Blood is Thicker Than Water

I've been thinking a lot lately about the phrase, "Blood is thicker than water." This is one of those cliche sayings that we've grown up hearing our whole lives. But after experiencing what I have over the last almost 24 years, I'm not sure that I totally agree. Take, for example, the case of the child(ren) who are raised by a family friend of a drug-addicted, young, single mother. Although those kids are not her own, in a biological sense, that family friend is able to love and care for those kids in a way that their birth mother never could. Or the foster youth with no biological family to speak of, that ages out of the system and comes to know his church elders as his "real" family, even though there are no blood ties. There's even the case of the biological family who, despite being related to each other in the literal sense, becomes involved in such an intense conflict, that they end up disowning each other and never speaking again.

Family is a relative term (pardon the pun). Being a family doesn't always coincide with having unconditional love for each member, just as being unrelated doesn't always mean that the parties love each other any less. I believe that you can come to love another individual in the same way that you love a family member, regardless of whether you share blood or not. I have to believe this, because it's such a big part of my passion for my profession. And I choose to believe this, because otherwise, what hope is there for some of the kids that I work with? Just because Patrick & I have amazing families, whom we share a mutual understanding that revolves around love and respect, that doesn't mean that this is the norm for families in America today. In fact, I would venture to say that our "normal" family unit is actually going to become the minority by the end of our lifetimes, if not shortly thereafter. All the stress and chaos in our culture tend to contribute to conflict, and this conflict is often what tears families apart. Couple that with the amount of children who are currently in foster care (who generally have very slim chances of reunification with their biological family, or any family member for that matter), and the American family is headed in a new direction altogether.

My suggestion would be to amend the saying that we are all so familiar with:
Blood may be thicker than water, but love is thicker than anything.
~Goldie Nash