A family member can be your husband or wife, your children, your parents, your siblings, your grandparents, your aunts and uncles, your cousins, or even your close friends. Even though you are related by blood, marriage, or adoption does not mean that you can depend on those people for support and those people love you and care about you. The photos I have selected on the appendices page represent my definition of family because these are the people that I know I can count on. These are the people who love me and are there for me whenever I need them. Sometimes the person who loves you and cares about you the most is a close friend. .
Statistical representations of family forms in Canada includes married couples (with or without children), common-law couples (with or without children), and lone-parent families (Statistics Canada, 2012). Family forms in Canada also include nuclear families, economic families, adoption, multigenerational families, blended families, and stepfamilies (Statistics Canada, 2015). All of these family forms include people who are related by blood, marriage, or adoption. .
Theoretical Foundations.
To one person, family may mean a mother, a father, and children. To another person, family may mean a father, a mother, grandparents, aunts, uncles, brothers and sisters. There is no right or wrong way to define family. All of these various make-ups influence the interaction of each person within the family. The theoretical foundation that I find most helpful to explain my definition of family and my experience of family is the Family Systems Theory. I will further discuss this perspective in more detail.
Family Systems Theory.
The Family Systems Theory conceptualizes the family as a system. That is, the family consists of interrelated parts each impacting the other and contributing to the growth, or detriment, of the other. Further, the family is always changing, self-organizing, and adapting to its members and the outside environment.