As I have traveled through life I have realized that “family” is often the excuse for some of the worst psychological trauma I have ever seen inflicted on people I know. Parents who insist on loyalty, respect, and employ emotionally abusive tactics are often the first to use the phrase, “family is the most important thing.” It becomes an excuse that requires someone to stick around despite being treated terribly.
Don’t believe me? Pick up any advice column and scroll through the letters to Amy, Abby, Ann, Carolyn, Prudence, etc. and it won’t take you very long to find someone writing a letter about how they keep engaging with family members who are rude, mean, abusive, etc.
Many of my close friends, lovers, and even business associates were often the victims of this emotional abuse as children and carry that baggage through their adult lives. The damage done to them is irreparable. It is sometimes hard to watch an adult who is unable to stand up to a family member, especially a parent, because of the emotional abuse they were dealt and then the additional damage done to them when they were told—because they are a member of the family—they must provide unquestioning loyalty. How many of us have put up with verbal, and sometimes physical, abuse from a family member that we would never in a million years stand for if the person were a stranger … or even a friend?
A good friend of mine worked in counseling for many years and he told me a story about a young woman who was repeatedly raped by her father and brother starting at the age of 9 or 10. She was removed from the house when she was 14 years old and that’s when he met her. For the first month, she cried almost every day begging to return to her home and family, the same father and brother who had been raping her for years who were waiting to go to trial for their crimes.
The psychological mind fuck of that situation goes on almost every day, admittedly to a much lesser degree, in families all over the world. There is an entitlement that comes with being a member of the family that, depending on how you were raised, makes it difficult to fight against. It is, in a very real way, a power imbalance that can be used against people who feel the obligation and responsibility towards family and don’t have the emotional or psychological strength to ask the hard questions and challenge their oppressors. Even in the face of some pretty fucked up stuff that’s done to them.
I point my finger squarely at parents. I have known, and still know, many parents who think that playing the emotional bullying card of, “we’re family,” is perfectly acceptable. Parents who tell their children, “you need to respect me because I am your [Fill in Familial Role Here].” Parents who believe that the one person they can make fun of, hurt, demean, and neglect with impunity is their child. It’s wrong.
I am here to say that familial relationships hold no more value in anyone’s life than that of strangers. Humans have been abusing the most vulnerable and helpless members of society, their own children. The next time someone tries to lecture you on the importance of family, you call bullshit. Tell them that a REAL family is one that respects, nurtures, and treats its members with love, affection, and consideration. And when a member of the family violates those terms, they have the obligation to apologize and make it right. If not, then they really aren’t a member of the family.
No matter what they claim.
- M
Copyright © 2020 - Malcolm Bolivar. All Rights Reserved.