OK, here’s a question. Imagine that you’re walking into your house on a normal weekday evening. Everyone in the family is home. Is the house: (a) serenely peaceful, with only the quiet hum of a single radio to break the silence? Or is it: (b) filled with the competing sounds of two different CDs or radios being played loudly from different rooms, while someone else is watching TV in another room, and voices are raised in noisy debate in the kitchen? Oh, and three different animals are all trying to get you to pet them?
If the answer was (b), then you’re growing up in a house a lot like mine when I was growing up. Maybe that’s why I’m so obsessed with family life. I grew up in a big, noisy, loving, close-knit family. Even when we were furious at each other (or at any of our extended relations, most of whom were extremely involved in our lives), none of us would ever have questioned that family was the most important thing in anybody’s life.
I grew up with two younger brothers who participated in or observed (and commented on!) all of my most important adventures. I grew up with parents who were caring and aware of just about everything we got up to, good or bad, and who were determined to keep us safe as well as challenging us to grow.
I grew up with the stories of my ancestors from all over the world – from my great-grandfather Moshe, whose family fled to America after a *pogrom* burnt down their house in the Ukraine, to my great-grandmother Katerina, who made the brave choice to follow her childhood sweetheart all the way from Croatia to America, even though it might mean never seeing her home again. All of those ancestors made decisions that caused me to be born. Without those choices, I wouldn’t be alive now.
Sometimes I’ve thought that I had to go away to college to understand who I really was, separate from my family. But the truth is, without my family, I would be a completely different person – and a much, much less happy one. My brothers and parents and I might all live in different cities, now, but they’ll always be one of the most important and beloved parts of my life no matter where I live. Whenever I’m with them, no matter where we are, I’m home.
So it’s not surprising that almost everything I write, from short stories to novels, is somehow about the concept of family: how our families shape and define us for better or worse, how they can cage us in with fear or give us the strength we need to go forward, how we can define ourselves within them, and how we can protect them when they need us. Whether we love our families or curse them, I honestly think we can never truly escape them – and personally, I’m thankful for that.
Unladylike Adventures of Kat Stephenson: Most Improper Magick
Love this, Steph! I grew up in a big, noisy family too, and yet I write about single children. I wonder what that says about me?! ;)
Well, I grew up as the oldest child (which means being expected to be The Responsible One, of course), and now I’m writing a series of novels about a wild & reckless youngest child…so maybe we’re both playing out our fantasies! ;p
Heh. I also grew up in a big family, but we are not close now, in any meaning of the word: as scattered as we could be across a smallish country, and we almost never talk.
And unless I concentrate, I write about people with no observable family at all. When I do concentrate, when I remember, my fictional families tend to come out bad…
It’s funny how much of our internal Stuff pops up in our fiction… ;)
Hee, Stephanie, eldest children unite!
I also grew up in a big, noisy family, but I don’t regret being a little distance from them – none of us are afraid of conflict and it’s easier for me to appreciate how wonderful they are in smaller doses. But you’ll understand why my current WiP is dedicated to my siblings!
Oh, wow, yes. I can DEFINITELY understand dedicating that particular book to them!