Family members can be a strange kettle of fish… and there’s something almost uncanny valley about them. They’re close enough to you that they’re recognizable to you in mannerisms and appearance, but different enough that it’s almost off-putting to witness them in existence. Like, it’s strange to see them acting and behaving in a way that makes you hyper-aware of your own tendencies and mannerisms.
Don’t get me wrong, family is everything, and growing up with a rich and vibrant extended family is something special to experience as a kid. But, while it’s nice to have family you can rely on, you’ll find yourself time and time again craving and seeking your own individuality. Without a doubt, as Johnny Cash’s “A Boy Named Sue” taught us, names are an important part of any burgeoning identity, and the last thing you want is to be stuck with the exact same name as your cousin.
Finding individual niches and paths will happen naturally as you grow up and go in different directions to walk different paths, but there’s nothing worse than feeling constricted by who your family wants you to be. This holds mostly for cousins, aunts, and uncles, but can also be true for siblings and the people they go on to marry. You might grow up to find that each of you has values and interests that don’t mesh well with the other.
This guy and his wife found themselves at odds with his brother and his sister-in-law over the naming of their children. Both his wife and his sister-in-law were pregnant and soon to give birth. The sister-in-law decided that she was going to give her child the same name that the couple had already selected so that the boys’ names would be “matching.” An insane decision reached through flawed reasoning that would send cracks flowing through the family and its existing dynamic.
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