FAMILY

Family (from Latin: familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Ideally, families offer predictability, structure, and safety as members mature and learn to participate in the community. Historically, most human societies use family as the primary locus of attachment, nurturance, and socialization.

Anthropologists classify most family organizations as matrifocal (a mother and her children), patrifocal (a father and his children), conjugal (a wife, her husband, and children, also called the nuclear family), avuncular (a man, his sister, and her children), or extended (in addition to parents and children, may include grandparents, aunts, uncles, or cousins).  

Source:  Wikipedia...  trust them or not...  but you gotta like the fact that they are always around.

1947 - 1962 > I grew up in a nuclear family separated by 500 miles from the parents and relatives of both my parents who had lived in the same state all their lives.  My father was the first to leave home after the military.

1962 - 1972 > I was pretty much on my own and during the later part of that decade, I started my own family away from parents and siblings.

1972 - 2012 >  A family transformation was taking place that involved the entire family.  While my parents had moved back to the state of their parents, my siblings and I decided to spread our friendship over thousands of miles as we moved out of the United States, and into foreign countries where we lived, worked, and socialized with the locals.  Our family ancestors back home were completely ignored and over time we no longer communicate at all.

Divorce brought the disillusionment of one side of the family only to have it replaced by ancestors from the families of our new spouse.  Sometimes, these relationships were better and sometimes worse...

But the family traditions as displayed so eloquently in the mini-series Peaky Binders is no longer present in our family.

2012 - Present >  Our family is no longer together and no longer communicated with other members of the family unless they are put into a situation where they have to communicate.  The focus is no longer on the family (siblings and their families) but on the family that you are currently the oldest member.

In other words, your children and their children is your family and you literally have no desire to reach out beyond that other than acknowledge you once had parents, a brother, and a sister.