Consider Rhoda’s family gatherings on Christmas Eve and Christmas. Would you describe this as a functional or a dysfunctional family dynamic? Rhoda and her siblings are very different from one another – do they get along better than you would expect, or not?
4 comments:
This is such a subjective question.
I think it's entirely relative as to the experiences you've had in your own family.
I think theirs is a functional family dynamic.
They still meet and greet.
They can still gather and break bread.
My family is full of feuds and sub feuds, any gathering is virtually impossible.
They seem to acknowledge their differences, but don't seem to harbor outright resentments.
She seems to get along well with siblings, all things considered.
I'm waiting for more people to comment so there can be more back and forth.
As a member of a dysfunctional family, I can't answer this question. I can certainly judge and say that Rhoda's relationship with her brothers in particular is quite dysfunctional, but then again so is mine. Next person...?
They certainly aren't all buddy-buddy, let's get together and discuss everything under the sun and rejoice that we all agree, but there did seem to be a modicum of respect and maybe even some admiration among them. She openly praises each of her siblings at different moments in the text and I appreciated her willingness/ability to look past their differences to note some of the lovely things about them. I did wonder how her sisters-in-law felt about the way she portrayed them. I found the depictions humorous to read, but I also imagined how hurtful it might come across to them (or to her brothers).
I also wonder what functional versus dysfunctional means exactly. As Rita noted, they were able to get together and celebrate with (fairly) little animosity and even a little enjoyment (or so it seemed). However, they obviously got together *because* they were family and not really because of some shared ideology. I guess another question would be: is it possible/should you want to force relationships between family members even if/when the only thing holding them together is the fact they are a family and thus share a lot of memories?
BTW, I loved that they brought out the wine anyway! As one who has T-totalers on both sides of the family, I found this hilarious (and SCANDALOUS)!
I generally get a bad taste in my mouth when someone says they are from a "dysfunctional" family. So is everyone else! Families aren't perfect units complete agreement on all matters of the universe. Everyone's family has quirks and blurgles. I used to try to hide the fact that Dan's family didn't go easy on the alcohol when I was with my parents. Then I started remembering that my parent's families aren't exactly the non-alcoholics that we were raised to "appreciate."
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