Why don't I write more about chosen family?
Chosen and traditional family are compliments, not replacements for each other
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One of the questions I occasionally get while writing this blog is why I don’t write more about the concept of “chosen family.” It’s a good question; the title of this blog is “Nuclear Meltdown” because the underlying idea of this project is that the nuclear family isn’t doing the things — childcare, elder care, companionship etc. etc. — that family has traditionally done.
So it’s natural that the idea of chosen family comes up as a possible solution. In fact, it probably is one solution. I know people in a variety of chosen family situations ranging from what I’d otherwise have called close friends, to polyamorous “polycules” of folks in varying types of romantic relationships. Every single person I know who describes their relationships as chosen family is better off for having those relationships. Chosen family is a great concept.
But I also think chosen family is somewhat outside the scope of this blog. That doesn’t mean it’s not interesting. It is. But a lot of interesting things are outside the scope of this blog1.
So I thought I’d take a moment to articulate what exactly this blog has evolved into, and explore why chosen family probably isn’t going to become the major theme of Nuclear Meltdown. And the thesis today is that chosen family is great and complimentary to traditional family. It may even be able to step in and do some of the things that we currently look for family to do, namely provide a set of emotionally rewarding relationships. But I’m less convinced that on a large scale it can function as a standalone replacement for traditional family.
1. Nuclear Meltdown is about intergenerational family
The short answer for why I don’t write more about chosen family is because this blog is primarily about intergenerational family. That’s why I’ve written about family wealth across 600 years and the trajectory of my own family over the last 150 years. That post about my family was titled “it can take multiple lifetimes to build a village,” referring to the “it takes a village…” idea. And the point is that the situation people are born into has a significant impact on how their lives turn out. That’s not to discount personal choice. But as I mentioned recently, the way the proverbial chess board is laid out for you in advance matters a lot too.
The recent debate about “nepo babies” — people born into families of great wealth and influence — suggests that most people agree that family exerts significant influence across generations, even if many aren’t thrilled about that.
But when it comes to chosen family, I’m not sure how that works across multiple generations. If I form a chosen family of some kind, does it exist after I’m gone? And if so, is it still even a chosen family at that point? If you’re born into a group, you didn’t choose it.
So, the idea of chosen family is the opposite of intergenerational family. You don’t choose your ancestors. You don’t choose your descendants.
That doesn’t mean chosen and intergenerational family concepts can’t coexist. In fact they do, and many people I know who use a chosen family framework for their relationships also have some traditional kin relationships too. These aren’t mutually exclusive ideas, but they are different things.
Obviously most of us don’t come from families of great wealth or influence. But I think just making an effort to be more cognizant of how one generation’s choices influence the next generation ultimately influences decisions around things like careers, marriage partners, where someone lives, etc. In other words, even if you don’t come from a dynasty you can start to build something that has a positive impact on future generations. This is what I was talking about when I wrote about adopting an intergenerational mindset. It’s about seeing oneself as one chapter in a long-running story.
2. This blog is mostly using an economic lens (and not an emotional one)
One of the things I’m constantly thinking about is how the concept of family intersects with finance and economics. For example, some people have family networks that led to jobs. Others get access to housing through their families. Some people have legacy access to things like clubs and universities, which then give them socially and professionally advantageous networks.
All of these things influence where people decide to live, when and if they have kids, which professions they choose and so on — which are financial decisions.
On the other hand, most chosen family groups I’ve seen didn’t form to answer financial questions. That’s not the point, and their goal isn’t to give each subsequent generation a leg up.
In fact, money question seem to be a major challenge in a chosen family situation. For example, if I’m part of a polyamorous group and I die, who inherits my money? Or, financial obligations do chosen family members have to one another? For instance, the existence of the Pell Grant system for college is based on family need, meaning there’s a codified expectation that families pay for their kids’ higher education. Obviously this system is not perfect. But its existence reveals that as a society we expect parents to provide for their kids.
How does that work in a chosen family situation? Who shoulders that responsibility? Practically, whose income should count when a college student applies for financial aid? Right now it’s the parents; should it be all of their lovers too?
Obviously you can write wills and contracts to answer financial questions. Some people are answering these questions.
But I don’t think that’s what most people are looking for from the chosen family concept. Chosen family doesn’t need to answer all of these questions because, I think, most people find it rewarding due to the emotional and social benefits. Which is great. Everyone needs emotional connections. But I have also argued on this blog that emotional connections on their own are capricious and easily broken. I’m not saying they’re bad, because they aren’t. But historically family relationships were reinforced by shared economic interests. And one of the main arguments of this blog is that our relationships would be stronger, and our “villages” more helpful, if we reintroduced some historic ideas about intergenerational financial interdependence.
In other words, this blog tends to be about exploring the ways that financial connections bind together and strengthen families, both past and present2.
3. I hope some of the issues fueling chosen family are temporary
A handful of the messages I’ve received have noted that chosen family is a popular framework for members of the LGBT community whose family members have not supported, or outright rejected, them. This is a tragedy. But I also hope that this is a relatively temporary phenomenon, and I suspect it is. When I was born in the 1980s, same sex marriage was politically unthinkable. Now it’s widely supported. I came from a conservative religious background (Mormonism) that was historically hostile to same sex couples. Institutionally, same sex marriage remains a point of conflict in Mormonism, but I don’t know many young Mormons who are openly homophobic, let alone who would cast out their own future children for being gay. That’s a big change in just one generation. Similar transformations are happening in many religious communities.
I’m not suggesting all the problems have been solved on this issue, or that everything is great. There’s still a long way to go.
What I am saying is that attitudes on LGBT life in America have changed so rapidly that it’s possible to imagine a day when there is no longer a statistically significant number of people who experience a critical rift with their biological family due to their sexual orientation3. I hope I live to see that future, which would create a situation in which far fewer people would face an either-or between their chosen and biological families4.
The other driver I see of chosen family is that people are physically removed from their families, often because they moved somewhere new for a job. I suspect that, unlike LGBT acceptance, this may actually get worse as certain cities pull ahead economically.
Part of the solution here is to think critically about careerism, and when it’s worth sacrificing family relationships for a better job.
But for me personally, I also assume my kids will someday move away unless I have a job waiting for them when they reach adulthood. So, either via a business that I start myself or through my network, I have to be able to present them with a competitive job offer nearby. As they say, be the change…
4. Chosen family doesn’t answer some of the hardest questions
I mentioned some questions above about things like inheritance. But those questions are really a pandora’s box. For instance, many chosen families are made of people who are broadly similar ages. When happens when everyone gets old? In traditional families, having people of different ages means that in an ideal situation you have able-bodied people to take care of the young and the old. Age diversity is one of traditional family’s biggest strengths.
But I’m not sure how you create a chosen family with people who are, say, 60 years old and 20 years old. This is what I was talking about in my recent post on elder care, and I'd direct you there if you want to read more on this topic.
5. This blog is about thriving in the world as it currently exists
Many of the counter arguments I hear to the points above boil down to the idea that the world doesn’t exist the way it should. For example, we can all agree that being born with wealth and influence gives you a head start in life. But that’s the not the way the world should work.
Maybe so. But is that likely to change?
Maybe the world will improve. But this is a pragmatist’s blog. It’s about looking at the world as it exists now and asking, how do I give my kids a better life in this environment? If the world ends up getting systemically better, I’ll be pleasantly surprised. If it doesn’t, I’ll be prepared.
I’ve spent this blog constantly saying that the concept of chosen family is a good one and that it’s interesting, because I want to drive that point home. But for it to replace traditional families and do everything that they’re supposed to do, we’d need a vast and systemic change. That change would involve widespread attitude shifts, yes, but it would also need to include a radical overhaul to things like education funding, mortgage policy, inheritance law. We’d need different kinds of housing and so much of it that it’d take generations to build.
Maybe all of this can happen. And there are some cool people who have replaced traditional family with chosen family and are making it work even today. But this blog isn’t about proposing solutions that would require every aspect of our society to change in order for those solutions to become mainstream. It’s like building a house; some people build homes from scratch with their own two hands. But for most people, buying or renting a home that already exists is the more logical and economical solution.
This is why, in the end, I think chosen and traditional families are complimentary ideas. They accomplish different things. And while I tend to focus more on the role of traditional families in this blog, in the end I hope that the future is filled simply with more and better relationships for us all.
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I’ve written multiple blogs about urban design, I did a YouTube show about cold cereal, the same day this blog post went live I had a piece in the Deseret News about environmentalism. The point is that there are lots of interesting things that fall outside the scope of Nuclear Meltdown.
I do of course sometimes write about emotional conditions such as loneliness. But the overarching goal is to understand how financial circumstances, and the decisions of previous family members, produced the conditions that created loneliness. In other words, I’m not trying to chronicle every imaginable solution to a lack of friends. I’m trying to understand how so many of us ended up in a situation in which emotional states like loneliness were likely outcomes. And to do that, I’m generally looking through an economic lens.
It’s also worth noting that traditional marriage is now available to all adults, regardless of sexual orientation.
I could be wrong on this. But there’s no denying that attitudes about same sex marriage have evolved with incredible speed.