# What family is There are very few things we have absolutely *zero* indirect control over about [ourselves](identity.md). But, beyond most of our physical attributes and where we were born, our family ties are one of the few we're stuck with. All aspects of [group](groups-small.md) dynamics are adaptations off our first [responses](people-decisions.md) based on [expectations](imagination.md) from the people who originally [raised us](parenting-children.md). They gave us the first context for [understanding](understanding.md) the world, as well as most of our [social skills](people-3_boundaries.md). Since we spend more time with them, we're more closely familiar with our family's [habits](habits.md) and [customs](people-culture.md) than anyone else's. Unless the dynamics are particularly [dysfunctional](parenting-children-bad.md), we tend to [favor](people-friends.md) those relationships more than non-family. In some situations, such as close [friendships](people-friends.md) and [Christianity](church-family.md), "family" associates with a friendship that's as close as blood relation. For the most part, though, family is treated as a separate class of existence, which can include [marriage](relationships-marriage.md) APPLICATION: Our [favoritism](people-friends.md) for family members creates some of the most screwed-up relationships on the planet. We will endure unbelievably inappropriate [boundary violations](people-conflicts.md) on the pretense of "family". Healthy family dynamics come through combining several different components that feed off each other: - Biological or commitment connections that at least *imply* [responsibility](meaning.md) for each other. - A [marriage](gender.md) that frames a structural example for [idealized](values.md) relationships, including sexual attraction. - Shared beliefs on [nurturing](parenting-babies.md) and [disciplining](parenting-children.md) children, which borrows heavily from [religious doctrines](religion.md). - Consensus on [out-group interactions](people-conflicts-war.md) (e.g., in-laws). - Agreement on [resource](power-types.md) management (e.g., [time](success-4_routine.md), [money](money-1_why.md)) and collective [purposes](purpose.md). - Shared names that imply at least some of the above social bonds. ## Marriage The most significant way we can [choose](people-decisions.md) to extend our family to is through [marriage](relationships-marriage.md). It's usually a male and female mutually [choosing](people-decisions.md) each other, but historically the choice was from both family [groups](groups-small.md) coming to a [contractual agreement](people-contracts.md). Even though the people who marry are most [influenced](influence.md) by a [wedding](relationships-weddings.md) and the subsequent relationship, *every* family member is profoundly influenced in small ways over that marriage. This is the cause of most [family conflicts](people-conflicts.md) (e.g., mother-in-law vs. daughter-in-law). While both genders play a part in the formation of a child, the female has a more clear role in the formation of a family: - While men have to find all sense of [meaning](meaning.md) in the establishment of a family, a woman has the inherent biological qualities of producing and nurturing children in [their formative years](parenting-babies.md). - The quality of a woman's [education](education.md) has the most impact on a family, since it she imparts more of it to her children than a man who has to work a [career](jobs-specialization.md) elsewhere. The man's role is far more nuanced, and essentially gives the child a model for how to conquer [the unknown](unknown.md). ## Parent switch The role of a parent is to give [everything a child needs to succeed](parenting-children-needs.md): - A [tradition](people-culture.md) and [legacy](legacy.md) worth [aspiring](purpose.md) toward. - [Understanding](understanding.md) of [reality](reality.md), to the best of our knowledge. - [Trends](trends.md) and [values](values.md) the parents [identify](identity.md) with. In everyone's brain stem, they have a unique switch that *should* activate when they first become a father or mother. At that point, their role shifts from simply focusing on themselves to a [desire](purpose.md) to preserve the well-being of a helpless new person. This switch, when activated, can provoke a broader form of [love](people-love.md) for all of humanity if fostered correctly. The new [understanding](understanding.md) [empowers](power.md) and encourages people to associate more strongly in [other groups](groups-small.md) and helps them connect their role to [society at large](groups-large.md), and is a huge reason why [conscientiousness](personality.md) hikes upward as people [age](maturity.md). The "parent switch" isn't specific or guaranteed with biological parents. If someone is particularly [selfish](morality-evil.md), that switch won't engage. If, for whatever reason, someone else takes on a parental role (e.g., extended family, adoption) that switch can still activate. ## Children The entire family model starts with the parent-child relationship. Children are obsessed with finding [purpose](purpose.md) that conforms to their parents' [expectations](imagination.md), so they will either reproduce their lifestyle to be the same as their parents or will partially be (in the case of certain dysfunctional patterns) the near-complete opposite. We end up always representing two roles in our minds: a father and a mother. The people who adopt the roles for those aspects define significant structures that follow us throughout our lives. - The father represents civilization, and defines a developing child's views of how they [define meaning](meaning.md) and [fit into society](jobs-specialization.md). - The mother represents sacrifice, and defines a developing child's views of [love](people-love.md) and [human connection](people-friends.md). Children have their own initial [culture](people-culture.md), [preferences](humanity.md) and [self-interest](morality-evil.md) mixed into their [decisions](people-decisions.md) that did *not* originate from their role models. A child's culture starts relatively simple, but is often unpleasant to coexist around: - Conflict Style: They confront every issue directly and need [guidance](education.md) on how to be more subtle and [tactful](people-rules.md). - Context: Completely low-context and absolutely oblivious to any implications until they [learn](understanding.md). - Individualism/Collectivism: living entirely for themselves, since they're not even *[aware](awareness.md)* of others. - Masculinity/Femininity: Focused strictly on their [purposes](purpose.md), which is implicitly *very* masculine. - Power Distance: Depending on their [willpower](purpose.md) and how they [feel](mind-feelings.md) about their parents, they can often be *more* powerful than their parents where the only way for parents to compensate is through a well-communicated and well-enforced [disciplinary standard](people-rules.md). - Time Flexibility: Insistent on *every* deadline for themselves, immediately, but considers everyone else's deadlines unimportant. - Time Orientation: Extreme focus on the present moment. - Thought Mode: A complete focus on applications, with little to no ability to understand [principles](values.md). - Uncertainty Avoidance: Complete uncertainty avoidance, where they want to know something irrespective of the [consequences](results.md) if they don't know. With respect to [human universals](humanity-universals.md), children are the same as their parents with a few notable exceptions: 1. Children are very preoccupied with their parents' approval, so they don't need [friends](people-friends.md) *nearly* as much as they need reliable and [loving](people-love.md) authority figures. 2. Children have very little context to [self-learn](education.md), so they need more clarification than any adult would to [understand](understanding.md) anything. But, they also have an *insane* rate of learning, so they don't need as much repetition as an adult. 3. Children have an "invisible authority" in their minds, which is a [reproduction](image.md) of how they [envision](imagination.md) their parents will [respond](results.md). Later, they'll remix that role with other authority figures of various types to form their own self-discipline. APPLICATION: What a parent expects is often different than what a child *thinks* the parent expects. Having frequent [conversations](people-conversation.md) about it can alleviate that discrepancy, but it's [not perfect](image.md). Most of the challenges regarding parenting aren't because the tasks are particularly [vague](unknown.md) or [difficult](purpose.md), but more because the experience is [emotionally](mind-feelings.md) extreme. We're [influenced](influence.md) by others' feelings to the degree we [love](people-love.md) them, and a child will express an emotional range between anxiety, fear, and elation within mere minutes. Since our experience intensifies as our love intensifies, the experience does as well. The only way to stay sane is to live by [virtue](morality.md). ## Growing children As children grow, they tend to find a middle-ground [culture](people-culture.md) between what their parents [teach](understanding.md) and what they [prefer](humanity.md), often transitioning toward their preference as they [become teenagers](maturity.md) and [understand](understanding.md) the world a little more clearly. Once those children have [come of age](maturity.md), they are now co-members of their [groups](groups-small.md). Barring *major* dysfunction somewhere, they'll [identify](identity.md) with that group alongside other groups that fit their [purposes](purpose.md), and their personal style of [culture](people-culture.md) blurs together with the collective. [Success](success-1_why.md) is a self-determined matter, so a child still must make [choices](people-decisions.md) for themselves. Most parents don't [trust](trust.md) their children will [believe](understanding-certainty.md) them when they should, and those children [know](understanding.md) they're distrusted and respond to it. Maintaining a [baby](parenting-babies.md), then a [child](parenting-children.md), then a [teenager](parenting-3_teenagers.md), is difficult. Every child experiences at least some failures from their parents due to [human nature](humanity.md), and some of them will become [severely traumatized](hardship-ptsd.md) by it. Parents often inaccurately [communicate](people-conversation.md) expectations to their children. Often, a parent will merely [prefer](humanity.md) something from their child, but the child will [believe](understanding-certainty.md) the parent insists on it. Other times, the child won't even get the hint at all! In the absence of a sufficient parent, children tend to find their parental roles in other places. In early childhood, it'll be other authority figures (e.g., [teachers](education.md), police). Starting in adolescence, they'll look for it in peers (e.g., gangs, clubs). On occasion, highly intelligent or antisocial children can find it in [principles](values.md). Once a child reaches adulthood, the balance of how they prioritized their role models determines how they'll start adulthood. APPLICATION: Children are completely uncivilized, and it's the parent's job to fix that before the child grows up. If they succeed, they create a profound [legacy](legacy.md) and the back end of a [good life](goodlife.md), and the parents bring shame on themselves if they fail. ## Generations Every [culture](people-culture.md) needs parents to give [value](meaning.md) to children. Otherwise, without that belief, all of society would unravel simply from a severe drop in reproduction rates mixed with an [elder-balanced](maturity.md) population demographic that wouldn't be able to sustain itself. After a child becomes a parent a few decades later, they will deliver more [pain](hardship-family.md) on their children than they realize, and sometimes *worse* than a generation prior. Parents usually trust their [intuition](mind-feelings.md), which creates an [illusion](image.md) they're doing a better job than *their* parents, which can begin a downward spiral of [conceit](morality-evil.md) for many parents. If parents *do* succeed, their children will create children of their own, and becoming a grandparent means a child was successfully taught enough to [find a mate](gender.md) and reproduce again. APPLICATION: A grandparent is a success story, just by the fact that they built a [legacy](legacy.md). This doesn't necessarily [venerate](image.md) them, especially if their adult children never [talk](people-conversation.md) to them. Unfortunately, parents often feel threatened by the successes of their adult children, which makes very little success since those childrens' success can often come *from* the investments their parents had initially made. This comes from their inherent [egotistical competitive drive](morality-evil.md) against everyone else, but is foolishly misused to destroy the greatest possible contribution to their [legacy](legacy.md). A people group made of one set of genetics will have a certain [cultural](people-culture.md)/[personality](personality.md) mix that's shares more in common with each other than a people group made of individuals who share a [set of ideas](values.md). That homogeneity is actually [a risk](safety.md), since the diversity of ideas is *far* less. ## Classes Unless they have *amazing* parents, a child raised by a [powerful](power.md) family is at an unusual disadvantage. By having their power from birth (as opposed to [building it](creations.md)), the child has no legitimate [aptitude](results.md) with what they [wield](purpose.md) and can only learn to grow from that position onward. If their family name ever loses power (which they often can't control), they will likely never recover without help if they drop down a [social class](classes.md). On the other hand, a child who came from a low-ranking family has an unspoken advantage within their domain. If their parents taught them well, they'll be able to weather more hardship from having grown up without much privilege. While it's more difficult than it sounds, if they can [hide their shoddy background](image.md), they will often be a class above *any* of their peers. Unfortunately, the [love](people-love.md) of a parent means they will be willing to perform [unethical](morality.md) behavior for the advantage of their children. That motivation transcends any [institutional rules](people-rules.md) that could ever exist, and represents a huge portion of why [cultures](people-culture.md) create [unfair systems](mgmt-badsystems.md). APPLICATION: If you were to create a [completely fair](morality-justice.md) society with zero chance for children to receive an inheritance, parents' [love](people-love.md) would quickly make creative solutions to give their children an unfair edge and would invalidate any balancing efforts or [rules](people-rules.md) the leaders had made. ## Failing Some parents fail from not caring, but because of the animal impulses in ourselves it's *far* more common for parents to fail through bad [methods](results.md) instead of bad [motives](purpose.md). Parental failures express through a few possible modes: - The parents neglect to [educate](education.md) their children. - The parents severely underestimate their child's [aptitude](results.md) and [motivations](purpose.md). - The parents give [the wrong example](groups-small.md) or [reward bad behavior](habits.md). - The children don't [perceive](image.md) they're [loved](people-love.md). When a parent fails, a child must discover [the good life](goodlife.md) outside of their parents' [influence](influence.md). A child's model from how they were parented determines how they process the rest of the world. When the rest of the world pushes back, that child can only conclude a few possibilities: 1. Blame other people for their problems, often falling into [addictions](addiction.md) to cope with the unrelenting nature of [reality](reality.md). 2. Continually re-learn [society's boundaries](people-rules.md) by trial-and-error until they figure them out. 3. Prematurely [end their life](hardship-depression.md). Most parents don't want to admit failure, so they tend to blame other things for the way they failed: - Popular [media](creations.md) - School [educators](understanding.md) - Police officers or [government officials](groups-large.md) - Their child's [friends](people-friends.md) APPLICATION: While family is often more tight-knit, the absence of diverse culture and ideas is a [severe risk](safety.md) to families. The only solutions are to either [marry people](gender.md) into that culture (traditionally through foreign females) or force everyone to disperse through some sort of hardship. Often, parents will realize they can't [change](people-changes.md) their child, so they'll try to get rid of them to avoid being blamed. To avoid public shame, they'll wait until their child attains adulthood, then will exile them. Other times, the *child* will want to leave as soon as physically possible. This is why many kids go to [college](jobs-college.md) on the opposite side of the country. One benefit of [advanced civilizations](technology.md) is that any individual person doesn't need pre-existing social associations anymore quite like they had in the past. The means to [communicate](people-conversation.md) with other people across the world can empower someone to [join](groups-member.md) or [found](groups-small.md) a community based on shared [ideas](values.md) instead of mere [necessity](purpose.md). APPLICATION: It's easier to build a community than it ever has been before. All someone needs is the [motivation](meaning.md) to do it, some relatively [easy-to-acquire](purpose.md) [technology](technology.md), and the willingness to persevere with it. Due to the general increased burden of responsibility upon males, the destruction of the father role starts the inward [deconstruction](trends.md) of most [societies](groups-large.md), and develops through a predictable pattern: 1. Typically through a [motivation](purpose.md) for comparatively similar [power](power-types.md), females work to place themselves in male roles. 2. Males aren't able to easily compete, since they'll be seen as a bully if they go full-force, so they bow out of the competition and give it to the females. 3. When the responsibility-bearing males are eventually phased out to nothing but females, there are no more male models for children to look to. 4. The children who develop into low-[grit](personality.md), higher-agreeableness adults aren't able to take over the systems from their predecessors. 5. Everything slowly descends into chaos until males take over again (often through some show of force but sometimes through taking over a void in the system). ### Education Most motivations to protect a child's [understanding](understanding.md) are through [fear](mind-feelings-fear.md). While those fears often move around, it's usually to maintain [peace](people-conflicts.md) or protect their [innocence](morality-justice.md). APPLICATION: Every parent wishes for their child to succeed, but that parent should deeply consider *why* they want something for their child. It might not be for the child's benefit, and often comes more from [fear](mind-feelings-fear.md) than a legitimately good desire. Many parents will use small [lies](people-lying.md) to [rebuild](education.md) the child's version of [reality](reality.md) to an [ideal](image-distortion.md). By doing this, children will still be [motivated](purpose.md) to do [moral](morality.md) things. This expresses most clearly when they use elaborate [myths](stories-myths.md) to explain a fact they don't want their children to know. While it may seem harmless, it becomes egregious when they try to sidestep [evil](morality-evil.md) and its consequences: - [Addictions](addiction.md) to intense substances like alcohol or cocaine. - Elements of [sex and sexuality](gender.md). - People abusing their [power](power.md) or [bad leaders](mgmt-badsystems.md). - Gruesome medical conditions. - Unusual behavior, including insanity. - Topics about [death](mind-feelings-fear.md). In [modern Western society](https://gainedin.site/here-america/), parents often try to avoid those subjects, but it's an inevitability that children will discover them. When they ask their parents for an explanation, the parents will often try to *only* communicate the adverse consequences of those things without ever explaining the good [feelings](mind-feelings.md) that may drive people to do them in the first place. APPLICATION: For most of recorded history, parents communicated *all* the facts of [reality](reality.md), but also conveyed that children had poor [decision-making skills](people-decisions.md). That arrangement works much better than withholding information from them than when parents [feel](mind-feelings.md) they're "ready". The aftermath of this practice once the children [grow up](maturity.md) is horrific. By only communicating the bad sides of things, the children will still wonder about why people even form [purposes](purpose.md) for an object. They'll experiment or research for themselves, and often fall into [substance abuse](addiction.md), or worse. Naturally, their [trust](trust.md) with their parents will be eroded, which affects the entire family dynamic in the process. ### Underestimation Unless a parent is making conscious [decisions](people-decisions.md) as they experience life with their children, [habitual](habits.md) patterns will emerge that don't [change](people-changes.md) with the children. For example, parents typically perceive [babies](parenting-babies.md) as incapable of doing [wrong](morality.md) but don't accommodate the scope of [immoral actions](morality-evil.md) [toddlers](parenting-children.md) are capable of performing. As a child ages, they very quickly learn to bend those fixed patterns to their [advantage](purpose.md). For example, they'll endure a five-minute lecture to get out of doing chores. The fulfillment of a subversive purpose is far more [rewarding](meaning.md) to them than [results](results.md) from the task itself. Most parents won't realize their [creativity](mind-creativity.md) and will assume the child is merely defying them. Parents are typically [unaware](awareness.md) of what children are thinking, since they remember a point where the child *was* unaware and find no harm [imagining](imagination.md) they'll stay that way. This often intensifies as the child grows older. By the time they're a teenager, they know *exactly* how to exploit the system, and often don't respect the parents who raised them from how easy they were to [deceive](people-lying.md).