When I was growing up, I lived a normal household with a brother and a sister. In 2007, my parents became divorced and things became different. I would go to my dad's house every other weekend and stay there with my siblings. He was living with his parents, my grandparents, and everything was pretty normal until my grandmother died later that year. We would still go and stay with my dad but it was just my grandfather and him there instead.

As the years went by it seemed to be less and less that we would go and actually stay with my dad. We would always see him, but most of the time it was never all of us going to stay the weekend. My siblings would go and stay at their friends houses and I would sometimes too. In 2013, when my grandfather died, my dad decided to sell the house and he moved in with his childhood friend for awhile. My dad would always be around my mom’s house because he was my baseball coach and would have to bring me to practices and games and things for other sports because my mom was working. But I always knew that he was just there to see my siblings and I.
My mother and father’s relationship was always weird. She understood that he wasn’t seeing us all the time, and I think deep down she knew he felt somewhat left out. Nowadays it’s pretty much the same and they see each other pretty much every day. My dad comes over and just hangs out with all of us, including my mom. They usually either get along and be civil, or just flat out fight with each other. Sometimes when my mom gets pissed at him for whatever reason she asks me if I think it’s normal for him to be at the house all of the time. Honestly, I know it isn’t, couples that are divorced usually aren’t with each other everyday; but when I think about it I understand that my family isn’t normal, we are a bunch of goofs living together that just want to enjoy life and get by. I knew that it wasn’t the ideal or most normal family, but it was my family and i accepted it. I think this shows to an extent how American Families have changed. They can be anything and i think that is beautiful.

Throughout my 17 years on this planet, I honestly do not have much experience to comment on the change of the American family. I can however, comment on what I believe to be the American Family in the 21st century. When someone speaks of “the American family” you probably imagine a father,a mother a couple of kids, and a dog living in a nice home in a nice neighborhood. If you were to picture a family from the 1960’s that is probably what you would imagine. Nowadays, the American family has evolved into an entirely different concept. Not only has it become more diverse, but it has grown into something completely new.

I believe the American family can be whatever it comes out to be. Whether it’s a mom, dad, and some kids, or a grandfather and a niece, or even just some friends living together. Because in my mind it’s not necessarily a  bloodline that creates a family, a bloodline creates relatives. So when people say the American family is falling apart, that confuses me; it confuses me because how could something so different in fall apart if it is growing in every way?