What I’ve Learned About Family Since Mine Fell Apart in My 20s

I don’t know what year my family first arrived in Philadelphia, but growing up, it was clear no one ever left. It was the 1980s, it was the suburbs, and I didn’t know much about the world, but I did know every single one of my cousins, great aunts and uncles. My extended family was so close they had official gatherings called the “cousins club.” Back then, it seemed to me that family was the one thing people didn’t have to think too much about. It was just there, like seasonal holidays and birthdays. It defined who we were. Today, that notion seems as quaint and anachronistic as a record player.

In my 20s, my traditional family fell apart. My beloved grandmother died. My parents got divorced. My relationship with my mother deteriorated. So I moved to New York City to follow my dream of working in book publishing.

Geographical change is a hallmark for many people in their 20s looking to start careers. For some — like me — moving away from home means establishing a permanent distance from family. Arriving in New York, I knew exactly two people. I spent more time with my co-workers than anyone else. I could no longer lean on my mother for important guidance, but I was lucky to have a wonderful boss. The woman who gave me my first job became my female role model. Twenty years later, my daughters call this same woman “Aunt Jane,” and she is as much a figure in their lives as a blood relative.

Blood relative. Think about what that term implies. Is a blood relative more legitimate “family” than a non-blood relative? There was a time when I would have said yes. Not anymore. Two things have changed everything about family: reproductive technology, and quick and easy DNA testing. I have witnessed the impact of both.

A friend of mine couldn’t conceive a baby or carry a pregnancy because of a lifelong health problem. After much agonizing, she and her husband decided to start their family using his sperm, a donor egg and a gestational carrier. The result was a beautiful set of twins. But whose family are they? The egg donor or the woman who gave birth to them? Those women can claim a flesh and blood connection to the children. But the answer, of course, is that neither is family to the twins: My friend is their mother, lack of blood connection aside. She and her husband will explain all of this to their kids when they’re old enough to understand. And, as they grow up with loving parents, I have a feeling they will accept the amazing story of their birth as perfectly natural.

But what about when complicated origin stories aren’t explained? What about when they are kept secret, and then the secret is exposed? Thanks to the new ease of DNA testing, this is happening all of the time. And it happened to someone whose family I’ve known almost all of my life — or thought I did.

Two years ago, over lunch, my friend told me that she did a DNA test to find out some health information. The results were so shocking, she was sure there’d been some mistake: The man who raised her was not her biological father. Just as she was absorbing that blow, she was contacted by others using the same DNA testing company and learned she had nearly a dozen half-siblings. This is how she learned she was conceived by a sperm donor — a fact that is unknown to the man who raised her even to this day. My friend, who is Jewish, celebrated her first Christmas this past year with her new sisters and brothers. She now has her traditional family — and her discovered family.

When I first moved to New York those years ago, estranged from my mother and away from the rest of my family, I was lonely. I consoled myself with the adage, “Friends are the family you choose.” Over the years, I’ve seen that in our changing world, it’s bigger and better than that: family is the family we choose. And sometimes it’s the family that chooses us. Today, there is no right or wrong way to have and be one. Years ago, I thought family was something I had to leave behind. Now I know it’s something we can create wherever life takes us.

Jamie Brenner is the author of The Forever Summer, publishing in April from Little, Brown. She lives in New York City with a “blended” family that includes her husband, two daughters and two stepchildren.