"Close Knit" families

Have you ever known someone who was from a family that was so "close knit" that it was all about the family? Putting family first, with individuality and independence secondary to family honor-pride-solidarity and in the meantime they distrusted outsiders?

Nope, hell we find it hard to find a family that gives a damn about one another.

Oh yeah, I have seen that. Just not with anyone I am close to. It kind of weirds me out, to be honest. Because in the situations I have seen, the older members of the family seem to instill in the younger ones a sense of distrust in anyone who is not "blood". I am not a trusting person in general, but to me it still seems shitty to be brought up in an environment to only trust family.

I personally haven't seen that, not all of those things anyway.

I have seen creepy families though in other ways...

I dated a girl once who came from a family like that. Almost every decision she made for herself was heavily reliant on how her family (mother/father/sisters/brothers/grandparents) would react.

That is an old world concept - and you likely would see it in insular societies in Asia or even some religiously dominated societies in Europe but in America, at least in my gen or later we stress individuality - leaving the nest and making it on our own.

I can't recall seeing any family that overrode the decisions of an individual. I know mine sure didn't, being the black sheep of my family.

Usually those "close knit" families that distrust anyone who ain't kin....thinking that they can only rely on each other and that outsiders will try and tear them apart....are dysfunctional and don't much trust each other. My kids mothers family is like that and it's one of the reasons I don't like them.

Yes. Here in work there is a girl who worships her parents, has loud phone conversations with her family on company time, and says loudly "I love you mommy" "I love you daddy". Her family visits her at work, and she hugs them hello and goodbye even if she sees them every day.

Some people think it's nice, I think it is weird, as my family was divided by religion and I haven't seen them for years.

It's good to have family that have your back but to the exclusion of "strangers"? Not for me.

I'm ok with some close knit families but I have encountered some close knit families that I don't like to be around. My brother married a woman who in many ways is too close to her siblings, nieces and nephews. She has talk to her siblings daily and she lets her nieces and nephews invite themselves over to her and my brother's house anytime they want.

My family is close-knit but we don't overbear each other. We keep really close tabs and make plans to hang out on a regular basis, but I don't make decisions based on how they will react.

Yep. Ironically though, they were fake about it.

GrayWolf wrote:My family is close-knit but we don't overbear each other. We keep really close tabs and make plans to hang out on a regular basis, but I don't make decisions based on how they will react.