Monday, March 12, 2018

Complications with Long-Distance Families


When I was a child, many of my relatives lived in the same Brooklyn neighborhood.  We could walk to each other’s homes.  But even as I entered my teen years, some were moving to the suburbs.  Prosperity enabled them to lift their horizons.
This trend has continued.  Now my extended family is more far-flung than ever.  On my father’s side, we have lost touch.  On my mother’s, we maintain contact—but intermittently.  Because some live in New Jersey, some in New York, and others in Florida, the telephone is our primary means of communication.
So it was with great pleasure that my wife and I greeted a proposal that we get together for a reunion in Florida.  A cousin—indeed my youngest cousin—had just purchased a home there, which provided a convenient excuse for reconstituting the clan.
 As it happens, this youngest of my cousins has been more successful than I imagined.  Because we hadn’t had a face-to-face talk for as long as I can remember, I didn’t realize that he had become the CEO of a billion dollar corporation.  Although I knew he was running a company, it never occurred to me it was that big.
Driving up to his palatial home on the beach quickly brought me up to speed.  This was a far cry from the mean streets of Brooklyn.  Heck, it was a far cry from the comfortable suburbs of Atlanta.
Nonetheless, my cousin was still my cousin.  He and his wife were not distant objects of veneration.  They, and his mother, who also came, were folks with whom we could let down our hair and be our selves.  The major difference was that because we were older, we could be more candid.
Yet the greatest irony of our get-together was that the cousins who initiated it were not there.  They were stuck in New Jersey.  First foul weather socked in their plane and then a malfunction canceled the flight entirely.  Because there was no easy way to reschedule, they were forced to drive home.
Although we in Florida got a blow-by-blow account of their tribulations as they were occurring, we were powerless to do anything.  This then was another complication of living so far apart.  We were all at the mercy of forms of transportation we could not control.
While I have no doubt that we will laugh about this muddle over the telephone, it has indefinitely postponed our ability to see each other.  Because we have tight schedules and finite budgets, finding another opportunity to reassemble will be difficult.
I am writing about this for a larger audience because such trials have become a common feature of the modern world.  Here is Cherokee county I am surrounded by expatriates from around the nation.  While some have nearby relatives, many do not.  They too must maintain their relationships catch-as-catch-can.
Social scientists tell us that close bonds with other humans are good for our health.  The trouble is that because we move around so much it is difficult to keep these from rupturing.  This is why we frequently depend more on proximate friends than remote relatives.
Even so, our relatives continue to matter.  When I was growing up, we used to say that blood is thicker than water.  Well, the blood seems to have thinned out a bit, but it has not evaporated.
This is why my wife and I visit her parents in Ohio every summer.  It is why we frequently make trips to Oklahoma to see her sister.  It is also why my wife makes weekly phone calls to her family.
Me, I must admit that I am more lax.  I moved away from my family, in part, so that I could establish an independent identity.  But I love my siblings and value them more with each passing year.  I am also proud of my nieces and wish them the best.
So here is the irony; although prosperity has increased our options in some dimensions, it has limited them in others.  Most of us have more choices than our ancestors, but larger numbers are also more isolated.
Freedom is a two-edged sword.  We could not have fulfilled many of our dreams without it, and yet we have done so at the expense of neglecting other needs.  Life is replete with insoluble dilemmas.  Still and all, we must find the best balance we can.
Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

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