Growing up, I was convinced my family was the only one that wasn’t perfect. From an outsider’s perspective, the families of all of the people around me seemed way better than mine. For example, my parents always worked long-hour days. They were hard workers and did so to provide the best childhood for my siblings and me. As a result, my parents were very busy and weren’t available at every moment. In contrast, a few of the people around me could get a hold of their parents in seconds, could ask their parents for rides, etc.

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Also, my family isn’t big. And even the family we do have, we aren’t very close to them. Unlike me, a lot of people around me had a big family that they were always around. They were close with the aunts and uncles and were great friends with their cousins, and met their family multiple times a week. However, as time passed, I have become more and more aware that no family is perfect. When I approached my mother one day and told her I wished our family would be as “normal” as others, she chuckled. She explained to me that we have no idea what happens behind closed doors. We can look from the outside and make assumptions based on what we see, but what appears to the eye can sometimes never be further from the truth.

Furthermore, as I started to open up more to the people around me, and shared with my friends my feelings and my family troubles, they shared their issues with me as well. It surprised me that even some of my friends, which at first glance seem to have no issues in their families, also have their struggles. The realization that no family is perfect taught me a lot. It helped me understand that we shouldn’t judge others and that we don’t have a way to tell what others are going through. The truth is, every family is different, and each encounters its own issues.