Family is a single word, with many different meanings.

People have many ways of defining

a family means to them. Family differs in terms of economic, cultural, social, and many
other facets, but what every family has in common is that the people who call it a family
are making clear that those people are important in some way to the person calling them
their family. For the part of our requirements in Family Health Nursing, we were assigned
to conduct an interview to a family. And the topic of our group is Communal Family. So
let’s define first what communal family is. The communal family is a combination of two
or more families living together. It portrays a picture of huge number of adults and children
living together in some form of society.

For the interview, the data was collected from the group of families living in San Juan,
City. The first family was Ms. Letizia and the second family was Ms. Shiela. Before we
came to their house to ask permission about the interview. We observed that they were
talking for something else and laughing at the same time. You can see that they are
closed-enough with one another. As we started the interview with Ms. Letizia, a 75 years
old woman living with her husband and 1 son. She lives in San Juan for more than 60
years, she grew and had a family there. And Ms. Shiela, a 46 years old woman who is
living there for 5 years now. She has 1 child and her husband is an OFW. When we asked
about their relationship with the other families, they both stated that they were all in good
terms. They treat each other as their own family. Ms. Letizia said that all of the families
there were her close and friends while Ms. Shiela, was her the same age. They usually
talked about the matters of their family, showbiz, politics or government and others. They
watch and sometimes eat together. When it comes to expenses, they share or contribute
for electric and water bills. However, there are some instances that they have problems
and misunderstanding with each other but they opted to talk about it to resolve their
problems and to avoid resentment with the other family. When someone has opinion, they
accept and give chance to others. Because they said, through this their family would work
in a good relationship. Some of the family members adapted the culture or behaviour of
the other family like for example, when someone was practical they used to be like that
too. Because they were living on the same house and always together. They were all
happy to be together as family. Living together and raising their children was not as easy
but as long as they were all together. Ms. Letizia stated that they did not have any
responsibilities for doing some household chores, when someone willing to do that work
then he/she is but they did not have any problems for this because all of them were
helpful. As we ended our interview, some of the family wanted to have their own home
because they have their own family. But they said, when the time has come, they will
never forget each other.

We have seen and observed how happy they are within just a small time when we were
doing our interview. Even though they were not related to each other, you can see they
cooperated and supported with each other. Yes, problems cannot be avoided and
sometimes they experienced it but for some reasons they used to talk and help to arrange
it because they acted like a true family, not by blood but how they can show it to one
another.

Communal family is a group of people who share home making and child rearing
functions and help overcome the problem of interpersonal isolation or loneliness. In this
setting, all children are responsibility of adult members. Last August 30, we conducted
with an interview from a family that lives in an apartment in San Juan We thought that
their set up would be a good example of a communal family because they are
composed of non-related families living in one roof. The set of questions we prepared
for the intwrview reveals their relationship with each other, responsibilities, culture, way
of life, problems, learnings, etc. (ano pa ba?). After interviewing each of the head of thr
family, we started to admire them for being a family to others even they are not blood
related. We all know that it's not easy to makasama to others in one roof because
sometimes different attitudes, culture tend to clash and it leads to arguement, but what
we admire from the families we interviewed is that, they are so chill. That despite their
differences, they are trying to understand and respect each other. Another thing we
admire about them is that they dont keep theur burden to each other, instead to try to
talk about issues/ arguements they had, which is not common in other houswhold
because of one's pride. When it comes to their responsibilites, they said that they do
chores by schedule, and we thought, it's a good strategy because in that way there
would be no unfair situation. Another thing we were able to ask is about their their
support to each other. They answered quickly that whenever someone needs help like if
someone is sick each of them are always willing to help because they treat each other
as family, and they care about each other. To summarize our experience, each of us
enjoyed the interview we conducted, because we got to discover things we are not
aware before like how life is, in living with other family not related to you. We learned
that respect is very important because everything begins on how tou treat each other
and others aspects will just follow. Being in a communal family is not bad at all actully,
because it will also make you grow as a person because we get to learn something from
others' experiences, or culture.