They Said They Was Family

(First published in Bali Advertiser, July 5, 2006)

“Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.” – Robert Frost

What Frost does not mention is that when a crowd of people shows up at your door in Bali claiming to be kin – with documents and the family nose to back them up – you can’t really send them down the path to the nearest losmen. So, we checked their credentials and put them up at the villa next door, and let them get the impression that life here is all shopping raids, walks in the rice fields, and afternoons by the pool. Now, they all want to come back, which is the blessing and curse of family. Sometimes family is there when you need it and want to fact-check stories about crazy uncles; sometimes family just shows up and eats all the nachos and drinks all the beer.

I’ve heard expatriates joke that the nicest thing about living overseas is that it makes it so hard for family to drop by. But Western minds seem to have gone past just joking about it. Family obligations and duties have become responsibilities to shed like old luggage and boxes in the attic. Families are no longer comfort zones and sources of spiritual and material aid; instead, they represent onerous responsibility cramping individual style. Fathers, mothers, aunts, uncles, and lesser cousins are people to keep at a distance, if not entirely unknown and hidden.

Almost a quarter of Americans surveyed recently said that they have no friends with which to discuss personal matters, according to a June 23 Reuters story. More than 50 percent said they had two or fewer confidants, usually immediate family members. That’s a big change from 20 years ago said Duke University Professor Lynn Smith-Lovin, lead author of the study. Americans surveyed in 1985 most commonly said they had three close long-time friends and almost as many said they had four of five close confidants in their social network.

This drop in American social connectedness reflects a different sort of society from the one I remember from the odd school year in the US in the 1970s. Then, it seemed, everyone had cousins, aunts, uncles, and relatives-twice-removed on the next block or in the next classroom, ready to be summoned in time of need or just for a weekend BBQ. And the distinction between family and friend (and sometimes foe) was slim. Maybe it struck me forcefully then because I was isolated from my own extended family, which most always was on the far side of an ocean.

This week, a couple of days after my parents, siblings, and assorted hanger-on spouses left Bali, I had a look through some old photos scanned onto a CD by a brother-in-law. My wife and another Balinese family member were amazed that in many pictures I couldn’t pick out and name who was who. The truth is that I was with many of those people only a few times after I reached the age of four. The people in the pictures were both strangers and strange to me when I returned for university, and visits were often awkward social occasions I tried to escape or avoid entirely.

Many Americans may have developed the same sort of attitude while sojourning in the realm of electronic wizardry and invention. Maybe the pervasive television culture has made sitcoms and soap operas more real than their own towns and cities; maybe the glitzy, smarmy flash of pop idol and reality show competitions show up the wholesome grit of cattle exhibitions and pie contests at state fairs. Or maybe the Internet and ever more complex virtual realities have undermined the patchwork social fabric of the mid-1980s. One gets the feeling many Americans are home alone in front of TV or computer and will soon emerge red-eyed to go on shooting rampages.

Families, if nothing else, control that sort of rage simply by being around. The friction of familial contact smoothes our rough edges and gives us patience and understanding. Families teach us to expect both more and less from other people. They are the networks into which we are born, and like it or not, provide our first connecting points to the greater world. Even if we get rid of their physical presence, the traces of their patterns guide almost all we do. We are stuck with them for as long as we are lucky enough to have them around to build our character and mirror our faults.

So, I invite all the scattered LeRois to Bali every year. They can come when they like, stay as long as they wish … because we are moving to Lombok, maybe Timor. We’ll write.

Copyright © 2006 Lee Roy LeRoi