STEEMKIDS CONTEST WEEK 1 : What Does Family Mean to You.

A family can be defined as a group of people who are related by blood or a common ancestor. A family is a very key part of humanity and plays a very crucial role in the life of an individual. Every human being regardless of gender comes from a certain family.

with my father, my uncles and an aunty

Families play key roles like providing basic needs like shelter, food, clothing and protection to its members. From Ghana; West Africa where I hail from, family can extended to even the relatives of a bride, after she successfully gets married to the groom. The two families now become inseparable and tend to lend their support to one another when the need arises.

I am from a family of 10 kids of which three are females and the rest are males and if which I am the first born. There is therefore a lot of responsibility on me as they all look up to me as an immediate brother and role model, of whose behaviors they can inculcate.

These siblings of mine mean a lot to me, keeping me company, supporting me when I am in need, been with me in my worst times. They also provided me a sense of responsibility as I have to look after them when my parents are away.

They also express their true feelings within the family; this make me know how it feels like to be loved. My siblings are very dear to me and I try my best to fun out of every opportunity we get to make the bond stronger.

I also try to stay calm in times of our bad moments, like when we hold grudges or disagree on certain issues in order for peace to prevail in the family.

Can two families be the same

No, I don’t think so. Let’s take two families for example let’s say a Rich family and a Poor family. Taking these two families into careful consideration, we tend to see that the Rich family is enable to give the needed support and also cater for the basic needs of its members such as food, shelter and protection.

Looking at the Poor family, they are sometimes unable to provide some basic needs for their members, hence they are mostly in crisis because of the basic needs like food and housing. Also members from affluent families have access to some opportunities which a person from a normal family lacks.

My uncles and aunties at a wedding ceremony

For example Queen Elizabeth of England is the queen of England because she comes from the British royal family. A commoner does not have access to this opportunity. With these examples, I believe any two families cannot be the same.

Do you currently belong to a family

Yes please, I belong to a very big family. My immediate family is made up of about 100 or more people. My very loving Grandma, 15 uncles, 25 aunties, about 5 nieces, 10 nephews and more than 45 siblings.

My kid brother and my father

My family size is such a very huge extended family which is very common in my locality. This large family size provides easy support to its needy members and I By the Grace of Allah we are able to afford most if not all of our needs.

We are happy people

Is your family the ideal type you will like to always belong to or are you just managing it?

My family contains all the necessary qualities I look out for in an ideal family, hence I would gladly say my family is my ideal type of family.

Unity is the key necessity in any ideal family that seek to continue to thrive in generations to come and I have seen how it’s lack has caused most families to split apart and become worth enemies rather than friends. Disunity tend to have devastating effects and does not even possess an advantage whatsoever.

One big family

Also another factor I consider for a family to be ideal is the ability of members to be able to help one another. In daring or crucial times, rich or affluent individuals of a family should be able to lend financial support or assistance to some members of a family who are in need.

Also some individuals of a family who are also knowledgeable in a particular skill or trade can teach or train members of the family who are also interested in acquiring these skills, without them having to pay to attend or take courses in order to learn the skill. This saves them both their time and money.

Let’s take an example; if there exist let’s say a Computer Engineer in a family, he is able to support other members who are interested in this field by way of teaching them. These members therefore save the money they would have used to enroll in a course to learn Computer Engineering.

Another characteristic of an ideal family is a sense of encouragement between its members. Members who take on challenges are encouraged by the other members to keep going. These encouragements can be in the form of words or even promises to the individuals if he is able to complete or overcome the challenge.

For example a child who is about to write an exams can be promised by his/ her family that if he is able to pass, they will give him the latest PlayStation. This is a form of encouragement.

Furthermore, patience is another key characteristic of an ideal family. Members of a family should be patient when dealing with each other. They should also work on some of their behaviors that can affect the peace of existing in the family.

Lastly, Communication is a key trait of an ideal family. In an ideal family, there should be easy communication between it’s members.

There should also be communication channels mapped out such that a member knows who to communicate to regarding a certain issue.

The above are some characteristics of an ideal family and I believe my family possess these characteristics, hence I can refer to it as an ideal family.

How can you improve your family

To begin with, I believe organizing more get- togethers for the whole family would tend to reignite our sense of unity or togetherness since we all do not stay in one country.

Also I believe a bank account should be opened to be used as a common fund for the family where depending on members earnings, pay some amount of money monthly.

This money would therefore be use to cater for the needy members of the family without needing to disturb the rich members for money as they might become fed up.

I believe the above suggestions would improve my family.

Advice to other families

My little advice to families is they should posses a sense of unity, patience, self-control, communication and trust. As these characteristics are key and needed for a family to strive for generations.

Anything else you will like us to know about family. We want to exhaust all.

Um nothing much. We have a wide range of different skill and expertise in my family.

Our lastborn’s time with dad

We have members with skills in a particular recognized profession, ranging from electrical engineering, computer engineering, nursing, banking, teaching etc. All this expertise make learning a new skill very easy for us.

Thank you very much for the time spent in reading this post. I hope there would be more contests for us to broaden our knowledge every passing day.

Special thanks to @steemkidss for this contest, We hope to see more of these.

I would like to invite @ zhacchaeus, @ ambarazak and @chenty to also participate in this contest.

Thank you.
@bibsonhabib