Genogram Analysis of My Family

Genograms are a visual representation of a person’s family, relationships between members, and medical and mental health histories. It is more in-depth than a family tree because it provides more extensive information about the family and each member. In this work "My Family: Genogram Analysis Example," I want to share the history of my family as a genogram with you.

My name is Marie-Michele Keck and this is the story of my family. I have a pretty large family. Patriarchy is defined as “rule of the father”, in which “men are assumed to have a natural right to be in positions of authority over women”. In contrast, matriarchy is defined as “social power and authority is vested in women”. We don’t see our family as a patriarchy or matriarchy, because although my dad is the only one who works, my mom is the one who takes care of the house and taxes. My dad is the primary breadwinner for the family, but my mom takes care of the housework, paying the bills, filing taxes, and taking care of whatever the children need. When one of the kids need something, we call mom to help, not dad. Overall, I would consider my family as a whole, an egalitarian family, which means the women and men work together to provide the basic needs of their families.

According to Seccombe (2015), an egalitarian society is when “the expectation is that power and authority are equally vested in both men and women”. We are all very close, and we are pretty much a regular American family, or what others would call the ideal family. We celebrate birthdays, Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Year’s and every other major holiday together. I would say that I have an adopted family that would also be considered a nuclear family. First and foremost, I have three siblings. Dalton is the oldest of my siblings, he is going to be twenty-five-years-old on September 24th. Dalton is a salesperson and is married to Alex Newby, a teacher in Nashville, they have no children together at the moment. Dylan is the second oldest, he is single and still in college at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, where he is majoring in Marketing and Business. My youngest sibling is Yollande, we call her the baby of the family, she is eighteen-years-old. The relationship with my siblings and I is pretty normal, we love each other and talk to each whenever we get the chance to.

My parents are strongly married and live together. They have been married for twenty-eight years. They have a close bond and are each other’s best friends. They adopted Yollande and I from Haiti almost seven years ago. When they first adopted my sister Yollande and I, I was worried that my parent’s biological children would not like me, or that they would feel some type of way about me but, this was not the case at all. I got along with them pretty easily. My family have a close bond. Even though my brothers and I do not live at home anymore we know that we can always go back home whenever we want and that we are always going to be there for each other. My dad’s side of the family is pretty normal too. My dad’s parents are Cliff and Carol, the grandchildren call them Nana and Papaw. They have been married for fifty-one years. We celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary last fall. My dad has two siblings Michelle and Carla. Michelle is the second oldest, and is a teacher. She is married to Jeff Browning, who is an Assistant Principal, and they have two kids together. Their kids are Brett, who is the oldest son and is a twenty-one-year-old single college kid, and then there is Brock, the youngest at nineteen-years-old, he is also single. Their family would also fit into the definition of an ideal American family.

My aunt Carla who is a parole officer, is married to Ronny and has two sons. Her family dynamic is a little different from the rest of us. She has a blended family which, according to Seccombe (2015), is “a family in which one or both partners have at least one child either residing with them or elsewhere”. Carla has two children, Gabe is the oldest at fifteen-years-old and Isaac is the youngest at thirteen-years-old. Gabe and Isaac are not Ronny’s biological children. Carla was married before to a guy named John, who was addicted to drugs and alcohol, he was also a thief, and he went to jail for a long time because he robbed a bank. Having Ronny as a stepdad makes up for all of John’s mistakes. Gabe and Isaac do not have a good relationship with John, they are very distant even though he has been out of jail for a quite a while. He has job so that he can provide financial support to his kids when they need it, but this is not required of him. Apart from the problems with John, their family gets along extremely well and the kids love their stepdad Ronny.

My Mom’s side of the family is pretty large compared to my dad’s. I have quite a lot of cousins from this side of the family, and my mom also has two siblings, one sister and one brother. The oldest of the siblings is Lori, a realtor who is married to Paul, who is a contractor. They have four children together. There is Spencer who is the oldest of their family at twenty-six years-old who is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in engineering. Maycie is the second oldest at twenty-four-years-old. Maycie is married to John and they live in Vietnam, where they are both schoolteachers and have an adopted daughter, as well as a late adopted son. Abbie is their daughter whom they adopted from Vietnam at a very young age, they also adopted a boy named Saxon from Vietnam as well. Sadly, Saxon passed away in 2013 due to cancer. The sickness really took a toll on our whole family, but through it all, we were there for each other. At one point their family did have a problem with financial issues. The reason for these financial issues is because of all the hospital expenses from when Saxon was sick.

Our entire family, my parents, my aunts and uncles, as well as our other family members helped them get through it both financially and emotionally. My mother’s other brother is Chad who works as a salesperson is married to Jennifer who is a teacher. They live together in Knoxville, and have three children together. Their oldest daughter is Berkeley who is sixteen-years-old and a sophomore in high school, the second is Blair who is fourteen-years-old. Berkeley and Blair have a very close relationship. Chad and Jennifer’s youngest child is Brooks, who is the baby of the Bowers clan. Chad and Jennifer would be classified as a nuclear family which, according to Seccombe (2015), is “a family composed of adults and their children”. Chad and Jennifer work together to provide for their family.

My whole family’s lifestyles are pretty much the same. We have the same values which are extremely important to us. One example of this is going to church on Sundays. Having family time is important to us as well, and we try to do that as much as we can. If I were to rank my family in the social categories, it would be middle to upper class. The reason that I would classify us as middle to upper class is because we have never struggled financially. My parents are able to send all four kids to college and pay for everything we need, for example dorms or an apartment, to live in while we’re still in school. They are also able to provide us with other necessities like groceries. They make sure that we have a good education because that is very important to our family.