Found family, also known as chosen family, is a beautiful concept that comes up in conversation a lot at FemmePharma—both within our team and in our community! It’s a common theme in popular culture—in movies as varied as Lilo & Stitch to throwback How Stella Got Her Groove Back, as its own hashtag on social media, and found in book series like the storied The Babysitters Club. The definition of found or chosen family is about connecting with people you want to share your life with in the most intimate of ways—the ups and downs, the in-betweens, the markers of time.
We would love to know: who is in your family? How do you find the special people you call your loved ones, the ones you depend on, and look to in all of times? If you want to comment here, we would love to hear about them! You can also email us at [email protected].
Chosen Family: Embracing Deep Bonds Beyond Blood
Our CEO and founder, Gerie DiPiano, shares some of what her found family experience has been. She reflects, “I feel incredibly blessed to expand my already vibrant Italian family. Starting with my godson, who holds a special place in our hearts, he’s practically like our son. Every decade brings new additions; for instance, I’m grateful for my dear friend from graduate school and his wife—my “older brother” and adopted sister. Recently, we welcomed a wonderful couple and their three adorable children into our lives. Now, I proudly embrace the role of Nonna!” One of our writers, Dina Paulson, shares, too. “I don’t have siblings, but my female best friends are my extended family. We remember special things about each other’s lives; we are each other’s emergency phone numbers. They are absolutely family to me.”
We talk a lot at FemmePharma about our community. What we mean by that are people who support the journey we are on, as a pharmaceutical and healthcare company, to provide products and information that will help and enrich the lives of women. Our community means the women who buy our products, and anyone who buys our products for the women who need and use them. We welcome everyone, from all genders, who boost the work we do, by sharing our product information and research, forwarding our blog articles, and sharing their own stories with us.
It is a privilege to gain another’s trust, and we take that gift seriously. We hope, over time, to build a ladder of stories that reflect the vastness of life and medical journeys women go on, and through sharing these stories, reflect on the power of perseverance through hard times and the importance of people going to bat for each other.
Chosen Family as a Powerful Act of Agency and Belonging
At an organizational level, there are groups, such as Found Family Collective supporting LGBTQ+ individuals, who come together to make up for birth family networks. As Healthline writes, “The concept of chosen family is purposefully e-x-p-a-n-s-a-v-e because it exists to expand the rigid definition of what society typically understands ‘family’ to be.” In a way, electing to be part of a chosen family is a statement of agency that says, I am going to form my family in the best way it can exist for me.
The term has roots. For people of color, the concept is linked to children seeking and finding new ‘parents’ when their biological parents were killed or enslaved. The term also has meaning in the LGBTQ+ movement. For individuals ostracized by their birth families when they come out, finding a new group of people who support them and vice versa can be life-changing (and saving).
Prairie Care writes, “The basis of a chosen family is love, free from judgment, since it comes from your choice rather than obligation. By choosing your family, you can explore and validate some of the most important parts of your life and connect with people who share similar morals or perspectives. Not relating to your family of origin is common, so ‘finding your people’ elsewhere can be incredibly freeing.” Recognizing that, as individuals, we have the option to seek out those who match us energetically and want our success, and for whom we feel the same, is freeing, because it opens up our world.
When the definition of family gets redefined—you choose who sits at your table! —there are more possibilities for connection, and cross-connection, as maybe some of us integrate our birth families with our chosen families. The most important piece of the concept, it seems to us, is that we value mental health individually and collectively. We want to build units that support the individuals inside of them the most, because when we are at our most, is when we can be and give the most, aka the best of ourselves. “Love, Mia Vita.”