[loganfrederick]

I have no direct connection to Rob Henderson but he's one of my favorite writers just from his Twitter and Substack because he dives into issues that are very close to my heart and life experience.

I've written past comments on HN about how I was raised by a father who was a professional con man who committed credit card fraud, drove family into bankruptcy, then ghosted on my mother and I. The depths of that process was deeply chaotic and disruptive at a formative time in my life (high school and college).

I've ended up having a solid career, but I have no doubt I'd have been able to make a bigger impact if the family drama hadn't dragged on my time and focus for years (basically in supporting my mother through the experience). Society's answer (at least in America) is basically to say "you could cut out your family if they're destructive" but that goes against one of the strongest aspects of human nature (to have a family). Choosing between chaos and isolation is a terrible dichotomy and a big job of society should be to ensure individuals have other warmer options.

Also identifying earlier and stopping those chaos agents like my father is an area of study that is under-researched compared to the upside for society in solving that problem. There are folks like the Mind Research Network (https://www.mrn.org/) working on this but IMO should be getting 10x the funding they currently do.

[diob]

Same, but my situation was different. From kindergarten to adulthood, straight bad. Alcoholic stepfather, suicide attempts included, eventually my older sister getting into drugs, alcoholic stepfather leaving, mother immediately going for a drug addict boyfriend who moved us halfway across the country. Separated from my other family for a bit to hang out with him and talk about how he had bugs crawling on him, he was paranoid and drugged out of his mind. He took me along on his drug pickups, and tried getting me to partake.

Got out of that situation in junior high only to move in with my dad and abusive step mother. Indoor chain smoking in a year-round hot climate, so I couldn't even open a window. Constant emotional abuse and isolation. Always getting in trouble for literally anything despite being a straight A student, not being given money for school lunches, the list goes on. Spent as much time out of the house as possible.

Finally got to college and things got a bit better since I was able to move away, but I had zero financial support outside of the academic scholarships I'd gotten. They also told me I didn't need to pay taxes since I didn't make enough money. That fucked me a bit.

For sure my life would've been way different with a stable loving family, or a society that could handle these sort of situations better.

[rayiner]

> Society's answer (at least in America) is basically to say "you could cut out your family if they're destructive" but that goes against one of the strongest aspects of human nature (to have a family).

It’s also not really an answer, because non-chaotic families are a source of added stability. My sister in law lives with us, and my parents live 10 minutes away. So for my kids there’s never any uncertainty—someone will always pick them up from school on time and take them to their after-school activities even if mom and dad get caught up at work unexpectedly. This is very different from my wife’s upbringing, where her parents divorced and had shared custody, so there were missed handoffs, changes to extra-curricular schedules to accommodate different living situations, no consistent place to leave her things, etc.

[Ozzie_osman]

It's also not always an option. If you're a child or a teenager you don't have a lot of options. If you're a romantic partner that is financially dependant you also don't have a lot of options.

[Dalewyn]

>one of the strongest aspects of human nature (to have a family)

I can't relate.

I treasure friendships, but I disdain familial ties enough that I have no intentions of making a family. Enough bullshit comes flying my way from the familial ties that predate my existence, I don't need nor want more.

[rayiner]

Normal people value their families first and foremost, which necessarily limits the closeness of non-kinship relationships. I tell my kids about their great grandfather, a man they’ve never met and who I met when I was five (but who my mom lionized). Your friends’ kids won’t talk about you. Now, obviously you won’t care because you’ll be dead. But it’s reflective of the difference in the depth of the relationship during life.

I don't say this to be an asshole, but to point out that, if you are a non-shitty person, you are a presumptive source of stability for some young cousin, niece, or nephew. Because their friends won't care about them as much as those friends care about their own families.