Growing up with a small family.
I just wanted to rant and get this off my chest, I'm aware there's bigger problems on Earth.
I'm 18M from Auckland, I recently moved to Melbourne, Australia. The main issue for me is that I feel like I have missed out on literally everything. From weddings, parties, cousins your age, family drama (something for you to talk about), to having older family members that could show you the ropes. Or that one trait a lot of brown people talk about, "being brown means you know a lawyer, an accountant, a dentist", and for me it's like which accountant are we talking about here?
Growing up in Auckland I didn't attend a single wedding, not even one, but all the people around me had lots of events to go to. That whole aspect of having events to go to and things to look forward to over the holidays gives you that natural motivation in school you know? For me it's like I knew after the term ended, I had nothing to do. Manz was grinding fortnite at the time so it's fine but damn bro like at least one fun family event ??
Friends and family-friends just don't hit the same. Well, maybe not friends they are great because they dont try to force it like family friends. Friends have been great to me, but I dislike how my parents almost act as if some of our FAMILY-FRIENDS (not school friends) are a replacement for family? Especially in my context there's a lot I have to say about a few family friends and the way my parents got to know them but that's gonna make this way too long.
People always have things to talk about and I'm usually just there watching them go on and on about interesting, funny, or dramatic things going on in their families. I have literally nothing to say bro. No interesting stories or nothing.
My brother is 7 and a half years younger than me, I'm damn near a father figure to my lil bro he's a great brother but there's still that isolation that comes with a large gap. On top of that my parents have a slight dislike of Punjabi people, "apne bnde zyada khrav karde aa". Like I understand what they mean, they don't like when ethnic enclaves start getting created, the kids start acting like brampton, but dawg that could have allowed me to at the very least talk to more brown kids my age, if it wasn't for my insane effort I probably wouldn't know half the people I know. But cause of their effort not to push me their I'm not as centred in a lot of friend groups that I could have, thankfully I left that shittty ass country so I don't have to worry about it but sometimes it passes me off.
My one wish in life is to just have a huge, and tight-knit family. The worst part about this is that will never happen. I feel like even IF I get married into a big family it wouldn't be the same, and i've heard all the horror stories about in-laws. My extended family is spread across Canada, the U.S., and the U.K., and while it would have been amazing if we could all have settled in one place, I understand that they go wherever they get visa. Having a lot of children isn't ideal either; raising five kids would be incredibly hard, both in terms of fairness and quality of life. By the time my family would get big, I'd likely be well into my 60s. They'd have their own lives as well.
On the topic of separated family, we go to India an average of 4 to 5 years, it's as if I saw these uncles and aunties go from 20 to 36 in like 2 years, before I realized they are all married pushing their forties. I'm over here as an 18 year old, I have literally one cousin my age in Punjab, we vibe well but obviously you can feel the effects of a time gap, it's not the same as if that cousin had grown up here in Auckland with me or at least in Australia so that we'd have more to talk about.
I think having a big, supportive family boosts confidence in every venue of life. It provides a sense of security, knowing you have people to rely on, and it helps reinforce self-confidence, even physically, through natural positive reinforcement. You feel less lonely. Isolation can be brutal, and if you look at productivity communities, you'll find so many people who struggle with focus and motivation because of being isolated or lonely. I’ve felt this more than ever in my first year of university. Having a big family is something that’s weighed on me since childhood, but it's been hitting me like a truck recently.
I really did miss out on so much and the worst is that there's no way to reverse or change anything. I had to get my ass to read stoic philosophy to deal with this bullshit, had to start doing more path and simran 🤦♂️ maybe there's a reason I was isolated.
A good thing is that I moved to be closer to family, we have a bit more here than in Auckland. It's been fun talking to my younger cousins, especially one of them he's 13 but quite mature for his age (not the corny mature, as in he can talk about legit anything), but with the rest of my cousins I still feel like there's a gap that comes naturally with age, instead of forcing conversations with them I just end up sitting with the adults, which is fine by me, I can do some politics here and there, talk about house property prices lmao, it's interesting.
I will also say, it's not like my life was extremely dark and lonely, I would best describe myself as just having a "mild" life, any time you complain at this level of life it's never taken seriously since "things could be worse".
To be honest, I just reread over this post and the first thing I thought is "too bad, boohoo 🤦♂️. I have a good set of friends but sometimes I wish I had a brown group of friends my age.
There's power in numbers man, in every aspect of life.