Family Kinship

            I chose my mother to interview. I chose her because she is the only blood family member I live with currently other than my little sister and because she knows a lot about our families’ history. My mother was born in Rockford Illinois, during the 1970’s. She was raised in the bad side of a bad town, her father’s family came from the richer side and her mother from the poorer side. Both my mother parents were white, but from different social backgrounds.

I found my interviewing to be full of questions and sometimes I repeated myself. I did have a bit of trouble not inputting my own knowledge when it came to locations of relatives, I found I knew a few that my mother did not. I did not experience any discomfort or awkwardness, so therefore my interview was not affected. I think it would be easier to interview someone unrelated to me as it may prevent bias as well as making asking questions easier because I know nothing and am staring off with a blank slate.

I would describe my families kinship pattern as fission because as new generations have been born the family has seemed to split up into close knit groups and mostly only interact within those groups. I have found unsurprisingly that most of my family is not close and especially not close to my EGO, in fact I find I am closer to my Step mother’s family than my own. When we’re discussing socialization for my family it is hit or miss some of us are very social and others are not. There is not a strong emphasis towards either side in my family. The attitudes between generations seem to be slightly more aggressive when it comes to younger generations, the older clans seem to push the younger to be better and to do more. The trend for my family seems to be smaller clans with around 3 children it is rare for a woman in my family to have more than that. There did not used to be ethnic differences in my family, until my mother (Ego) got married to my step mother. It had a huge social impact because most of the older generations in my family were racist to an extent and did not like the idea of having another race brought into their family, especially another woman. When my mother made her decision many of my family cut her out and stopped speaking with her, slowly some are working around their beliefs to have a relationship with my mother. For me personally it has helped make my relationship with my mother stronger and I accept my step mother with open arms, she is one of my idols that I look up to.

I know the relatives on my mother’s side very well, but not my fathers as I did not meet him until a few years ago. I socialize with my mom frequently as we live together, since my father and I do not live together we do not speak much. In the past for me personally my maternal grandfather seemed to have the most pull and authority in the family, he raised me for the first 8 years of my life and that authority kind of stuck with me until he passed away, then the biggest authority figure became my mother. Today my mother is still the most influential for me towards our family, our family is not a close one so I could not honestly speak for everyone else as I am sure all their answers would differ.

To my knowledge whether people married in to our family or were born into our family by blood, they are both treated the same there are no different levels of equality based on blood or gender.  None of my family members have shown a different attitude other than a lesser punishment for females when they do wrong. For example when my brother would get into trouble he may be given corner time or a spanking, but a female would either get shorter corner time or be grounded to their room for a period of time. Through this process I don’t really feel I have learned anything new or different about my family other than just how much we lack closeness which I already had a general idea about. I was surprised to realize just how racist and against LGBT some of my family was, I knew how they felt about it, but not quite how deep their hatred went. I can honestly say were I not already distant to those certain family members then I would have been less interested in being close to them after knowing this.

Interview:

Generations:

·         Maternal Grandparents: Grandfather-Jesse and Grandmother-Mary Smith (both Deceased) talked a lot with grandmother and was close to her.

·         Parents: Mother-Debbie (Smith) Lives in Decatur Illinois and Father-William Sanden Buried in Durand Illinois.(Father Deceased) Closer to father and communicated frequently until he died.

·         Ego and Siblings: Cindie Sanden (Ego), Sister-Leslie Duncan (Sanden) lives in Illinois, Brother-William Sanden Jr. lives in Pennsylvania. Speaks to sister often and is somewhat close to her, is not on speaking terms with brother.

·         Maternal Uncles and Aunts: Dewey living unknown (not close and does not speak frequently), Frank lives in Rockford Illinois (not close and does not speak often), Theresa lives in Rockford Illinois behind frank (not close and does not speak often), and Jesse lives in Mississippi (somewhat close, speaks off and on through a third party).

·         Paternal Uncles and Aunts: Sharon Pickett lives in Rockford Illinois (Close and speaks regularly), Susan Meldrum lives in Rockford Illinois (not close, barely talk to each other), Jeri-Ann Kernz lives in Wisconsin (very close, talk together often), and Craig Sanden lives in Winnebago Illinois (not close and talks rarely through social media).

·         Maternal Cousins: (Franks kids live in Rockford Illinois with father, not close and not on speaking terms) Nichole Smith , Megan Smith, (Theresa’s Kids living unknown, not close and not speaking) Mary, Jessica, Dawn, (Jesse’s kids living unknown, not close and not speaking) Christie Smith, Jesse Jr.

·         Paternal Cousins: (Jeri’s Kids) Luke Knutowski lives in
Wisconsin he and ego are very close and speak often, Kara location unknown (somewhat close and they speak occasionally), (Sharon’s Kids live with her, somewhat close and speak occasionally) Kevin, Kyle, (Susan’s Kids location unknown, not close and not speaking currently) Craig, Katelyn, (Craig’s Kids location unknown, not close and not speaking currently) Ryan, and Patrick.

·         Siblings Children: Nephew-Christopher living with Leslie, Niece-Macey living in Rockton Illinois, and Niece-Alicia living with Leslie (Children to Leslie, not close but speak occasionally), and William Jr. has no children.

·         Children (close to all children and speaks to them often): Daughter-Zoey White living with mother (me), Son-Zackary White living in Kansas with father, and Daughter-Samantha White living with mother.

·         Paternal Grandparents: Grandmother-Beverly and Grandfather-Gerald Sanden living together in Rockford Illinois, not close and not speaking currently.

She talks to her mother the most, but spends her holidays with her two daughters and her loving wife. If she needed help or a place to stay she would turn to her mother. She will not communicate with her brother and the reason is private. My subject does not know much about a majority of her cousins, but she remembers their names very well. My subject’s family is geographically spread out from her and I, but most live in the Illinois/Wisconsin area, so not quite geographically diverse. To my subjects knowledge none of our family members have migrated to another country. She believes the family has decided to stay close together in case someone needs help or in case of another death in the family as her grandparents are very old.