Net negative families

When it comes to family dynamics, there really are none that are “normal” or “average” families, but in this post I want to discuss a mental model I have built through the years when discussing my family & friends, listening to others discuss the upside or challenges with their families and from simply witnessing how other families interact.

​It all comes down to this:

Does your family act as a net positive, negative or neutral in your life.

When you fully grasp this model, you can start to break what demographic biases have been instilled in you and fully understand why wealthy families can be awful (I know many), why poor families can be amazing (I know many) and why families can really have no impact or be inert in someones life.

In many ways, if you can understand where someone’s family is on the line, you can understand them and how to make them more productive too.

Your family, your home, is supposed to be this place of unconditional love, that ultimately should want what is best for you and should fight to defend your life and mind with all their strength.

And that is the neutral case.

The net positive case is where parents try and instill their hard earned lessons into their kid, they open their contact books for them, they teach them personal finance and investing, they act as an unfair advantage in their specialized field.

Note - this has nothing to do with wealth/money.

You can see net positive families in sports legacies. NFL players that raise NFL players. Sons that take on the family business. Doctors that raise doctors.

For many a parent that is slightly interested in their adult life, their challenges, and their changing view of the world would constitute a new positive family.

And then we have the negative ones.

Negative families are roadblocks. They can be huge sources of friction to a person.
They usually struggle to communicate and to teach their children to communicate.

In many cases without intentionally being awful, they judge and question and work against their children in life. When you have a problem, they lecture a solution instead of just listening.

When you launch a business they give is a 4 star review and say it could be better rather than being your greatest cheerleader.

When you have a life defining challenge, they paper over it with gifts and money and holidays.

”You’ll never be”, “You shouldn’t do that because”, “You’re wrong” are common things I see negative families say to their children.

For many unfortunate souls, there is no family. Divorced parents, dead parents, never knew your parents, distant parents can all make up neutral families. It just is. Even in the most morbid context, your family is not actively working against you here.

In my opinion this is better than having a negative family. Think about that.

If you have a net positive family, understand that you have a gift that most don’t have. When your family makes time to try and make your life better, embrace it with everything you can. Cherish what you have.