Open Families and Framilies are in…
For me, families are changing but not as we are led to believe.
The voices coming from the powers that be would have us think that families are broken downand the situation will get worse. In my experience the opposite is true; families are spending more time together, getting tighter as a unit and more young people than ever are citing their parents as their role models.
Families are becoming more of a unit than ever, with blended families and single parents appearing to have much tighter bonds. So for people trying to reach them, we need to think more in terms of the “We” Concept.
Purchasing decisions are being made as a unit and the old system of parents making large purchasing decisions have been replaced with discussions and equal rating.
Spending time together is sacred – these new open families it appears have made their own sacred rituals together, be it sitting around on a Saturday and watching TV or eating meals together every evening, these rituals are special and hugely important to them and they are viewing them as events to be planned for and celebrated.
The new open families are close-knit, chosen units with their own rituals, who make purchasing decisions through conversation.
While families are getting tighter, what is changing is who is considered in that family and the new term “framily” seems to ring true. It appears that, rather than a nuclear family as it use to be, it now means that people choose who they put in the sphere of influence. The new family unit can consist of friends, neighbours and anyone else the family have chosen to put in. The new framily has as much weight as the old family.
And we are recently seeing this trend on Facebook. I recently looked at my daughter’s profile and found she had three more parents and 4 more sisters then she had in real life. After my initial panic and the thought of being ousted (even though I did still feature) I took a deep breath and realised what I was looking at was her family tree. The people at that moment who are the most influential in her life. There was her family on show. I thought what a gift, a gift that firstly I was still included and a gift that I could see who at any one time is influential to her. So families are becoming open, diverse and with different meaning.
