Several years ago, I noticed a lot of people referring to people that I would have called my grandparents as their mother's father and their father's mother. To me, this implied a lack of emotional connection between the speaker and his father or mother's parents. I also felt it demonstrated a lack of proper respect for their elders.
I cringed when I heard various children and teenagers calling their parents by their first names. At first I was shocked enough to ask my friends and family why they allowed this, but now I find it so common that I don't bother.
I am told I'm the only one it bothers. I have decided that I am going to continue to let it bother me and demand the courtesy and respect that I deserve. The parents can accept what they please from their children. I will decide how I will respond and what I find acceptable.
I say this because I truly believe, the disconnection from immediate family members has serious implications for our lives. It is hard enough to accept the death of our parents, who play(ed) such an immediate and important part in our development. To not have any further connections with relatives, leaves us, I feel, quite rootless.
Perhaps because I, like so many of my fellow Canadians, am only a second generation Canadian; the loss of a family history has always effected me. As a result, I have secretly envied the people who can trace their family tree back for many generations.
It does not matter to me what 'family skeletons' I might discover. To me, it would be so nice to have 'roots' more clearly illustrated than knowing my maiden name is an ancient one going back to the Bronze Age.
Meanwhile, the only justification for casual disassociation from your mother's and father's parents and our parents brothers and sister's would be where no 'blood ties' exist due to remarriages and divorces etc.
My late husband's grown children, who officially might be considered my stepchildren, seem to have considered me solely as their father's wife for 20 years. It seems the type of connection one usually has with in-laws never happened. Shortly after their father's death, they wished me well and have not been part of my life since that time.
A disconnection with step children, is more logical and somewhat easier to understand than today's apparent lack of connection to our own blood lines and family tree.
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