Family is important to me.

I'm not alone in this- there are many people who have wonderful, nurturing relationships with their families, who find them sources of help, love, enlightened guidance, and every good thing. So how could there be those who disagree with the idea of family?

When discussing family and reproduction, one of the dangers is to conflate the good things a family can provide with the actual, literal structure of the "classic" family unit of Grandparents, Mum and Dad, and the kids. These good things are what we defend when someone calls for family to be thrown aside, for a new way to be forged- we cannot imagine that the love we find in our families being discarded. And that's as it should be- love should never be cast aside. But we may be in danger of clinging to the bathwater to save the baby.

When I talk with people about the positive aspects of family, two things always come up as unique- currently- to the family unit. The first is that of cross-generational bonds. In my family, I learnt about the second world war from my grandfather, who fought in it; about sexism in the 50's from my grandmother, who fought against it; about what falling in love was like from my parents, who would tell the story of their complicated affair whenever we asked. The first baby I held was my cousin, who is ten years younger than me. All these things helped foster a wider understanding of people in the world in me, and those people I talked to who had positive things to say about their families had similar experiences. Knowing these people, at once so similar and so different from you, helps strengthen your empathy.

The second is the sense of community a close-knit family can give. The idea that your parents love you No Matter What is powerful; that they will do whatever they can to be able to keep loving you, and that means knowing and accepting who you are. None of us are our parents- we are different from them in ways that sometimes, neither party in the relationship can understand. But the fact that you are both family encourages you to spend the time and effort bridging that understanding gap that otherwise you would not spend.

So why dispense with family? Because for every good experience there are bad ones. People manipulating others who feel obliged to take it. Women essentially forced by a misogynistic society to play "good wife" or suffer unmitigated, privileged scorn from the wider community. Families can, as many will attest to, be deep, dark, hateful places that are hard to escape from.

The real question is how to redefine family- how to maintain the good parts, the unconditional love and the communication, without coercive and patriarchal bonds. I think the way is to expand our families, not dissolve them. 'Ohana (as made famous by the Disney movie Lilo and Stitch) is a Hawaiian term meaning "family in an extended sense of the term including blood-related, adoptive or intentional". It means bringing people into these bonds deliberately- it means extending the family privileges of unconditional love and unexpected bonds and throwing away the social exclusivity.

By pulling people- especially people not like us- into our 'ohana, we expose ourselves, and our children, to a wider, more vibrant range of experiences. I won't say this is a perfect fix. I have no idea how to implement it in a real way. But I firmly believe that the replacement for traditional, nuclear family is an extended 'ohana, with all the acceptance and love- and love is the defining word here, and not a dirty one- that it implies.

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