A Family of a Different Sort

Today, my little muffins, we are going to talk about families and family trees.  How many of you know what a family tree is?

(29 clueless, vacant and blank stares and one girl jumping up and down – OHOHOH!  We have one planted in our back yard!!!)

All right then – let’s look at families first.  You need to have a family before you can have a family tree, right?

(30. No one jumping up and down.)

Right.  All families are different.  Your family may be nothing like mine and mine may be nothing like Mr. Principal’s!  Following me so far?

(28 clueless, vacant and blank stares, 1 glimmer of light and 1 pair of eyes closed – presumably in sleep mode)

Great!  You already know that there ARE different types of families – but did you know that these family types have names?  Don’t all jump up to answer that question – I wouldn’t want anyone to get hurt in the rush.  Does anyone know what some of these family names might be?

(26 clueless, vacant and blank stares, 2 cries of “Hernandez!”, one snorer and one child who definitely needed to have the nurse check for viable signs of life.)

OK.  Let me make this easy for you – the family types we are going to look at are NUCLEAR families, EXTENDED families, BLENDED families and SINGLE PARENT families.

Who might the members be in a SINGLE PARENT family?

(one brave soul pipes up hesitantly…parents?)

Good start – it does involve a parent – anyone else?

(my downes syndrome child makes the sign for “Potty time!”)

A SINGLE PARENT family means one (that’s another word for SINGLE, folks!) parent and their children.  Let’s say your parents are divorced and you and your brother and your sister live with your Dad.  You guys are a SINGLE PARENT family.

(Miss!  How can it be SINGLE if my brother lives there?  Can I make my brother go live with my dad?  He beats me up every night and I hate him)

Well…let’s move on to a BLENDED family.  Any guesses on this one?

(Is that where the mom is white and the dad is black?  I know!  It’s when all the different cultures live in one house!  Like my uncle.  He died last week at Mint Sanny hospital in New York City.  Its full of Hindus.  They were nice to my uncle.)

Honey – I think you mean Mount Sinai – and technically, it’s full of Jews – not Hindus.  It’s a whole different sort of thing.

(Oh yeah, that’s right – so is that a blended family?)

No.  A blended family is when your parents divorce.  Then your mom remarries.  Now you have a step-dad.  If your step-dad has a daughter, now you have a step-sister!  AND if your mom and your step-dad have a baby together, now you have a half brother or sister!

(30 alert, knowing, understanding and attentive faces shine up at me.  Finally something they understand!)

What about a NUCLEAR family?  Anyone feeling brave enough to guess what that is?

(One near a power plant?  One where everyone fights a lot – so there’s lots of explosions, like a bomb?  One that glows?)

At least you’re thinking now….I think.

I am not even going to tell you what they thought an EXTENDED family is!

Tomorrow – I think we’re going back to cookies.  Much safer.