Once upon a time, we were that kind of family.
My husband Colin and I couldn’t wait to welcome our son Thom into the world. Once he was born, we did all the things most families do — afternoons at the park, trips to the local library, walks along the waterfront. As Thom grew, we took part in plenty of events around town, volunteered and did our part to be a part of the community.
There were youth sports, backyard barbecues with other families and their kids, plenty of talks about right and wrong and sticking up for others and doing what you feel is best. We did all the things you do as a parent with your kids when they’re young.
And then, like a snap of a branch, it was over. Everything was gone.
Our family was shattered eight years ago when Colin was killed in an accident. Suddenly, I was a single mother of a 9-year-old, and very aware at how differently I was viewed by society.
Just last month, the governor of Tennessee signed a resolution designating June as “Nuclear Family Month.” The amendment defines a family as one husband, one wife and their children.
I don’t have a problem with family values. I understand the benefits of having both parents around and what that brings to a child’s life. But reading about “nuclear families” and the idea of celebrating only those traditional types of families, or putting nuclear families on some kind of pedestal, doesn’t sit right with me as a widow.
Because my child didn’t ask to lose his father. I didn’t ask to lose my husband. My husband — the father of my child — didn’t just up and leave. He didn’t make a choice to abandon us, to walk out, to give up. He died in an accident. And we are not any lesser version of anyone else’s family.
So when a state or a nation elevates one kind of family over the other as a bedrock of how things should be, it doesn’t just describe a preference, it sends a message. And those of us who are already grieving the loss of our family can hear that message loud and clear: That we are lesser than. We don’t matter as much. We are not the ideal.
Let me be clear: Families do not stop being families when a parent dies. Instead, we are families that learn to become a family with an empty chair at the dinner table. We are families that learn to live with an immense loss and keep moving forward together, as a family. We are families that are not any more or any less than yours.
If we are going to take an entire month to celebrate families, then families like mine need to be included. We cannot pick and choose what types of families we support when families come in all shapes and sizes, too often through no fault of their own. We need to honor widows, the single parents no matter how they ended up single parents. We need to honor the children who lost a parent or both parents. We need honor the families that didn’t get to stay “nuclear” but somehow survived anyway.
Because if we’re really about values and morals and all that, we can’t celebrate one kind of family while putting down another. Children deserve better than that. And the children hear you when you talk about putting one kind of family above theirs.
My son and I did not choose this life. My husband didn’t choose to die. We too were once that “nuclear family” that lawmakers so badly want to celebrate. Until we weren’t.
Rachel Brougham is the former assistant editor of the Petoskey News-Review. You can email her @racheldbrougham@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Let’s honor families in all shapes and sizes | Opinion
Reporting by Rachel Brougham, Community Columnist / The Petoskey News-Review
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