I’m setting the wayback machine to almost 7 years ago.

Tuesday, May 15, 2001

I’m setting the wayback machine to almost 7 years ago. I was standing in the hallway outside the restrooms in the Art Institute in Chicago. We were spending the day &uot;doing museums&uot; with my cousin and her family and the women’s room was the only kid friendly restroom facility, so I stood in the hall and waited. It was crowded in the hall, and next to me a group of women and children were also standing and talking, while they waited for whoever was in the restroom from their group.

&uot;How are we related?&uot; a kid (boy or girl? I can’t remember anymore) asked one of the women.

&uot;Well,&uot; began the woman, and then she stopped and sighed. &uot;I’m married to Jack, who was married to Jill, who was married to Bob, the man who is your father. You know, the man you go and visit for a couple of weeks each summer.&uot;

&uot;But my real mother is in Las Vegas,&uot; the kid said next.

&uot;Yes,&uot; the woman replied.

&uot;So we’re not really related to each other at all,&uot; the kid said, very quietly.

&uot;Yes we are,&uot; came the quick reply, &uot;we’re family. How that happened really doesn’t matter.&uot; And she hugged the child, a long, deep hug. At which point I looked away, of course, because I shouldn’t have heard that conversation. I was only there at all because the close quarters in the basement of the museum made privacy impossible.

I have often pondered the meaning of that long-ago conversation. Over the years I have polled the students in my classes on family issues and divorce, partly to illustrate the ways that personal and private behavior can have a profound effect on society, but mainly to satisfy my curiosity. My parents were divorced in 1974, when I was 12. I felt like I was alone with my problems; among my friends I was the only kid with parents who lived in different states. Even in high school, the number of kids from divorced (or blended) families was small. Now, when I ask how many students come from homes affected by divorce, it is not unusual for every hand to go up in the air – their parents, aunts and uncles, grandparents, or even siblings had had a marriage break up.

As the years pass, and more and more kids grow up in families disrupted by divorce, I’m beginning to feel as though dealing with divorce is one of the things that makes us &uot;American&uot; and different from people in other cultures. Relationships don’t have the permanence here in the US that they do in countries like Japan or Germany. But then divorce is becoming a world-wide phenomenon and the designation of a society as &uot;enlightened&uot; often carries the implication that divorce laws are liberal and divorces are easy to obtain by both men and women. Perhaps at some point in the future, being human will mean being divorced.

But I digress. What was really important about that conversation overheard in the hallway was the way it ended. &uot;We’re family,&uot; the woman said, &uot;How that happened really doesn’t matter.&uot; Out of a strange legal situation, which left a child living with a woman married to a former step-father, a family was born. Family, it seems, is not dependent on biology. Family for anyone can be the people with whom we live and for whom we care – the people we love and wish to be with more than any other people in the world.

The cliche says that &uot;blood is thicker than water&uot; but I don’t agree with that sentiment. Our real family is made up of the people with whom we have bonded, with whom we are willing to share our life – our time, our resources, our affection. Biology can lead to this, but it doesn’t guarantee it.

I’m glad I heard that conversation. I’m glad it ended so hopefully, so focused on what that child needed to hear. Even if that woman had no biological children of her own, something that wasn’t clear to me on that afternoon at the Art Institute, she was exactly the kind of parent that child needed to have at that moment in time.

David Behling is a rural Albert Lea resident. His column appears Tuesdays.