Just because someone shares blood lines with me it doesn’t mean that we have anything in common, or that I must enjoy their company, or that I must set our differences aside, suck it up and spend hours of my life with them each year, or that they don’t suck at life, or that I don’t want to punch them in the throat for sharing their absolutely absurd, embarrassing and insulting viewpoints, etc.

Had my dad known he was going to die at 51, I’m sure he would’ve lived differently. And I’m sure he wouldn’t want me wasting days’ worth of my life with Cancerous souls being unhappy. Instead, I’ll surround myself with my family of choice, smiling, laughing and enjoying my time here.

As one who has also chosen to not “relate” to many of my relatives (even my biological mother, who only seems to call me when she wants to share her latest get-rich-quick scheme and try to enlist my help), I understand where you’re coming from. I once read an article about the concept of “family of choice,” and it resonated with me. I am much closer to people I’ve chosen to play a major role in my life than those who were assigned that role by virtue of my birth.

Blessings,
A

It’s not all or nothing — it’s about setting boundaries you can live with. If those boundaries are appropriate, there is nothing selfish about enforcing them. Your son will encounter difficult people in his life — you can’t control that. What he needs from you is not to protect him from such encounters, but to show him how to handle such encounters with grace and dignity.

No one will have a greater influence on your son than you will, so you really needn’t worry about the impact of extended family on him. It’s you (and Mark) he will look to for his values.

Children learn from the example of their parents — including learning how much time/attention/care to give older generations. Without this example, you may do nothing worthy of rejection, and still find yourself ignored/alone when your son is grown. If you must eliminate some family, make sure to have substitute family members so that he can see from your example how you care for people as they age.

My hubby has every reason to reject his parents, but at some point he decided that they couldn’t stop him from being a good son. So he does right by people who never did right by him. I think this is a much stronger message to his children than if he had just eliminated his parents from their lives.

People and relationships evolve. If you eliminate them, you also eliminate the possibility of growth and change over time. And your son’s lifetime is a very long time. I’ve seen remarkable changes in my parents in recent decades, and I’ve become a lot humbler about my own ability to know right from wrong.

As I don’t know much about your situation, don’t take my advice too seriously. It’s just a few things I have learned in my brief time on this planet.
-Annie

I love this line so much that I stole it and posted it on Twitter and Facebook (with due credit, naturally).