Kinship

1. My "Ego" subject this week is my father, Joe Penich. He's a 60-year-old single man from slums of East Los Angeles that lived through the turbulent 60's and 70's and became a businessman, of which are mostly the kind of people he associates with at this point in this life. He was married to my mother for several years then divorced 20 years ago. This divorce was contrary to his very traditional Croatian Roman-Catholic upbringing, which hurt him to do but he considered a necessary evil.

2. The interview was very easy for both of us because we are both very interested in the idea of passing family insight on to the next generation. It was certainly not awkward because there was a sense of pride experienced by both of us. On my behalf, I was proud to hear about my lineage and traditions that have held up for centuries and require me to pass them on. On my fathers behalf, he was elated to know how interested his own son was in our Croatian traditions and heritage. Fortunately for me there are not areas of tension when considering my kinship. It could be very emotional for someone to divulge information about family if they have been neglected, abused, or harmed by their own kin.

3. My father's side of the family is incredibly close, small, and Yugoslav traditional. We may not be many but we are proud and resilient. Dinner is not just a meal but an obligation to the family. Meeting in the evening is for reflecting with each other, not just eating. If someone is to miss out on dinner, they have better have a very good reason to do so or else the others may be offended or feel neglected. Our family is small so there are no "older" individuals left (other than my dad.) But he says when he was a kid that whatever Nana (grandma) and Dida (grandpa) says, goes. Though my mother was a non-Croat, my grandparents were accepting as a bride for their son (as long as she would have a Catholic wedding at a Croatian church), though surely they would've preferred an ethnic Slav for continuities sake. An interesting note, my father's side is 100% Croat, my mother's side is all non-thoroughbred Europeans. Slavic continuity was always valuable.

4. I do know relatives on both sides of the family and we do get along well, hanging out as much as we can fit in our schedules. On my father's side, the fact that we're related is enough reason to like someone unconditionally. However on my mother's side, there have been several instances where family members are no longer on speaking terms because of spats or arguments. There is 0% chance of a family member being excommunicated on my fathers side, however with my mother's family many of them would not hesitate to disown anyone if they jeopardized their own pride.
The only two people to enter my dad's family was my mother (until they divorced) and my aunt's husbad, and they were both received very well by our family. Also, there is no gender discrimination in my family, any judgement is based on character and positively biased for being related.
A valuable insight I learned from this exercise is how different my parents family function. My father's side is all tradition, my mothers side is a void of tradition thereof.