This week in preschool my son’s class is learning about families. Because it is a low-income preschool specifically designed to help single mother’s finish college, the majority of the children have never known what it is like to come from the traditional nuclear family. Most come from difficult circumstances and have had to deal with a lot in their young lives. Like many of them my son was very young when we divorced ; he will never remember a time when his parents lived in the same home, but we are certainly still a family, just a slightly more complicated one.
When his preschool asked for a picture of his family I was a little unsure of what to give them. In my book, it’s just the two of us now, but ask Logan and you’ll find that his family is much, much bigger than that. All of his friends, aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents are part of his “family.” Are we all related by blood? Far from it. I too, come from a complicated blended family. We learned from a young age that it isn’t blood, but love that binds us together.
When his teachers asked him who was in his family he simply said, “Everybody is in my family!” They laughed it off and continued on with their lesson, but I couldn’t help but be a little proud of him. Maybe his definition is a bit more broad than most, but perhaps there is something that can be learned from the innocence of a four year old little boy. He loves the people in his life and they love him. To him this is what family is all about. We certainly aren’t related to all of them, but they are our family and we love them just the same. I’m just not sure how we’ll fit everybody in his preschool picture!
