Picture yourself sharing breakfast alongside your perfect, content family. Sharing laughter and joy while the eggs are still crackling into shape on the stovetop. Orange juice and milk get passed over into shiny new glasses, ready to be indulged by everyone in your family. Does the thought not come to mind: “Should you love your family because they’re your family?” Well, the answer is simple. “Yes.”

For adults and even for children, life can be easily overwhelming. Being surrounded by people who love and cherish you, are without a doubt, the unconditional love we all need in the world. The chance to look up to your parents as role models is also the additional love that we all need. Having and spending time with your family is crucial if you are seeking overall wellbeing. Bonding constructs a person’s development and creates fond memories that people don’t want to lose. So, easily, the answer is yes. You should always love your family because they’re your family. 

What if you don’t have a family? Family doesn’t need to be someone who is biologically related to you right? And family can be defined differently between two different people. Maybe you’ve never shared a breakfast with some so-called family. Maybe you never had the chance like some families to share laughter with one another. No clean glass of milk. No clean glass of freshly poured orange juice and no eggs sizzling, with someone there to plate. Nobody wants to sit with you and no one wants to help you fix the broken glass on the undusted kitchen floor. Not a single ounce of the unconditional love that’s been mentioned was shared, and not one smile cracked. This makes it harder to be able to love your “family.”

Perhaps the real answer to this question is to only be answered by Socrates. But really, I personally think that loving your family just because they’re your family has to do with the conditions and battles that you have been strought out with. Whatever you have experienced as a child or grown-up, or maybe both, is what defines who you are as a person and what you really think about your family. If you were to grow up in a household with family issues that conveyed many untrustworthy experiences, you probably would have a different perspective and approach compared to someone who didn’t have as many family issues. So, should you love your family just because they’re your family?