ABSTRACT
Our families inspire and create high hopes, warm memories, and close ties and relationships— and they also create pains, disappointments, confusions, and at times physical and mental violence. Almost all of us are raised in families, if not by our parents, then by aunts and uncles, grandparents, or other relatives, or even by nonrelatives who became our family. When we wish to describe close ties with friends we say they are “like family” to us. Families and our experiences in them touch us deeply, move us profoundly, and can wound us terribly.
