Thoughtful Thursday!

What is a family? 

According to Dictionary.com :

1.

a.

a basic social unit consisting of parents and their children, considered as a group, whether dwelling together or not: the traditional family.

b.

a social unit consisting of one or more adults together with the children they care for: a single-parent family.

2.

the children of one person or one couple collectively: We want a large family.

3.

the spouse and children of one person: We're taking the family on vacation next week.

4.

any group of persons closely related by blood, as parents, children, uncles, aunts, and cousins: to marry into a socially prominent family.

5.

all those persons considered as descendants of a common progenitor.

And here's the Merriam-Webster version. It's much longer but the first one is: 1. A group of individuals living under one roof and usually under one head.  

They both essentially say the same thing. Although each definition specifically includes children. Now in my case we aren't a group but a twosome. And there are currently no children, but we are very much a family. And in this family, we do live under one head :-) I suppose defining what makes a family has become more important to me after recent conversations where multiple people have mentioned us "starting a family". I'm not sure why people don't recognize that they day we said "I Do" we started and expanded our family at the same time. And one day if it's in God's plan we will further expand our family.  But currently not having children - or if we so chose to never have children it does not make us any less a family. I also believe that God gives us people that become family. There is no shared bloodline, or relation by marriage. There is plenty of love, loyalty, and friendship. That is all part of what makes someone family. One day my children will call my sister as well as my closest girlfriends Auntie, just as I call them my sisters. They will refer to their spouses as Uncle and as I consider them my brothers in love as well as law. We are family. My husband was raised as an only child but he has 4 friends who as far as I'm concerned are his brothers and they and their wives also be Aunts and Uncles to our little ones. Again I say, we are FAMILY. We have love, friendship, loyalty.