(493) Enmeshed

I learned one new term today. "Enmeshed". When a family is so dependent on each other that they do not keep in touch with any other close relatives.

It is good for a family to be close knit. However, it is not good nor healthy to have a enmeshed family. Let us look at an example. A man graduated with a engineering degree. Once he has some working experience, he started a firm with two friends. Meanwhile, he married his high school sweet heart. Through the years, his business prospered. His family is blessed with two boys and two girls.

They moved a few times, each time to a bigger and more luxurious house. The children grew up, each a graduate in their own right. The family takes yearly vacations. They go everywhere together. If the parents could not persuade the children to go anywhere, nobody goes. Lets say it was all soul's day, they could elect to go back to visit and clear the graves of their parents. As the children grow up, they became more reluctant to go back to their parents' home town. After a while, none from this family turned up anymore for grave visits.

There are five siblings of this father, he is really only in close touch with his only sister. And it was actually the sister that was making the effort to visit them. The rest of his brothers, if they meet at all, it is during Chinese New Year. Apart from his siblings, he nor his children are in touch with anybody else (not uncles, not aunties, not cousins ...). This is very unusual in Asia, where kins are an important part of one's family and identity. This enmeshed family is like an island floating in the ocean of community. I guess they would not know any of their neighbours either.

Do you belong to an enmashed family? Family members should be each independent individuals, then each member of the close knit family is inter depedent on each other. That would be a healthy model of a happy family.