What do you think of Julia’s words about family vs. friendships? Do you find this true in your own experience?

What do you think of Julia’s words about family vs. friendships on p. 271: “I had learned that outside family, people came into our lives and stayed a while, as we learned and grew with each other. But mostly, they left us again, as we inevitably moved on, as we each needed different people in our lives.” Do you find this true in your own experience? Do you think it was truer in the early 1900s than it is over 100 years later?

On the one hand, today with so many families separated by physical distance, and so much mobility (before the Pandemic), I think friends can take on a more important role than family in day-to-day life. However, my closest friend is still my sister, though we are hundreds of miles apart - if one is lucky, that family tie can transcend time and distance when many friendships cannot.

I'm not sure. A certain number of friends come and go in our lives. However, there are also lifelong friends who are as close as family. Sometimes families have fractures that make friends even more valuable. I don't know if this was any truer now than in the early 1900s.

I was very close to my mom and dad. Being the youngest of three girls there were struggles for me after we were adults. One sister lives cross country. She is the one that can only have a friendship with one sister at a time! My oldest sister lives 200 miles away. I am closer to my friends then my two sisters. This does make me sad but it is the way it is!

I think we can develop friendships with people we have common circumstances with or common ideas that can preclude family. I’m remembering the close connections I had with with 3 women when we all had very young children and gathered for a weekly play group. Now we are scattered across the country. Facebook and email now take the place of letter writing, but Friendships can definitely be a significant support for a period of time and then change.

With regards to family today, there can be rifts but with chances of repair over time, and even if family is distant they can remain close with available technology, especially social media, plus highways and planes, while a century ago many families stayed closer and they did not have as much job mobility. This is also true with friendships--today people move on with their careers and families, thus many friendships end or are just lost.

Family is family. I find all others do come and go out of your life. People are more transient now than they ever were.

I definitely believe that people come into your life at key moments, but that it doesn't always mean they stay in your life. Family is forever. Friends and acquaintances are meant to come and go, or not. Some stay forever. Some drift away when you have learned as much as you can from them.

I am not sure of an answer to this question, but I do believe families are becoming more distant than in the 20s. Few families live in the same area now as they tended to in WWI. The Great Depression, WWII, moving away from most families being agricultural based and the transient nature of American lives has weakened the daily contact face to face of family members. Current politics has also made many family ties weaker.

I agree. People come into our lives when either we or they need it, then they skip back out. Many times over in your life you will be close to someone for a short while, then your association will end. It happens as you move, or change jobs, or take a class, or even visit your favorite coffee shop. It may happen as quickly as passing someone in the grocery store aisle.

I actually think that today in the 21st century it may be more prevalent. 100 yrs ago people were more stationary - stayed in their homes longer, traveled less, knew less people on the whole. Today there is no limit - we move continually, travel like never before and have expanded our world many times over.