How you define family can define your world | In Focus

Published 11:00 pm Wednesday, May 6, 2026

I learned an important lesson during my 31 years of teaching high school students: If you view all people as family, you will become much more effective in your relationships.

My father was a reliable hard worker even as he developed mental illness beginning when I was ten. As a result, my homelife became more and more chaotic.

When I became a parent in my early 30s, it was very important to me that I have a close relationship with my two children. I wanted to “be the dad I wished I had.” I was successful in achieving that goal. When I had been teaching for about 25 years, I came to realize that if I treated my students like my own children, I could become a more effective teacher. Changing my perspective had an enormous positive impact. When I began to see them differently, my students began to treat me differently, too. By the time I retired, I had several students tell me I was their favorite teacher.

We have 11 grandchildren. Instead of being the dad I wished I had, I now had to think “be the grandad you never had.” My mother’s father died when I was one. I never knew him except through stories from my mother and her siblings. My father’s father died when I was eleven or twelve. He was a farmer in Montana whom we saw once a year. I don’t remember that he said more than a few dozen words to me in my lifetime. He did like to argue, and debating was a family pastime among my dad’s siblings. Perhaps that’s the reason I write these columns—it’s a family tradition that I carry on through print.

My stepdaughter is a paraprofessional at a local elementary. On her own, she came to the same realization. She treats her elementary-aged students like they are her own children. The students notice and they respond positively to her. Her approach made me think to the next level.

What if I view all people as family? What if I treat older men and women as fathers and mothers, aunts and uncles, and younger men and women as sons and daughters? What if I treat those my same age as brothers and sisters, or cousins?

I discovered that changing my perceptions works just as effectively on adults as it did with children. The fact is that we are all related to each other, if we go back far enough in human history.

Let’s apply my life experiences to you. What if you begin to view all the people you come in contact with as family instead of strangers? How might it affect your attitudes and approach?

In my life experience, I have come to see that blood ties usually run deep. In difficult times, like going through a divorce, families usually side with their kin rather than those outside their family circle. Humans are not rational by nature. Blood is thicker than water, and blood ties often overwhelm reason and logic.

On my father’s side, if you were not blood-related you weren’t really an Elfers. I have two older adopted brothers whom my father’s family never really accepted. My father’s family was nice to them but my brothers knew they were not viewed the same way I was.

In contrast, my mother’s siblings and their children adopted eight children. You can imagine the two differing views that I grew up with and the tension it created in my family. I hated it because I wanted brothers, but my brothers resented me because I was “better” than they were. My older brother still does not like spending time with our Elfers’ cousins, or with me. If I didn’t call him, he’d never call me.

No wonder family ties are so important. The problem is that different people have different definitions of who is family and who isn’t. What if we all changed our view to seeing all people as family? How would our world be different?

How would your world be different?