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When it comes to culture we rarely think of individual families having one of their own. We all have witnessed aspects of our family that we would swear exists in no other family. If those traits are dysfunctional we may be relieved to discover that we are not alone. If those traits are especially supportive then we may assume that the majority of society’s families function in the same manner.
It wasn’t until I began freelancing for a local family-owned software/web development company that I recognized the family unit as a cultural unit. It makes sense when you think of how the family originates. It starts with the coupling of two people who may or may not have similar upbringings. Regardless, there will be differences as everyone’s response to the same environment is different. This couple comes together to construct their own family with a set of culture values that while influenced from their own individual families, will differ due to the adoption and rejection of some family processes and values each person was exposed to during childhood.
It is that newly developed family cultural environment that a couple creates that dictate the couple’s quality of life and the quality of life for their children. As a result, we are a product of the cultural environment we grow up in–not just in our community but in our household as well. This is no ground-breaking theory, but families are rarely described as cultural units.
If you desire to write deeper characters, don’t just think of them in the social environment you’ve placed them in, think about the cultural environment of the family that enhanced or stifled their personalities. A child who grows up poor but has a family unit where they constantly focuse on the betterment of all those involved, that child will most likely have a different adult life than a poor child who grows up in a family unit where the focuse is on what they don’t have and functions in life as if the world owes them something.
Think about how a particular family culture causes you characters to react to the circumstances you place them in.
It’s that time of year again. September 15th is the start of Hachette Book Group’s Hispanic Heritage Month. Sable Lit Reviews is proud to participate for the second year in a row.
