When I was younger, I grew up in a really nice neighborhood and I really couldn't complain about my immediate family because everything back then seemed a lot nicer than what the rest of my family had. While I was in elementary school my parents were together but before finishing the fifth grade, my parents split. Being older looking back on everything that I've gone through, though I'm not very old, I wonder if having both parents at home is that much more beneficial than just having one.
             To this day I cherish the sight of seeing my friends parents together after 20 or 30 years or even longer than that. Watching TV you get the mindset that the "perfect" family is the father, the mother, the older brother and the younger sister all living happily with no complaints, maybe an argument every now and them, but yet the model standard that a family should live up to. Then I turn away from the television and look at my family. I hardly know my mom's side of the family because I seldom ever spent time with them. None of my aunts are married but handfuls of cousins are running around. I then turn to my dad's side of the family which for the most part seems like a clone of my mothers side except everyone's source of mental stability seemed to rely on my great-grandma. Though one of my aunts did get married, twice, she didn't stay married for long. After which she moved back in with my granddad and great-grandma.
             Sometimes I pause and think, would I have known so much about one side and so little about the other if my parents had stayed together? I would say yes, but at the same time I say no. I can't remember going to visit any of my cousins that often while they were together. That quickly changed after the split. I was at my great-grandma's house so much it seemed as if I lived there. I got to know all of my "ghetto hillbilly" cousins and they got to know
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