Family Culture

So last week I learned about genograms and I was putting one together for my family. I wasn't too sure about what all the different boundaries meant, but I put in my best effort. While I was doing this my mom was close by and I asked her if it was a good depiction of our family. She was surprised about how I put her in the center of everything. I put three lines connecting us and she said "Apparently, you think we are too close". I said "Well sometimes I think we share a little too much". She expressed that she didn't feel that I overly shared with her but that she  probably shares too much with me.

I found it really interesting how we saw other relationships with the rest  of my family as well. Of course I don't know exactly how others relationships are especially since I am living away from home. My family has always been really close though and I do love that. Today in class there was a portion about how a family can be too close and have a barrier all around them, making it hard for others to come in. I think this is true of my family. I remember the time when my mom remarried and some of my older siblings had a really hard time with it and pushed him away. It has gotten better since then but you can still see a little bit of a rigid barrier around my step-dad.  

Each family can have a culture. Ours was very strong and in class we've talked about some unspoken rules.. one really good example of this was with curfew. It was understood that curfew was 9 but it wouldn't matter if we were a little bit late. One day after Charles (my step-dad) joined the family I got home just a few minutes after 9 and he made a big deal out of it. My mom backed him up for that night and explained to him that was not what we were used to