Kinsi wrote a post on his blog Spirituality and Sunflowers that reminded me of something that struck me as crapola:
Everyone is a family, even single people.
This was in response to my usual complaint about how at times my congregation forgets that we have non-families, and that using the term “family” tends to excludes those of us who are single. I was told that one person counts as a family.
Bullshit.
It’s a well-intentioned stab at inclusion, but I’m not buying it.
When you hear the word, “family,” do you imagine a single thirysomething professional woman eating dinner in front of her TV? Do you imagine a 60 year-old confirmed bachelor cleaning his bathroom? Do you imagine a twentysomething male-to-female transgendered person staring at the MBTA schedule and wondering how the hell she’s going to get to Logan airport in time for a 6 AM flight without forking over $$ to a cab? No, you don’t. You imagine a household with children and teens and the adults who care for them. You do not imagine single people.
Saying that single people count as one family is just a nice little way for family folks to feel like they’re including us when they’re really forgetting about us.
Feh.
