When we think of the perfect family, we often imagine something out of an 80s television show. We picture a loving husband and wife who live in a house on a hill with a picket white fence around their perfectly landscaped yard, where you can find their straight-A children happily playing.
But if you grew up in a dysfunctional family, chances are, that’s not what growing up was like for you. Instead of a white picket fence around the house, there was an invisible fence installed for your mixed breed dog that has the charisma of a five-year-old and greets strangers with leg humping. And unlike the first scenario, you and your siblings were often found chasing each other in the front yard with the plastic knives you were supposed to be eating lunch with, while your parents pretended not to hear anything.
Gathering the family together for even the simplest of things was as impossible as trying to find everyone in your squad at the bar at the end of the night. It took the family endless amounts of tries to assemble everyone together for a family picture. What should have served as a priceless momento of your family, now serves as a funny dinner conversation, despite your mom’s threats of no television for a week, and your little brother managing to stick his tongue out in the final shot. Family vacations always began with someone getting lost on the island tour and ended with a very public scene over who gets to sit in the window seat.
The word dysfunctional can mean a lot of things when used to describe something. But describing a family as dysfunctional gives it an entirely different meaning. Families are like paintings, each their own unique work of art. Some you can appreciate from a first glance, while others require a closer look. Dysfunctional families are kind of like one of Picasso’s paintings. It looks like there’s one hundred things going on, some people are screaming and crying while others are laughing, and there are a bunch of abstract shapes and blobs floating around everywhere. But despite all of this, they are just as priceless as a Monet painting of a lily pond on a summery day.
Although this breed of family often comes with double the arguments and embarrassing times, there are twice as many laughs and smiles that make up for it. There is never a dull moment at any family gathering, which always result in the most entertaining stories. There are ups and downs, and sometimes you might think you are going to lose your dinner on the ride. Even the Kardashians have their fair share of mishaps and mayhem.
Families are what we make of them and like many of the other best things in life, we are only given one of them. Sure, you can form friendships and close relationships with other people who don’t share your DNA or gene for being short. But there is something very special about the family you are born into. Growing up in a dysfunctional family may lead to many stories that you will tell over and over again, some embarrassing, hilarious, sad, or a combination of the three. Above all, it gives you an irreplaceable group of people to come home to, because unlike the ones you see on television with picket white fences, it's real.
