Family plays a very important role in our lives.

This was our very first environment to live with,

to have bond with, to nurture with. Some people say family is just a group of people just meant
for reproduction, but family is our home- it doesn’t always come with blood ties. Family might
also come as your friend, your teacher, your classmate, your schoolmate, then afterwards we
call it our home where we belong. We’ve managed to interview four (4) of our schoolmates
within the vicinity of National College of Business and Arts- Fairview. They came from different
strands, different environments, different families, but they share this one ideology that will
make you realize what family really is.

Our four (4) interviewees were Rhaikhen, Mishka, Necibel, and JC. They answered all of our
questions truthfully, and wholeheartedly. They are familiar with all the new types of modern
families. Three of them are part of nuclear families and one of them was part of the
unconventional single-parent family. Families are very different from one another. In our
second question, we ask them- “how their families affect them as a person?” They’ve given us
variety of answers:

Rhaikhen said that he is an only child that’s why all the burden and pressure are on his
shoulders. He relies on his parents’ dreams and goals because he believes that his parents’
dreams are for the best of him. Also, he said that the future of their family relies on his decisions
in life. That’s why he better make good decisions for himself and for his family. These
sentiments from him conclude that his family makes him choose the right path as his family
relies on him.

Mishka said that her family affects her in a really positive way. They raised her well, providing
her needs in school and in life. She said that her family acts like a role model for her to be a
good student in school.

JC, on the other hand, thinks of his family as an eye-opener. Helping him realize how hard life
can be, especially in his situation where he was raised by a single mother. He said, “To carry all
that responsibility on her own must be very tough.” He added that though he won’t experience
it yet, it made him ready for what will come in the future.

Necibel said that family is where the nurturing starts. Family is the starting point of our
learning and acquiring such behaviors and characteristics. She was shaped by her own family
because she was always with them and she continuously, unconsciously adopted such behavior.

In our last question, we asked them- “Who is much more aware of reality/ how hard life could
be? A person with a complete family or a person with a broken family?” They gave us very
interesting answers. Their answers are very similar to one another, but they explained it
differently:
Rhaikhen said that it doesn’t depend on what type of family where a person lives but on the
environment where he resides. If the environment teaches you such knowledge about how to
be practical or “street smart” that are not taught in our homes, then you are aware of your own
reality: how to interact with other people, what actually really happens in the streets of life, etc.

Mishka said that it doesn’t necessarily depend on what type of family you are in, but it depends
on you- how you build yourself out there. She said you do not need your parents as your
guardians alone, you have other people around you and use them as your role models in life.

JC said it’s just the same. We cannot invalidate other family’s problems because we really do not
know what they are going through. That alone implies that it is up to you on how you perceive
life.

Necibel’s sentiments are the same with mishka, but for her: we experienced different
treatments in our family, regardless of what type you are in. How we were nurtured and taught.
There are some people who came from broken families but came out successful. And there are
some people who came from complete families but came out unsuccessful. It really depends on
how our family treats us.

Yes, with these sentiments, they helped us widen our knowledge on how we perceive our
families, our environment. Family and environment where we belong are two completely
different aspects in our lives, but they have one major purpose: To help us hone ourselves,
build, and nurture our minds to become ready to face the obstacles of the ever changing world.