Wilkinson Paige Wilkinson Dr.

Peterson Individual and Family Relationships 18 June 2011 Genogram Paper: The Genes That Govern My Growth At young ages many children do not understand the complexities of their family. As growing adults I find it important to know your family structure and the reasons behind those structures. Creating a Genogram is one of the many ways you can layout your family structure and clear see the relationships between members of your family and the strong emotional statuses of specific family members. My immediate family is probably the most intricate of my sisters because my mothers and father sides of my family are both pretty large. Although, the structure and gender roles of my family are very complex and we have our strengths and weaknesses, I believe that discussing those characteristics can gives us a better understanding of our lives today. My grandmother on my mothers side and her husband, an unfaithful man and deceased, had two children, my mother, who has three daughters which include my married eldest sister, my youngest sister and me, and my married uncle, who has twins. Being the caring woman my Grandmother is she adopted the child of one of my grandfathers lovers that passed. Unfortunately, my adopted aunt has passed away also but she had four children during her lifetime. She had her first child, a son, with a man named Wayman, and her three daughters with a man named Amus. Both of my aunts youngest daughters have daughters of their own and her eldest is married. My fathers side of the family, though not nearly as complex is of decent size.

Wilkinson My grandmother on my fathers and her husband are both deceased. During their lifetime they gave birth to my father and my aunt. I am my fathers only child but his sister had three children. Her two eldest have a different father from her youngest. Her eldest, a girl, has a daughter of her own and her middle child, has a son, has a son of his own but also may have another child but the paternity is in question. In a family as large as mine you may find strengths that bind us together emotionally. One of the strengths of my family is our ability to accept outsiders into our family and love them unconditionally. My aunt was an outsider of the worst kind. No family likes to accept infidelity as an issue but my grandmother not only accepted it but she raised the child of another woman as her own. To me my aunt was one of the best friends Ive ever had. I could tell my aunt anything and when she passed I was devastated. Not only has my family accepted my aunt into our family as our own but one of my younger distant cousins lived in my mothers house for 3 yrs when her mother was incapacitated. We celebrated Christmas together and birthdays and we enrolled her in school so that she could get an education. A second strength of my family is ability to break the cycle. My grandparents and mother only have High School Degrees. My father tried to break the cycle but once at college he suffered from a devastating knee injury. Therefore, my eldest sister and I are both first generation college students. My sister has a Masters in Business Administration and Communication and Im working on my first Bachelors Degree in the same major. My adopted aunt came from a very abusive family and though she was abused she swore she would never lay a hand on her children and she never did. By breaking the cycle of abuse she was able to give her children the life she never had. Despite the fact that my aunt was a great mother her children had to break their own cycles because once their mother died, they all became drug users. Today, 2

Wilkinson they are all currently off drugs and attending church regularly. I am proud of my family and our ability to accept those outside of our family as our own and our ability to break cycles. Nonetheless, while we have our strengths we also have our weaknesses. One weakness of my family that I view as a weakness is that we do not believe in one partner for life. Many of the siblings in our family do not have the same fathers. My sisters and I all have different fathers. However this has no impact on our relationships it makes the family more complex. This is a common scene throughout my entire family and I tend to try my best to break this cycle with my future relationships. I believe in marring once unlike many of the women in our family who believe in, If youre unhappy, give up. Though I do not believe in staying in an unhappy marriage, I feel that you must do all you can to make a single marriage last. Though this has had no affect on my siblings and me, I have seen the negative affect that it has had on my deceased aunts children. Her first child has a different father than the other three and it has caused them to drift apart. A Second weakness of my family is that we lack strong father figures. My own father was not involved in my life for quite some time while I was a child. Without strong father figures I believe that it has caused our family to make unwise decisions in our partners and has inadvertently caused the first weakness. An example of this is my mothers lack of a strong father figure. Since she did not have a figure in her life to represent the types of males she should surround herself with she made many mistakes in choice of partner. Also, I believe that if my cousins had had a strong father figure in their life when my aunt passed they would not have turned to drugs for comfort. Every family has their weaknesses but I believe that I am lucky enough to say that my family has few. We are mainly a strong and united family and when we see weakness in other we are there to old them up and encourage them. Although, we are always 3

Wilkinson there for one another some of the relationships between members are stronger and more positive than others. One of the most hostile relationships in my family was between my mothers mother and her husband. It all began after my grandmother gained knowledge of my grandfathers infidelity. Not only was my grandfather unfaithful the act also resulted in a child. My grandmother never forgave him and when the other woman passed she adopted my aunt. Though she loved my aunt dearly the tear in my grandmother and fathers relationship never healed. They lived separately but remained married until his death in 1999. Another hostile relationship in my family was between my aunt and the father of her first child. Their relationship was hostile because he was a very abusive man. She remained in that relationship for 5 years with a belief that he truly loved her. She came to the realization that this was a delusion after the father of her first child pushed her down a full flight of stairs with the intent to kill her. The final hostile relationship is between my mother and my father. This relationship has been hostile since my birth. Although my parent tried to shield me from their hostility towards one another, it was very apparent they did not get along because at family gatherings they would not speak and when they spoke it was only because it was necessary or I was around. On the other hand there are many positive relationships in my family. My sister and I are very close and the reason behind it is my mother. My mother has medical issues that at time incapacitate her from being able to care for us like she should and in turn my sister and I have bonded on an unbreakable level. Also the youngest daughter of my deceased aunt and I are extremely close. I know that if I need anything I could call on her and vice versa. Our connection runs so deep that when we get together we laugh and laugh