My Little Family: Kinship is Magic

Chris Lun explores the differences of family members in times of hardships.

I think we can all agree that families are a little annoying to deal with, right? From leaving dirty dishes on the table and empty milk cartons in the fridge, to walking into our room unannounced or blaming us for things we didn’t do, they truly can rub us the wrong way. Okay…on second thought, they are extremely annoying. But, no one can argue the importance of family.

I’m sure you know the old saying, “What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger”. Yes, you might get into fights. Yes, you might “hate” them. But in the end, you’d be lying if you said you didn’t care about them. The thing is, you have this bond with your family that cannot be broken, no matter what. However, this doesn’t mean that there won’t be any conflicts, only that bond between family members can only grow stronger. Conflicts can be caused within and outside of families. Your mum might face sexism in their workplace or your little brother might be bullied at school because of his weight. As a loving son or daughter, sister or brother, you will try to comfort them and do as much as you can to help them. Yeah sure, families face challenges, but the most successful ones put aside their differences and work together.

This bond is clearly shown in the text written by Mark Haddon in 2003, “Curious incident of the Dog” and the movie directed by Elissa Down, “Black Balloon”. It is shown that both families, at one point or another, put aside their differences to overcome their challenges. In their cases, their challenges come from having an autistic son.

“The Black Balloon” showcases the lives of the Mollison family. The Mollison family is supportive of each other, and especially of Charlie, the autistic son. Although dysfunctional at times, it is shown that they do love each other. The idea of “We are strong enough to take care of Charlie”, is repeated throughout the film by both parents. They have been dealing with Charlie for many years and seems to have made peace with themselves and the idea that Charlie will never be “a normal kid”. As his family, they love him very much.

On the other hand, Thomas, the youngest son, has troubles trying to deal with his autistic brother. As he is going through puberty, he has his own problems to deal with, such as trying to fit in and not embarrass himself. We can all relate. The countless times we try to fix our appearance so that we look good in front of the person we like. By doing so, he tried to distance himself with Charlie. The alarming scene when Thomas had his girlfriend, Jackie, over for his 16th birthday. Charlie started to touch himself inappropriately. With all the pent-up anger stored within Thomas, he released it all in one go, giving Charlie stitches in his head. After the fight, Thomas undoubtedly was extremely ashamed of himself as he knows that Charlie didn’t know any better. Later that night, he was found crying in the bathroom by his mother. Instead of yelling at him, she understood his lost of control and forgave him. The loving words, “I understand Thomas, you have had to be so responsible” from his mother was all that he needed. This was a simple yet powerful scene. The strength and kinship of this family is shown by their patience with Charlie and their understanding with Thomas’ outrage. It is emphasised to us that families can make unreasonable and poor choices and that is perfectly normal, but successful families have the strength and courage to learn from these choices.

After letting all his emotions out, Thomas learned how to accept and embrace his brother. The scene of them sitting in the bath tub together shows that Thomas has learned how to love his brother, “like the old times when we were kids”. In addition to that, the heartwarming scene afterwards shows Thomas joining Charlie in hitting the floor with a stick after noticing the neighbour spraying water at Charlie. The bond between the family, especially between Charlie and Thomas has grown significantly. Even after the fight between them, they chose to forgive each other. This is the strength of the family. Although dysfunctional at some times, they put aside their differences and find a way to make everything work.

In contrast to the Mollison family, we have the Boone family. The book, “Curious Incident of the dog in the Night Time”, tells the story of Christopher. Christopher is an autistic 15 year old that was on a mission to solve a mystery of who killed the dog. After finding out that his dad was the killer, the bond between them was broken. This is not until his mother came back to help the father get closer to him by having a very small fraction everyday dedicated towards a talk between him and his father. Although the mother and father are not on good terms, she still wanted Christopher to have a father figure to grow up with. This further suggests that even the most dysfunctional families can put aside their differences and work together, as they have one thing in common, the love for their son.

Families are a mess. They are people that we get stuck with for most of our lives. Knowing that, problems will most definitely arise. But then again, “what doesn’t kill you, make you stronger”. Families that are harmonious stick together from the start to the end. The love of kinship is sacred and life is too short for conflicts, so why not just take Elsa’s advice and just let it go?