composition writing my family

English that goes straight to the heart

Composition About My Family

Family is the place where you learn your first lesson in life. Your family members are the only assets that will remain with you forever.

I am attached to my family greatly and everybody in my family is educated enough and has a wonderful nature.

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Composition About My Family (150 Words)

I cherish my family deeply. They have been my greatest teachers in life and will remain by my side forever. We are a nuclear family of five members, led by my father, who is a teacher. My mother is a wonderful housewife and beautician. My grandmother, the sweetest person I know, delights us with her delicious homemade treats. My older brother, who is the tallest among us, is a passionate YouTuber and enjoys cooking.

My family is the best family for me. Whatever the circumstances are, we are always there for each other to support us. From my grandma, I consistently learn valuable lessons about honesty, dependability, and kindness. They are the precious gems of my life, and every night, we come together to play games and engage in meaningful discussions. My family holds the highest place in my heart, surpassing anyone else.

Composition About My Family (300 Words)

Family is where we learn our first life lessons and find the only assets that will be with us forever. I am deeply attached to my highly educated and kind-hearted family. They mean more to me than anything else.

In our nuclear family of five, my father, a teacher, takes the lead and guides us through life. He is my hero, foreseeing our needs and fulfilling his responsibilities to shape our lives.

My mother, a loving woman, is both a homemaker and a skilled beautician. She understands me like no one else and is my trusted partner in everyday tasks and challenges.

My grandmother, the epitome of cuteness, sets the morning routine for everyone. Her passion for making delicious sweets brings joy to us all. She is meticulous and ensures everything is in order.

My elder brother, the tallest among us, is a YouTuber and a cooking enthusiast. He also loves playing cricket and has a fondness for gadgets. Though he may not study much, his kindness and gentlemanly nature make him truly special.

For me, my family is the absolute best. No matter the circumstances, we are always there to support one another. We uphold strong values and morals, teaching respect for elders and love for the younger ones.

From my grandma, I consistently learn the lessons of honesty, dependability, and kindness. They are the cherished jewels of my life. My parents’ hard work to provide us with everything we desire fills me with love and deep respect. We spend quality time together every night, playing games and engaging in meaningful discussions.

Above all, my family holds the highest place in my heart, surpassing anyone else.

Composition About My Family (400 Words)

Family is where we learn our first life lessons, and they are the only assets that stay with us forever. I am deeply attached to my highly educated and kind-hearted family, loving them more than anything.

In our nuclear family of five, my father is the guiding force and leader. He takes responsibility for shaping our lives and bringing our family into reality. He is my hero, always predicting our needs and fulfilling his duties with unwavering dedication.

My father has never imposed his career choices on me. He encourages me to pursue my own path, based on my interests, suitability, and capabilities. However, he desires a bright future for me. I love my father immensely for his exceptional fatherhood and the incredible sacrifices he has made for me.

My mother is a loving and beautiful woman who means everything to me. She understands me deeply and is my constant companion in daily tasks and challenges. Through her insightful and elegant actions, she shapes me into a noble individual. She encourages me to engage in character-building activities and creates a nurturing environment for my growth. My love for my mother knows no bounds, as she exemplifies unmatched motherhood and makes incredible sacrifices for me.

My grandmother holds a special place in our family. Her presence requires everyone to rise early in the morning. She delights us with her skill for creating sweet dishes and possesses a remarkable focus that keeps everything in order.

My elder brother, the tallest among us, is a passionate YouTuber with a love for cooking. He enjoys playing cricket and is a gadget enthusiast. Although he may not focus much on academics, his sweetness and gentlemanly demeanor make him truly endearing.

For me, our family is the absolute best. We stand united in all circumstances, offering unwavering support to one another. Our family instills good values and morals. From a young age, we are taught to respect our elders and show love to the younger ones.

I consistently learn valuable lessons in honesty, dependability, kindness, and more from my grandmother. My family, the precious jewels of my life, works tirelessly to fulfill our desires, which deepens my love and respect for my parents. Every night, we come together to play games and engage in meaningful discussions, cherishing quality time spent together.

Composition About My Family (500 Words)

Family is where we learn our first life lessons, and they are the only assets that remain with us forever. I have a strong attachment to my highly educated and kind-hearted family, and their wonderful nature brings us closer. My love for my family surpasses anything else.

In our nuclear family of five, my father, a teacher, takes the lead and guides our family. He is the driving force behind our family’s success, predicting our needs and shouldering all responsibilities to shape our lives. He is my hero, making incredible sacrifices and ensuring our well-being.

What sets my father apart is that he never imposes his career choices on me. He values my independence and believes in allowing me to pursue my own path based on my interests, suitability, and capabilities. However, he desires a better future for me, and his support and guidance are invaluable.

My mother, a lovely woman, is both a dedicated homemaker and a talented beautician. She understands me like no one else, and we work together as partners in everyday tasks and challenges. Her elegant and insightful actions shape me into a noble individual. She encourages me to engage in activities that build character and promote personal growth, fostering a natural learning environment.

The love and respect I have for my mother goes beyond words, as she exemplifies unmatched motherhood and makes incredible sacrifices for me.

My grandmother, the cutest person in our family, brings a sense of discipline . Her presence ensures that everyone rises early in the morning. She delights us with her skill in making delicious sweet dishes, and we adore her for it. Her focused nature keeps everything in order and adds balance to our lives.

My elder brother, the tallest among us, is a passionate YouTuber and cooking enthusiast. He also loves playing cricket and is a gadget aficionado. Although he may not focus much on academics, his sweetness, and gentlemanly demeanor make him endearing.

Despite being in my final year of studies, my family continues to treat me with the affectionate nickname “chottu.” This endearing gesture reflects the immense love and care they have for me. I aspire to become a pillar of support for my family and repay the love and care they have shown me.

For me, my family is the epitome of love and support. Regardless of the circumstances, we are always there for each other, nurturing good values and morals. Respect for elders and love for younger ones are instilled in us from a young age.

My grandmother consistently teaches me important lessons in honesty, dependability, kindness, and more. I treasure my family as they are the precious jewels of my life. Their unwavering hard work to fulfill our desires strengthens my love and respect for my parents. We bond by playing games every night and engaging in meaningful discussions, cherishing quality time spent together. My family holds the highest place in my heart, surpassing anyone else.

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How Should I Go About Writing My Family Essay?: Examples and Tips

Family is an integral part of every individual's life. Delving into the intricate layers of family relationships and dynamics can yield a captivating essay. Here's a comprehensive guide with examples and tips to guide you through the process.

What Topics Should I Write About for My Family Essay?

Choosing the right topic is essential. Here are some suggestions:

Writing a Family Tree Dive into your roots! A family tree can be more than names and dates; it can narrate stories of ancestors, their challenges, achievements, and legacies. For instance, "When I looked into our family tree, I discovered that my great-grandfather was a sailor who traveled the world and had countless tales of adventures, some of which have become legendary bedtime stories in our family."

Describing My Family in My Essay Discuss each family member in detail. "My sister, with her fiery red hair and matching temper, is the exact opposite of my calm and analytical brother. Yet, when they come together, they create the most amazing music, with him on the piano and her singing."

Writing About a Personal Memory Share a poignant memory. "I remember the time when our cat, Whiskers, went missing. The entire family turned detectives overnight, searching for clues, putting up posters, and even setting up a 'cat trap' with her favorite treats. The adventure ended with Whiskers found sleeping peacefully in the neighbor's shed, unaware of the chaos she had caused."

Dos and Don’ts When Writing a Family Stories Essay

• Be authentic.
• Use vivid descriptions and dialogues.
• Respect privacy; ask permission if sharing personal details.
• Avoid making generalizations.
• Refrain from being overly negative or critical.
• Don't plagiarize; every family's story is unique.

Customize your content with our AI rewrite tool, where each word counts

Frequently Asked Questions

• What is a good hook for an essay on my family? As Tolstoy once said, 'All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.' Our family, though, has found its unique shade of happiness.
• What should I include in an essay about me and my family? Descriptions of family members, memories, traditions, challenges, and lessons.
• How should I start an essay all about my family? Every time I think of the word 'home,' an image of our old cottage, Sunday dinners, and loud family debates comes to mind.
• How long should my essay about my family be? Length depends on the requirement; academic essays typically range from 500-1000 words, while personal essays can vary.
• How do I make my family essay engaging? Incorporate stories, memories, and emotions.
• Is it okay to discuss family challenges in my essay? Yes, but be sensitive and respectful.
• Can I add humor to my family essay? Yes, as long as it's in good taste.

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Essay about Family: What It Is and How to Nail It

Humans naturally seek belonging within families, finding comfort in knowing someone always cares. Yet, families can also stir up insecurities and mental health struggles.

Family dynamics continue to intrigue researchers across different fields. Every year, new studies explore how these relationships shape our minds and emotions.

In this article, our dissertation service will guide you through writing a family essay. You can also dive into our list of topics for inspiration and explore some standout examples to spark your creativity.

What is Family Essay

A family essay takes a close look at the bonds and experiences within families. It's a common academic assignment, especially in subjects like sociology, psychology, and literature.

So, what's involved exactly? Simply put, it's an exploration of what family signifies to you. You might reflect on cherished family memories or contemplate the portrayal of families in various media.

What sets a family essay apart is its personal touch. It allows you to express your own thoughts and experiences. Moreover, it's versatile – you can analyze family dynamics, reminisce about family customs, or explore other facets of familial life.

If you're feeling uncertain about how to write an essay about family, don't worry; you can explore different perspectives and select topics that resonate with various aspects of family life.

Tips For Writing An Essay On Family Topics

A family essay typically follows a free-form style, unless specified otherwise, and adheres to the classic 5-paragraph structure. As you jot down your thoughts, aim to infuse your essay with inspiration and the essence of creative writing, unless your family essay topics lean towards complexity or science.

Here are some easy-to-follow tips from our essay service experts:

• Focus on a Specific Aspect: Instead of a broad overview, delve into a specific angle that piques your interest, such as exploring how birth order influences sibling dynamics or examining the evolving role of grandparents in modern families.
• Share Personal Anecdotes: Start your family essay introduction with a personal touch by sharing stories from your own experiences. Whether it's about a favorite tradition, a special trip, or a tough time, these stories make your writing more interesting.
• Use Real-life Examples: Illustrate your points with concrete examples or anecdotes. Draw from sources like movies, books, historical events, or personal interviews to bring your ideas to life.
• Explore Cultural Diversity: Consider the diverse array of family structures across different cultures. Compare traditional values, extended family systems, or the unique hurdles faced by multicultural families.
• Take a Stance: Engage with contentious topics such as homeschooling, reproductive technologies, or governmental policies impacting families. Ensure your arguments are supported by solid evidence.
• Delve into Psychology: Explore the psychological underpinnings of family dynamics, touching on concepts like attachment theory, childhood trauma, or patterns of dysfunction within families.
• Emphasize Positivity: Share uplifting stories of families overcoming adversity or discuss strategies for nurturing strong, supportive family bonds.
• Offer Practical Solutions: Wrap up your essay by proposing actionable solutions to common family challenges, such as fostering better communication, achieving work-life balance, or advocating for family-friendly policies.

Family Essay Topics

When it comes to writing, essay topics about family are often considered easier because we're intimately familiar with our own families. The more you understand about your family dynamics, traditions, and experiences, the clearer your ideas become.

If you're feeling uninspired or unsure of where to start, don't worry! Below, we have compiled a list of good family essay topics to help get your creative juices flowing. Whether you're assigned this type of essay or simply want to explore the topic, these suggestions from our history essay writer are tailored to spark your imagination and prompt meaningful reflection on different aspects of family life.

So, take a moment to peruse the list. Choose the essay topics about family that resonate most with you. Then, dive in and start exploring your family's stories, traditions, and connections through your writing.

• Supporting Family Through Tough Times
• Staying Connected with Relatives
• Empathy and Compassion in Family Life
• Strengthening Bonds Through Family Gatherings
• Quality Time with Family: How Vital Is It?
• Navigating Family Relationships Across Generations
• Learning Kindness and Generosity in a Large Family
• Communication in Healthy Family Dynamics
• Forgiveness in Family Conflict Resolution
• Building Trust Among Extended Family
• Defining Family in Today's World
• Understanding Nuclear Family: Various Views and Cultural Differences
• Understanding Family Dynamics: Relationships Within the Family Unit
• What Defines a Family Member?
• Modernizing the Nuclear Family Concept
• Exploring Shared Beliefs Among Family Members
• Evolution of the Concept of Family Love Over Time
• Examining Family Expectations
• Modern Standards and the Idea of an Ideal Family
• Life Experiences and Perceptions of Family Life
• Genetics and Extended Family Connections
• Utilizing Family Trees for Ancestral Links
• The Role of Younger Siblings in Family Dynamics
• Tracing Family History Through Oral Tradition and Genealogy
• Tracing Family Values Through Your Family Tree
• Exploring Your Elder Sister's Legacy in the Family Tree
• Connecting Daily Habits to Family History
• Documenting and Preserving Your Family's Legacy
• Navigating Online Records and DNA Testing for Family History
• Tradition as a Tool for Family Resilience
• Involving Family in Daily Life to Maintain Traditions
• Creating New Traditions for a Small Family
• The Role of Traditions in Family Happiness
• Family Recipes and Bonding at House Parties
• Quality Time: The Secret Tradition for Family Happiness
• The Joy of Cousins Visiting for Christmas
• Including Family in Birthday Celebrations
• Balancing Traditions and Unconditional Love
• Building Family Bonds Through Traditions

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Family Essay Example

For a better grasp of the essay on family, our team of skilled writers has crafted a great example. It looks into the subject matter, allowing you to explore and understand the intricacies involved in creating compelling family essays. So, check out our meticulously crafted sample to discover how to craft essays that are not only well-written but also thought-provoking and impactful.

Final Outlook

In wrapping up, let's remember: a family essay gives students a chance to showcase their academic skills and creativity by sharing personal stories. However, it's important to stick to academic standards when writing about these topics. We hope our list of topics sparked your creativity and got you on your way to a reflective journey. And if you hit a rough patch, you can just ask us to ' do my essay for me ' for top-notch results!

Having Trouble with Your Essay on the Family?

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FAQs on Writing an Essay about Family

Family essays seem like something school children could be assigned at elementary schools, but family is no less important than climate change for our society today, and therefore it is one of the most central research themes.

Below you will find a list of frequently asked questions on family-related topics. Before you conduct research, scroll through them and find out how to write an essay about your family.

How to Write an Essay About Your Family History?

How to write an essay about a family member, how to write an essay about family and roots, how to write an essay about the importance of family, related articles.

Short Essay on My Family [100, 200, 400 Words] With PDF

Writing essays on Family has always been in trend in many English comprehension tests around the world. In this lesson today, you will learn how you can concisely write short essays on ‘my family’ within the recommended word limit.

Short Essay on My Family in 100 Words 

Family is an important part of everyone’s life. I live in a joint family with my grandparents, parents, uncle and aunt as well as my siblings and cousins. We also have a pet dog whom we consider a part of our family. All the members of my family love, respect and care for each other. No matter how busy everyone is, we make sure to sit down and have dinner together every night.

We share our happiness and discuss our problems with each other. The elders always give us good advice and guide us in our lives. We also love going out for family picnics and outings during holidays. I love my family. 

Short Essay on My Family in 200 Words 

A person’s family is an integral part of his or her life. Some people have a small family while others are blessed with a large family. I live in a joint family with my grandparents, parents, uncles and aunts as well as my siblings and cousins. All the members of my family love, respect and care for each other. My siblings, cousins and I go to the same school and are always there for each other.

My parents are teachers while my uncles are in the police force. Despite being busy with their jobs, all the elders share the responsibility of doing household chores and do not leave all the burden on the women of the house. My mother also helps us with our studies and homework. 

We have a huge dining table and every night, all the family members sit together to dine. We share our happiness and troubles with each other. If a family member is in some kind of difficulty, other members do their best to help him or her.

The elders always share their wisdom with us and show us the right path. We also love going out together and we go for family outings every once in a while. I am thankful that I am blessed with such a wonderful family. 

Short Essay on My Family in 400 Words 

A family can mean different things to different people. In a traditional sense, it is a group of people related by blood, marriage or adoption living together. Some people have a small family while some others are blessed with a large family. I live in a joint family. My parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts all live together. I also have two siblings and three cousins. We go to the same school and get along very well. 

My parents are teachers while my uncles work in the police force. One of my aunts is a nurse and the other is a housewife. My grandfather used to work in a steel factory and is now retired. All the members of my family love, respect and care for each other. No matter how busy everyone is, we make sure to spend quality time with each other.

All the members share the responsibility of the household chores and do not let the entire burden fall on the women of the house. Being teachers, my parents also tutor us children at home and help us with our homework. 

We have a huge dining table in our living room and every night, all the family members sit together to dine. We share our happiness and discuss our problems with each other. The elders always share their wisdom and guide us in our lives. Whenever my parents or uncles are in some sort of difficulty, they consult my grandparents for their advice.

My grandfather loves to talk about politics and my father and uncles often join him. Oftentimes their opinions don’t match, yet they are very respectful of each other and the difference in their views. My family has taught me how to always be respectful and polite. 

My family loves to go out together and we often go for family outings. Our favourite is a picnic spot near our house where we go almost every two weeks. We also have good relations with our other relatives and they visit us during the holidays. Having a large family is amazing. Even when our parents are busy or out of town, we are never left alone.

There is always someone to take care of us when we fall sick and there is always someone to rely on when we need help. It is said that a person’s family influences their nature, character and personality a lot. I am blessed to have such a wonderful family. It is because of their good influence that I have become a good person. 

That was everything about writing short essays on ‘My Family.’ In these essays, I have adopted a very simplistic approach with easy words and sentences for easy understanding of all kinds of students. If you still have any doubts regarding this session, kindly mention that in the comment section below. To read more such essays on various important topics, keep browsing our website.

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My Family Essay in English (100 , 200, 300, 500 words)

Table of Contents

My Family Essay 100 words

Family, it is a blessing that everyone is not as happy and fortunate enough to have it. However, those who do, sometimes do not value this blessing. Families are essential as they help in our growth. They develop us into becoming a complete person with individual identities. Moreover, they give us a sense of security and a safe environment to flourish.

A happy family provides several benefits to its members that are, they make a man grow and develop into a complete human being and also social and intellectual. It provides security and a lovely environment which helps us to share our happiness and problems. It provides security from outside conflicts. A family provides happy, active, quick learner, smart, and better new generations to the society and country. A person who lives in a family is comparatively happier than a person living alone without a family. It makes a person emotionally and physically powerful, honest, and confident. Some people spend time away from their families to become independent. 

My Family Essay 200 words

As the definition of family states that a family, being those people who are biologically related to you, in real life, the term is much faster than that. Families can come in certain formats – from the traditional nuclear family to those in which children are raised by relatives to same-sex partners with their children. Many people turn to their friends for love and support and, therefore, consider them their real families. Regardless of what each one of us defines as family, one thing is pretty certain – we need a family to survive happily. Human beings are considered social animals living in groups called families. Family plays many important roles throughout life.  A person without a family is not complete in this world because family is an integral part of all of us.

A family can be a small family, a small nuclear, a big nuclear, or joint family. There are many relationships in the family such as grandparents, parents, wife, husband, brother, sister, cousin, nephew, niece, uncle, aunt, In-laws, etc. My parents love and care for my grandparents very much and always take care of their needs. They give lots of needed things to them whenever we go to the village. My parents talk to my grandparents with mobile almost every day by taking out some free time from their busy schedules. I am so lucky and feel very happy to have such lovely and careful members of my family. I miss my grandparents when I get back home. However, when you look at what a family means, you realize that family can be anyone, the people you were born to, or the people you choose to be with. Love them or hate them, you cannot deny the fact that your family is pivotal in your life and there are quite a few reasons for that.

My Family Essay 300 words

A family is called a group of people who live together as two, three, or more persons. Family relationships can be because of the variety of connections like blood, marriage, adoption, etc. among members of the family. A healthy family is a need for everyone, especially children and old people. Healthy family relationships help in promoting good habits, cultures, and traditions in children. Family plays a very important role in preparing a modern and new generation child mentality to live his whole life in this modern community. Family is an essential part of our life as it provides life security for each member of the family. It provides both financial and emotional support to all.

Family is the foundation of everyone who lives together. It is through a family that we learn our first interactions with the world. It teaches us how to love and be loved, how to offer and receive support, and how to respect others while earning their respect. It provides a different point of view for our viewing angles of the world. The socially acceptable version of family is the people who are biologically related to you. Every person in a family has a special personality to be unique in it. We need to connect emotionally with each other for the well-being of the members such as mental and physical both. As we have to keep our family safe, and strong, and build a powerful emotions amongst each other then we have to maintain a strong bond with each other. Also, the interactions of having to be unique with other members of the family.

Notwithstanding, the interactions need to nurture and strengthen the bonds between family members or the family will drift apart. Strong family relationships mean better communication with each other. The members of the family take out the time to talk to each other whenever they want to spare time. No matter whether the conversations could be about small things or big ones. They understand one another and listen to what the other person has to say. Everyone feels the need to be appreciated. Stronger family bonds mean that when a family member appreciates you, it heightens your self-esteem and in turn makes it easier for you to express your appreciation.

My Family Essay 500 Words

Every family becomes the first school for the children where they receive all the cultures and traditions, and most importantly they receive the basic values of life. Family plays a great role in teaching good manners and habits to the newcomers in the family. It helps in nourishing a better character in society. I am feeling my good fortune to be born into a small nice family and to be a part of it, where I learned a lot of things in my early childhood. My family type is a big nuclear family having six members, mother, father, brother and his wife, and my sister. I live with my family and we are very happy.

Normally, a small family having one set of parents with two children is called a small nuclear family. A family having one set of parents with three or more children is called a big nuclear family. A family having many sets of parents with their children is called a joint family. My Family is the lovely family of the world for me and an important unit of society. A small or a big family becomes of great importance to its members and is considered as the strongest unit of society because various families together make a nice society. People in my family become very caring and give proper guidance from time to time.

My grandparents lived in the village in their homes and once a year during vacations go to meet them and enjoy by spending time with them. Both of them care for me and my brother, and sisters a lot. They generally tell us nice stories at night which we enjoy. We enjoy every moment with them and catch the moments on my mobile. A family provides lots of benefits to all members where everyone shares equal responsibilities within the family. Everyone in the family is emotionally attached to their happiness and sadness. They determine not just the interactions but the thinking that goes behind those interactions as they are emotionally attached to all so they can easily understand one’s feelings.  They help each other in their bad times which gives them a feeling of security. A family provides love, warmth, and security to its all members throughout life which makes it a complete family. A good and healthy family makes a good society and ultimately a good society is involved in making a good country. Hence, a family has a great influence on how we interact with each other and society at large. Our family imparts the knowledge of these norms to us and these norms are called values.

There are advantages and also disadvantages of having and living in a joint family according to the personal point of view depending on the modernization of living emotions and thoughts with our family members like a joint family providing a better pattern of living which is highly contributing to the proper growth. The members of the joint family understand the mutual understandings and adjustments between the people living in it. It teaches the principles of equitable economy and responsibilities and also guides how to stabilize the burden of other members. The members of the joint family become responsible and disciplined as well as they follow the commands and orders of the head of the family with respect.

Also, certain disadvantages are depending on the mentality of the person there may be a lack of proper rules in the joint family and due to this, the members live in a parasite and afterward they become a habit of feeding on other income. Due to this behavior, they start exploiting other innocent members of the family. In certain cases, the person having high status and money-earning members of the joint family generally insults low status or low money-earning members. There may be chances of separation in the joint families because of an imbalance of feelings of generosity, brotherly love, and feeling of oneness.

 Families are a very essential part of our lives, whether you love them or hate them.  They play crucial roles in teaching us how to deal with the world. Without a family, an individual’s identity isn’t ever complete. Our family also gives me the feeling that we belong somewhere, they give us our roots. Knowing where we belong gives us the anchor as we need to deal with everything the world throws at us. Having a family is such a basic necessity that often we take it for granted when we have it. Our families stay with us from our first breath to our last. They provide us with the foundation upon which we build ourselves. To us, family is an extension of our life. 

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About my family.

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Subject: My family

Let me tell you about my family. I live with my mum, my dad and my big sister. We live in California. My mum’s name is Carmen. She’s Mexican and she speaks English and Spanish. She’s a Spanish teacher. She’s short and slim, she’s got long, brown hair and brown eyes. My dad’s name is David. He’s American. He’s tall and a little fat! He’s got short brown hair and blue eyes. He works in a bank. My sister Shania is 14 and she loves listening to music. She listens to music all the time! She’s got long brown hair and green eyes, like me. I’ve got long hair too. We’ve got a pet dog, Brandy. He’s black and white and very friendly.

Write soon and tell me about your family.

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• Family Life

How to Write About Your Family

Last Updated: March 18, 2024 References

This article was co-authored by Alexander Peterman, MA . Alexander Peterman is a Private Tutor in Florida. He received his MA in Education from the University of Florida in 2017. This article has been viewed 90,552 times.

Writing about your family can be a daunting task, especially if you are worried about getting your family’s story just right. You may be writing about your family history for a class or for personal reasons. Or you may decide to write about your family and create a personal memoir for publication. You may be writing about your family to practice your English. No matter the method, writing about your family can be a rewarding venture when done right.

Writing a Family History

• There are also several online tools you can use to build a family tree. You may then print out the family tree and use it as a guide when writing about your family.

• For example, you may say to your family, “I want to write about our family because I think we have a valuable story to share with others, a story about perseverance, sacrifice, and joy. I feel like a story like ours is not represented properly right now and I want to try to do it justice.”

• Make a point of talking to the older generation in your family, such as grandparents, great aunts, or old family friends. Often, the older generation will have more information on your family history.
• You may need to interview your family members several times. At first, they might not know what parts of their past are important for your work. Over time, they will get a better sense of what kind of information you're looking for.

• If you are not sure how to search for your family in the public records, you may ask a reference librarian at your local library for guidance. You may also be able to speak to a representative at the city records office for advice on how to search for information.

• For example, you may write a character profile for your father by writing, “60 year old Chinese-American man who came to America in the 1920s with his mother. Has a fascination with Chinese culture. Tends to speak up only when spoken to.”
• Keep in mind that you can share your impressions of your family members when you write about them. Make sure you clarify that you are writing from your perspective and try not to embellish any aspects of your family. You are writing non fiction, after all, not fiction.

• For example, you may realize that you have always wondered why your father is so estranged from his family and why your grandmother left China in the first place to come to America. You may then use this question to structure and organize your story. You may also research your family with this question in mind.

• You may also have several major conflicts throughout the story, such as the time your grandmother ran off to marry your grandfather, or the moment your great-grandmother stepped on the boat to America. Use these conflicts and successes to propel the story forward and make the story engaging.

• Keep in mind your family members may have more edits or opinions on the draft than others. Try to accommodate their feedback, as you are writing their family history too. But you should also be willing to argue against their feedback if you think it will be detrimental to the overall story or not in keeping with the facts of the family history.

Writing a Personal Memoir

• As you do your research, you should talk to your family about your plans to write a memoir. Let them know that you are researching your family for a book. Discussing the book with them will make the memoir more compelling and give you more information to work with.
• Keep in mind your family may not all be thrilled at the idea of the memoir at first, especially if they are nervous or worried about certain family details coming to light. Be tactful and patient with your family. Explain to them that you are writing a memoir from your perspective and that there is never one side to any story. Assure them that you'll let them read the final draft before you share it with anyone else.

• Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt
• The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston
• Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin
• Running in the Family by Michael Ondaatje
• The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

• For example, perhaps you notice the theme of assimilation keeps coming up in your research of your family. Or maybe there is the common issue of the women in your family overcoming obstacles to raise their children in America.

• A plot diagram contains five parts: the exposition, the inciting incident, the rising action, the climax, the falling action, and the resolution.
• You can also try using the snowflake method, where you write a one sentence summary of the story, followed by a one paragraph summary, character synopses, and a spreadsheet of scenes.

• If you are writing about a memory or experience that is difficult to confront, such as a memory of abuse or neglect from a family member, you may need to write several drafts of the memory. Take your time and try to focus on sensory details in the memory. Be honest about how you feel about the memory on the page and don't be afraid to dig deep.

• You should ask yourself several questions as you revise, including: Do the characters in the story feel like fair representations of my real family? What's the conflict or theme of the story? Is it conveyed in a meaningful way? Do I need to include more reflections on my family from my perspective?

• Depending on what you write, some of your family members may be upset or unsettled by your story. This may occur if you are writing about a family secret or a difficult period in your family’s history. You should be prepare to defend or explain the choices you made in your story to your family members.
• You may also get feedback on the draft from close family friends or colleagues that you are close to. If you are looking for professional guidance on your draft, you may enroll in a writing workshop that focuses on non fiction and memoir writing. You may then get valuable feedback on your draft from other writers who are also exploring their family history.
• You may be able to find non fiction writing groups online or at your local college or university. If you have friends or colleagues who have experience writing memoir, you may approach them and ask if they’d be willing to start a writing group.

Writing About Your Family to Practice English

• For example, you may use a prompt like: “Think about your favorite family memory. Why is it your favorite? How did your family members make that moment special?”
• As part of the prompt, you could pretend you are talking to someone you just met who asked you to tell them about your family.

• For example, you may write: “Let me tell you about my family. I have a mother, a father, two brothers, and one sister. We also have a dog named Pepper. We all live together in a house in Reno, Nevada. We have lived in the house since I was born. After they were married, my mother and my father moved to the house to start a family.”

• You may end up adding in more details into the draft based on your teacher’s feedback. By the end of the revision process, you should have a strong, completed draft that showcases your English skills.

Community Q&A

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://thewritepractice.com/tell-stories-and-keep-families/
• ↑ https://familysearch.org/wiki/en/Writing_Your_Family_and_Personal_History
• ↑ https://www.writerswrite.com/journal/jul02/writing-a-non-boring-family-history-7024
• ↑ https://www.genealogy.com/articles/research/74_sharon.html
• ↑ https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-nonfiction/3-rules-on-writing-about-your-family
• ↑ https://learnenglishteens.britishcouncil.org/skills/writing/a1-writing/about-my-family

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Essay on My Family for School Students and Children

500+ words essay on my family.

Families are an integral part of one’s life. It does not matter if you have a small or big family, as long as you have one. A family serves as the first school to the child where one learns about various things. The basic knowledge about one’s culture and identity comes from their family only. In other words, you are a reflection of your family. All the good habits and manners one has incorporated are from their family only. I feel very lucky to be born in a family which has made me a better person. In my opinion, families are an essential part of one’s being. In this essay on my family, I will tell you why family is important.

Why Families are Important?

Families are a blessing not everyone is fortunate enough to have. However, those who do, sometimes do not value this blessing. Some people spend time away from the family in order to become independent.

However, they do not realize its importance. Families are essential as they help in our growth. They develop us into becoming a complete person with an individual identity. Moreover, they give us a sense of security and a safe environment to flourish in.

You can read essay on my mother here .

We learn to socialize through our families only and develop our intellect. Studies show that people who live with their families tend to be happier than ones living alone. They act as your rock in times of trouble.

Families are the only ones who believe in you when the whole world doubts you. Similarly, when you are down and out, they are the first ones to cheer you up. Certainly, it is a true blessing to have a positive family by your side.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Pillars of Strength

My family has been always by my side in ups and downs. They have taught me how to be a better person. My family consists of four siblings and my parents. We also have a pet dog that is no less than our family.

Within each family member, lies my strength. My mother is my strength as I can always count on her when I need a shoulder to cry on. She believes in me more than any other person. She is the backbone of our family. My father is someone who will always hide away his troubles for the sake of his family.

In short, I will forever be indebted to my family for all they have done for me. I cannot imagine my life without them. They are my first teachers and my first friends.

They are responsible for creating a safe and secure environment for me at home. I can share everything with my family as they never judge one another. We believe in the power of love above everything and that drives us to help each other to become better human beings.

FAQs on Family

Q.1 Why are families important?

A.1 Families are important because they nurture and develop us. They make us happy and give us the chance to become better human beings. Families enhance your confidence and make you believe in yourself.

Q.2 How do families act as pillars of strength?

A.2 Families are the pillars of strength because they give us the courage to face the world. They are always there when we need them. Even in the loneliest of times, families make us feel better.

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Paragraph on My Family in English [100, 150, 200, 250 Words]

Paragraph on My Family: Family is an important part of everyone’s life. In this article, you are going to learn how to write a paragraph on My Family. We’ve provided four paragraphs here (100, 150, 200, and 250 words). All the paragraphs will be helpful for the students of class 1 to class 12. So, let’s begin.

Table of Contents

Paragraph on My Family [100 Words]

I have a small and happy family. We live in a small house near Kolkata. There are four members in our family. My parents, my younger sister and me. My father Rohan Basu is a teacher. He takes care of our necessities. My mother is a housewife. She manages the household work.

My sister is very intelligent and adorable. She loves to play with teddy bears. My parents spend a lot of time with us. They teach us good manners and discipline . They really work hard to secure our future. We all have deep respect and love for each other. I am very lucky to have a family like this.

Paragraph on My Family [150 Words]

Ours is a small family consisting of my parents, my sister and myself. My father’s name is Anil Dutta. He works in a Govt. department as an engineer. My mother is a school teacher. She teaches at a private school nearby. I am the only son of my parents. My name is Rohan Dutta. I am 10 years old and I read in class six at Hindu School.

My only sister is Sumona who is 6 years old. She reads in class two at the same school where my mother teaches. My parents are kind and loving. We love and respect them very much. Mother takes care of our needs. She teaches us good manners. My father works very hard to run our family.

We all live together in a small house in Kolkata. We also have a special member in our family, our pet dog charlie. It is 2 years old and is very fond of us.

My Family Paragraph [200 Words]

I have a small family. I love my family so does everyone. I live with my parents, and my elder sister. My father’s name is Nitin Sharma. He is a doctor. My mother is a housewife. My elder sister’s name is Ritu Sharma. I play with her. She is very friendly to me. I am happy with them. We live together in a beautiful house in Delhi.

My father is very hardworking. He always inspires me. Although he is very busy, he spends a lot of time with us. My mother takes care of the family. She takes care of our food, clothes, health, education etc. My parents work very hard for our future.

All my family members love, respect and care for each other. They all teach me the importance of discipline and good manners. It is because of them that I have learned the basic values of life. We share our thoughts and emotions with each other.

During the vacations every year, we all family members go on a trip. We celebrate the festivals together with great joy and happiness. We are not very rich but there is peace in our family. I am very proud of my family.

Also Read: Paragraph on My Best Friend

Paragraph About My Family [250 Words]

Family plays a crucial role in everyone’s life. I have a wonderful family. There are 6 members in my family. It consists of me, my parents, my elder brother, my grandfather and my grandmother. My father Rohit Gupta is an engineer. My mother is a school teacher. They both take good care of me.

My father is the person I admire most. He is a very hardworking person. Sometimes he helps me with my homework in his free time. He teaches us lessons of life. My grandfather is a retired serviceman and my grandmother is a housewife. Both of them are caring and supportive.

My grandfather takes me to morning walk every day. She tells me interesting stories. My elder brother is in university. He is good in studies as well as sports and extracurricular activities. He is very sweet. He always helps me in my studies.

My family members are peace-loving people. They never fight with each other. We go for picnics and long drives on holidays.  We have love and respect for each other. We share our feelings and emotions with each other which strengthens our bonding. We all have our meals together.

My family teaches me good manners and moral values. They inspire me to move ahead and achieve my life goals. I feel very lucky to be born in a family which has made me a better person.

I have a pet dog in my home. His name is Tommy. He is so adorable and cute. I love my family so much. They are the best in the world.

Read More Paragraphs: 1. Paragraph on My Aim in Life  2. Paragraph on Early Rising 3. Paragraph on My Daily Routine  4. Paragraph on Science in Daily Life

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Teaching Kids How to Write a “My Family” Paragraph

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The “My Family” paragraph is an ideal introduction to paragraph writing. Learn how to teach this assignment step-by-step.

What Is the “My Family” Paragraph?

The “My Family” paragraph is the ideal assignment to teach students the nuts and bolts of paragraph writing.

It is a simple paragraph to write because it does not involve research.

What do kids know about? Their family. They can easily outline from their heads.

The “My Family” paragraph includes a sentence with one detail about each member of the family.

This article contains affiliate links to things that you might like.

Examples of the “My Family” Paragraph

Here are some examples of the “My Family” paragraph, from simple to more complex.

My family is the Garcia family. My father’s name is Ramon. My mother’s name is Mia. My sister’s name is Elena. We have a dog named Spock. We are a happy family.

We are the Garcia family. My father Ramon is an engineer. My mother Mia is a hairstylist. My sister Elena is in 9th grade and likes art. We also have a black and white bulldog named Spock. I love my family.

My family loves to do activities together. Sunday night is our family dinner night where Dad grills out and we have our grandparents over. We also like to watch nature documentaries together. On warm nights, we often take a walk after dinner with our dog, Spock. My sister Elena plays tennis, and we sometimes travel to different places to see her matches. I like spending time with my family.

Special Consideration for the “My Family” Paragraph

Consider that some students may not have a traditional family.

Be especially sensitive if you have kids who are in foster care or who do not live with their birth parents.

You also may have students who would rather not write about their family of origin.

It’s important to emphasize that families come in all shapes and sizes. Our family is a collection of people who care for us.

Families can include friends, neighbors, relatives…even teachers! Families are “your people.”

When asking students to think about their family, a great question is “Who is there for you?”

Here is another example:

My family is supportive of me. My grandmother helps me with my homework. My friend Lizzie and I go on walks and watch movies together. My teacher Ms. Rice tutors me in math. I can count on my family.

• How to Teach Paragraph Writing

If you tell students, “Okay, now write a paragraph on your family,” you will get some blank stares.

You need to teach your students the structure of a paragraph first.

A paragraph should have this structure:

• Topic sentence – what the paragraph is about
• Supporting details – 3-5 sentences that support the topic sentence
• Concluding sentence – wraps up the paragraph

It’s helpful to think of the paragraph like a hamburger.

The topic sentence is the top bun of the burger.

The supporting details are the meat, cheese, lettuce, etc.

The concluding sentence is the bottom bun.

For more information on how to teach paragraph writing, check out this article .

Components of the “My Family” Paragraph

The “My Family” paragraph fits neatly with the paragraph model.

Here are some general outlines for the “My Family” paragraph that fit the paragraph examples.

A student outline would have specific information.

Paragraph 1 Outline

• Topic Sentence: Family name
• Detail 1: Family member’s name
• Detail 2: Family member’s name
• Detail 3: Family member’s name
• Detail 4: Pet’s name
• Concluding Sentence: Describe your family. (“We are a ____ family.”)

Paragraph 2 Outline

• Detail 1: Family member and 1 fact
• Detail 2: Family member and 1 fact
• Detail 3: Family member and 1 fact
• Detail 4: Pet name and type
• Concluding Sentence: Feeling about family

Paragraph 3 Outline

• Topic Sentence: Family activities
• Detail 1: Activity 1
• Detail 2: Activity 2
• Detail 3: Activity 3
• Detail 4: Activity 4
• Concluding Sentence: Reflect topic sentence

Paragraph 4 Outline

• Topic Sentence: Family quality
• Detail 1: Person 1 and example
• Detail 2: Person 2 and example
• Detail 3: Person 3 and example

How to Teach the “My Family” Paragraph in 8 Steps

The best way to teach the “My Family” paragraph is with an anchor chart and graphic organizer.

You can find an excellent one (based on the hamburger example) right here .

Explain the assignment. What is the “My Family” paragraph?

Read an example of a completed paragraph.

Explain the parts of the paragraph.

Use the visual of the hamburger as your anchor chart.

Hand out the graphic organizer. Show a completed graphic organizer that fits your example paragraph.

Have the students fill in their graphic organizer with their specific details.

Have students write the “My Family” paragraph using the graphic organizer.

If students need additional support, provide a fill-in-the-blank paragraph for them to copy.

Check for correct capitalization, spelling, and punctuation.

Step 8 (Optional):

Have the students add an illustration.

Writing the “My Family” Paragraph

With the right instructional materials (that are so easy to just click and print), you can help students organize their ideas.

When you have an outline, writing a paragraph is easy-peasy!

Follow these 8 simple steps to teach your students how to write the “My Family” paragraph.

You May Also Like:

• How to Boost Student Confidence with Paragraph Writing
• Free 12 Sentence Paragraph Graphic Organizer

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• Read and write
• Writing practice
• Level 1 writing

Read about families, then do the exercise and write a comment to practise writing in English.

• Do the preparation activity to help you with words from the text.
• Read the text, then play the game to practise your writing.
• You can also print the worksheet for more practice.
• Read the discussion question and write a comment!

Preparation

Loretta's family

I've got a big family. I've got a mum, a dad, three sisters, one brother, four aunts, three uncles and ten cousins!

William's family

There are five people in my family. I live with my parents, my big sister and my little brother. My sister is twelve years old. My brother is six. I have lots of fun with my brother and sister.

Julie's family

I haven't got any brothers and sisters. I'm an only child. My dad is a taxi driver. He's clever and funny. My mum is very nice. She's a teacher. I love my family!

You can write …

• I've got … to talk about your family
• I haven't got any brothers and sisters or I'm an only child if you have no brothers or sisters
• I live with … to talk about the people in your house or flat
• I've got a big brother if your brother is older than you and I've got a little sister if your sister is younger than you
• she's a … or she is a … to say your mum's job or he's a … or he is a … to say your dad's job
• a sentence with adjectives to describe people:  My dad is clever and funny

Who are the people in your family? Tell us about your family!

i have a dad a mom and a brother yay

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Grade 3 and 4 Composition About My Family

By Senior Teacher

Essay about my family.

My family is called the Maina Family. My family is made of 7 members. My father, my mother, my grandfather, my grandmother, my two young brothers and myself. My father is the head of the family. My grandfather is the pillar of the family. My family live at Kiriaini in Muranga. We all live in the same compound.

My father’s name is Johnson and my mothers name is Jane. My grandfather is Mr. Antony and My grandmother is Sarah. My sisters are Rose and Mary and I am Myles. Rose is in Grade one and Mary is in Grade 2. I am in grade 3 myself.

My father is a doctor and my mother is a teacher. My grandfather is an area MP and my grandmother is a farmer. They are very hardworking. Through their job they have bought many things for our family. My Father has bought a very big land where we plant crops.

My family favorite food is Ugali and sukumawiki. We get Maize and Sukuma wiki from our big Shamba. My family also like visiting places for Fun.  My grandfather always gives us story that make us happy. My father disciplines us many times when we go wrong.

I love everything about my family. It has given me a safe place. I can talk everything with my parents and they help me with love. We love one another.

My Mother-Grade 3 and 4 Composition

This is paragraph 2 for posts without the target word.

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Ultimate Guide to Writing Your College Essay

Tips for writing an effective college essay.

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Writing My Autobiography

A re you still writing?” he asked.

“I am,” I answered.

“What are you working on at the moment?”

“An autobiography,” I said.

“Interesting,” he replied. “Whose?”

The implication here, you will note, is that mine hasn’t been a life sufficiently interesting to merit an autobiography. The implication isn’t altogether foolish. Most autobiographies, at least the best autobiographies, have been written by people who have historical standing, or have known many important people, or have lived in significant times, or have noteworthy family connections or serious lessons to convey . I qualify on none of these grounds. Not that, roughly two years ago when I sat down to write my autobiography, I let that stop me.

An autobiography, to state the obvious, is at base a biography written by its own subject. But how is one to write it: as a matter of setting the record straight, as a form of confessional, as a mode of seeking justice, or as a justification of one’s life? “An autobiography,” wrote George Orwell, “is only to be trusted when it reveals something disgraceful. A man who gives a good account of himself is probably lying, since any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats.” Is this true? I prefer to think not.

Autobiography is a complex enterprise, calling for its author not only to know himself but to be honest in conveying that knowledge. “I could inform the dullest author how he might write an interesting book,” wrote Samuel Taylor Coleridge. “Let him relate the events of his own life with Honesty, not disguising the feelings that accompanied them.” One of the nicest things about being a professor, it has been said, is that one gets to talk for fifty minutes without being interrupted. So one of the allurements of autobiography is that one gets to write hundreds of pages about that eminently fascinating character, oneself, even if in doing so one only establishes one’s insignificance.

The great autobiographies—of which there have not been all that many—have been wildly various. One of the first, that of the Renaissance sculptor Benvenuto Cellini, is marked by an almost unrelieved braggadocio: No artist was more perfect, no warrior more brave, no lover more pleasing than the author, or so he would have us believe. Edward Gibbon’s autobiography, though elegantly written, is disappointing in its brevity. That of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, heavily striking the confessional note, might have been told in a booth to a priest. Ben Franklin’s autobiography is full of advice on how the rest of us should live. John Stuart Mill’s is astounding in its account of its author’s prodigiously early education, which began with his learning Greek under his father’s instruction at the age of three. Then there is Henry Adams’s autobiography, suffused with disappointment over his feeling out of joint with his times and the world’s not recognizing his true value. In Making It , Norman Podhoretz wrote an autobiography informed by a single message, which he termed a “dirty little secret,” namely that there is nothing wrong with ambition and that success, despite what leftist intellectuals might claim, is nothing to be ashamed of.

Please note that all of these are books written by men. Might it be that women lack the vanity required to write—or should I say “indulge in”—the literary act of autobiography? In Mary Beard’s Emperor of Rome , I recently read that Agrippina the Younger, the mother of Nero, wrote her autobiography, which has not survived, and which Mary Beard counts as “one of the great losses of all classical literature.” I wish that Jane Austen had written an autobiography, and so too George Eliot and Willa Cather. Perhaps these three women, great writers all, were too sensibly modest for autobiography, that least modest of all literary forms.

A utobiography can be the making or breaking of writers who attempt it. John Stuart Mill’s autobiography has gone a long way toward humanizing a writer whose other writings tend toward the coldly formal. Harold Laski wrote that Mill’s “ Autobiography , in the end the most imperishable of his writings, is a record as noble as any in our literature of consistent devotion to the public good.”

If Mill’s autobiography humanized him, the autobiography of the novelist Anthony Trollope did for him something approaching the reverse. In An Autobiography , Trollope disdains the notion of an author’s needing inspiration to write well. He reports that “there was no day on which it was my positive duty to write for the publishers, as it was my duty to write reports for the Post Office,” where he had a regular job. “I was free to be idle if I pleased. But as I had made up my mind to undertake this second profession [that of novelist], I found it to be expedient to bind myself by certain self-imposed laws.” Trollope recounts—emphasis here on “counts”—that as a novelist he averages forty pages per week, at 250 words per page. He writes: “There are those who would be ashamed to subject themselves to such a taskmaster, and who think that the man who works with his imagination should allow himself to wait till inspiration moves him. When I have heard such doctrine preached, I have hardly been able to repress my scorn.” Trollope then mentions that on the day after he finished his novel Doctor Thorne , he began writing his next novel, The Bertrams . For a long spell the literati refused to forgive Trollope for shearing inspiration away from the creation of literary art, for comparing the job of the novelist to a job at the post office. Only the splendid quality of his many novels eventually won him forgiveness and proper recognition.

A serious biography takes up what the world thinks of its subject, what his friends and family think of him, and—if the information is available in letters, diaries, journals, or interviews—what he thinks of himself. An autobiography is ultimately about the last question: what the author thinks of himself. Yet how many of us have sufficient self-knowledge to give a convincing answer? In her splendid novel Memoirs of Hadrian , Marguerite Yourcenar has Hadrian note: “When I seek deep within me for knowledge of myself what I find is obscure, internal, unformulated, and as secret as any complicity.” The unexamined life may not be worth living, but the scrupulously examined one is rare indeed.

My own life has not provided the richest fodder for autobiography. For one thing, it has not featured much in the way of drama. For another, good fortune has allowed me the freedom to do with my life much as I have wished. I have given my autobiography the title Never Say You’ve Had a Lucky Life , with the subtitle Especially If You’ve Had a Lucky Life . Now well along in its closing chapter, mine, I contend, has been thus far—here I pause to touch wood—a most lucky life.

My title derives from the story of Croesus, who ruled the country of Lydia from circa 585–547 b.c. , and who is perhaps today best known for the phrase “rich as Croesus.” The vastly wealthy Croesus thought himself the luckiest man on earth and asked confirmation of this from Solon, the wise Athenian, who told him that in fact the luckiest man on earth was another Athenian who had two sons in that year’s Olympics. When Croesus asked who was second luckiest, Solon cited another Greek who had a most happy family life. Croesus was displeased but not convinced by Solon’s answers. Years later he was captured by the Persian Cyrus, divested of his kingdom and his wealth, and set on a pyre to be burned alive, before which he was heard to exclaim that Solon had been right. The moral of the story is, of course: Never say you have had a lucky life until you know how your life ends.

I have known serious sadness in my life. I have undergone a divorce. I have become a member of that most dolorous of clubs, parents who have buried one of their children. Yet I have had much to be grateful for. In the final paragraph of a book I wrote some years ago on the subject of ambition, I noted that “We do not choose our parents. We do not choose our historical epoch, or the country of our birth, or the immediate circumstances of our upbringing.” In all these realms, I lucked out. I was born to intelligent, kindly parents; at a time that, though I was drafted into the army, allowed me to miss being called up to fight in any wars; and in the largely unmitigated prosperity enjoyed by the world’s most interesting country, the United States of America.

Writing is a form of discovery. Yet can even writing ferret out the quality and meaning of one’s own life? Alexis de Tocqueville, the endlessly quotable Tocqueville, wrote: “The fate of individuals is still more hidden than that of peoples,” and “the destinies of individuals are often as uncertain as those of nations.” Fate, destiny, those two great tricksters, who knows what they have in store for one, even in the final days of one’s life? I, for example, as late as the age of eighteen, had never heard the word “intellectual.” If you had asked me what a man of letters was, I would have said a guy who works at the post office. Yet I have been destined to function as an intellectual for the better part of my adult life, and have more than once been called a man of letters. Fate, destiny, go figure!

T he first question that arises in writing one’s autobiography is what to include and what to exclude. Take, for starters, sex. In his nearly seven-hundred-page autobiography, Journeys of the Mind , the historian of late antiquity Peter Brown waits until page 581 to mention, in the most glancing way, that he is married. Forty or so pages later, the name of a second wife is mentioned. Whether he had children with either of these wives, we never learn. But then, Brown’s is a purely intellectual autobiography, concerned all but exclusively with the development of the author’s mind and those who influenced that development.

My autobiography, though less than half the length of Brown’s, allowed no such luxury of reticence. Sex, especially when I was an adolescent, was a central subject, close to a preoccupation. After all, boys—as I frequently instructed my beautiful granddaughter Annabelle when she was growing up—are brutes. I came of age BP, or Before the Pill, and consummated sex, known in that day as “going all the way,” was not then a serious possibility. Too much was at risk—pregnancy, loss of reputation—for middle-class girls. My friends and I turned to prostitution.

Apart from occasionally picking up streetwalkers on some of Chicago’s darker streets, prostitution for the most part meant trips of sixty or so miles to the bordellos of Braidwood or Kankakee, Illinois. The sex, costing $3, was less than perfunctory. (“Don’t bother to take off your socks or that sweater,” one was instructed.) What was entailed was less sensual pleasure than a rite of passage, of becoming a man, of “losing your cherry,” a phrase I have only recently learned means forgoing one’s innocence. We usually went on these trips in groups of five or six in one or another of our fathers’ cars. Much joking on the way up and even more on the way back. Along Chicago’s Outer Drive, which we took home in those days, there was a Dad’s Old Fashioned Root Beer sign that read, “Have you had it lately?,” which always got a good laugh.

I like to think of myself as a shy pornographer, or, perhaps better, a sly pornographer. By this I mean that in my fiction and where necessary in my essays I do not shy away from the subject of sex, only from the need to describe it in any of its lurid details. So I have done in my autobiography. On the subject of sex in my first marriage (of two), for example, I say merely, “I did not want my money back.” But, then, all sex, if one comes to think about it, is essentially comic, except of course one’s own.

On the inclusion-exclusion question, the next subject I had to consider was money, or my personal finances. Financially I have nothing to brag about. In my autobiography I do, though, occasionally give the exact salaries—none of them spectacular—of the jobs I’ve held. With some hesitation (lest it seem boasting) I mention that a book I wrote on the subject of snobbery earned, with its paperback sale, roughly half-a-million dollars. I fail to mention those of my books that earned paltry royalties, or, as I came to think of them, peasantries. In my autobiography, I contented myself with noting my good fortune in being able to earn enough money doing pretty much what I wished to do and ending up having acquired enough money not to worry overmuch about financial matters. Like the man said, a lucky life.

If I deal glancingly in my autobiography with sex and personal finances, I tried to take a pass on politics. My own political development is of little interest. I started out in my political life a fairly standard liberal—which in those days meant despising Richard Nixon—and have ended up today contemptuous of both our political parties: Tweedledum and Tweedledumber, as the critic Dwight Macdonald referred to them. Forgive the self-congratulatory note, but in politics I prefer to think myself a member in good standing of that third American political party, never alas on the ballot, the anti-BS party.

Of course, sometimes one needs to have a politics, if only to fight off the politics of others. Ours is a time when politics seems to be swamping all else: art, education, journalism, culture generally. I have had the dubious distinction of having been “canceled,” for what were thought my political views, and I write about this experience in my autobiography. I was fired from the editorship of Phi Beta Kappa’s quarterly magazine, the American Scholar —a job I had held for more than twenty years—because of my ostensibly conservative, I suppose I ought to make that “right-wing,” politics. My chief cancellers were two academic feminists and an African-American historian-biographer, who sat on the senate, or governing board, of Phi Beta Kappa.

T he official version given out by Phi Beta Kappa for my cancellation—in those days still known as a firing—was that the magazine was losing subscribers and needed to seek younger readers. Neither assertion was true, but both currently appear in the Wikipedia entry under my name. The New York Times also printed this “official” but untrue version of my cancellation. In fact, I was canceled because I had failed to run anything in the magazine about academic feminism or race, both subjects that had already been done to death elsewhere and that I thought cliché-ridden and hence of little interest for a magazine I specifically tried to keep apolitical. During my twenty-two years at the American Scholar , the name of no current United States president was mentioned. If anything resembling a theme emerged during my editorship, it was the preservation of the tradition of the liberal arts, a subject on which I was able to acquire contributions from Jacques Barzun, Paul Kristeller, Hugh Trevor-Roper, Frederick Crews, and others.

That I was fired not for anything I had done but for things I had failed to do is an indication of how far we had come in the realm of political correctness. I take up this topic in my autobiography, one theme of which is the vast changes that have taken place in American culture over my lifetime. A notable example is an essay on homosexuality that I wrote and published in Harper’s in 1970, a mere fifty-three years ago. The essay made the points that we still did not know much about the origin of male homosexuality, that there was much hypocrisy concerning the subject, that homosexuals were living under considerable social pressure and prejudice, and that given a choice, most people would prefer that their children not be homosexual. This, as I say, was in 1970, before the gay liberation movement had got underway in earnest. The essay attracted a vast number of letters in opposition, and a man named Merle Miller, who claimed I was calling for genocide of homosexuals, wrote a book based on the essay. Gore Vidal, never known for his temperate reasoning, claimed my argument was ad Hitlerum . (Vidal, after contracting Epstein-Barr virus late in life, claimed that “Joseph Epstein gave it to me.”) I have never reprinted the essay in any of my collections because I felt that it would stir up too much strong feeling. For what it is worth, I also happen to be pleased by the greater tolerance accorded homosexuality in the half century since my essay was published.

The larger point is that today neither Harper’s nor any other mainstream magazine would dare to publish that essay. Yet a few years after the essay was published, I was offered a job teaching in the English Department of Northwestern University, and the year after that, I was appointed editor of the American Scholar. Today, of course, neither job would have been available to me.

Do these matters—my cancellation from the American Scholar , my unearned reputation as a homophobe—come under the heading of self-justification? Perhaps so. But then, what better, or at least more convenient, place to attempt to justify oneself than in one’s autobiography?

Many changes have taken place in my lifetime, some for the better, some for the worse, some whose value cannot yet be known. I note, for example, if not the death then the attenuation of the extended family (nephews, nieces, cousins) in American life. Whereas much of my parents’ social life revolved around an extensive cousinage, I today have grandnephews and grandnieces living on both coasts whom I have never met and probably never shall. I imagine some of them one day being notified of my death and responding, “Really? [Pause] What’s for dinner?”

I take up in my autobiography what Philip Rieff called, in his book of this title, the Triumph of the Therapeutic, a development that has altered child-rearing, artistic creation, and much else in our culture. Although the doctrines of Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and others are no longer taken as gospel, their secondary influence has conquered much of modern culture. My parents’ generation did not hold with therapeutic culture, which contends that the essentials of life are the achievement of self-esteem and individual happiness, replacing honor, courage, kindness, and generosity.

In my autobiography, I note that when my mother was depressed by her knowledge that she was dying of cancer, a friend suggested that there were support groups for people with terminal diseases, one of which might be helpful. I imagined telling my mother about such groups, and her response: “Let me see,” she is likely to have said. “You want me to go into a room with strangers, where I will listen to their problems and then I’ll tell them mine, and this will make me feel better.” Pause. “Is this the kind of idiot I’ve raised as a son?”

T hen there is digital culture, the verdict on which is not yet in. Digital culture has changed the way we read, think, make social connections, do business, and so much more. I write in my autobiography that in its consequences digital culture is up there with the printing press and the automobile. Its influence is still far from fully fathomed.

One of my challenges in writing my autobiography was to avoid seeming to brag about my quite modest accomplishments. In the Rhetoric , Aristotle writes: “Speaking at length about oneself, making false claims, taking the credit for what another has done, these are signs of boastfulness.” I tried not to lapse into boasting. Yet at one point I quote Jacques Barzun, in a letter to me, claiming that as a writer I am in the direct line of William Hazlitt, though in some ways better, for my task—that of finding the proper language to establish both intimacy and critical distance—is in the current day more difficult than in Hazlitt’s. At least I deliberately neglected to mention that, in response to my being fired from the American Scholar, Daniel Patrick Moynihan flew an American flag at half-mast over the Capitol, a flag he sent to me as a souvenir. Quoting others about my accomplishments, is this anything other than boasting by other means? I hope so, though even now I’m not altogether sure.

I have a certain pride in these modest accomplishments. Setting out in life, I never thought I should publish some thirty-odd books or have the good luck to continue writing well into my eighties. The question for me as an autobiographer was how to express that pride without preening. The most efficient way, of course, is never to write an autobiography.

Why, then, did I write mine? Although I have earlier characterized writing as a form of discovery, I did not, in writing my autobiography, expect to discover many radically new things about my character or the general lineaments of my life. Nor did I think that my life bore any lessons that were important to others. I had, and still have, little to confess; I have no hidden desire to be spanked by an NFL linebacker in a nun’s habit. A writer, a mere scribbler, I have led a largely spectatorial life, standing on the sidelines, glass of wine in hand, watching the circus pass before me.

Still, I wrote my autobiography, based in a loose way on Wordsworth’s notion that poetry arises from “emotion recollected in tranquility.” Writing it gave me an opportunity to review my life at the end of my life in a tranquil manner. I was able to note certain trends, parallels, and phenomena that have marked my life and set my destiny.

The first of these, as I remarked earlier, was the fortunate time in which I was born, namely the tail end of the Great Depression—to be specific, in 1937. Because of the Depression, people were having fewer children, and often having them later. (My mother was twenty-seven, my father thirty at my birth.) Born when it was, my generation, though subject to the draft—not, in my experience of it, a bad thing—danced between the wars: We were too young for Korea, too old for Vietnam. We were also children during World War II, the last war the country fully supported, which gave us a love of our country. Ours was a low-population generation, untroubled by the vagaries of college admissions or the trauma of rejection by the school of one’s choice. Colleges, in fact, wanted us.

Or consider parents, another fateful phenomenon over which one has no choice. To be born to thoughtless, or disagreeable, or depressed, or deeply neurotic parents cannot but substantially affect all one’s days. Having a father who is hugely successful in the world can be as dampening to the spirit as having a father who is a failure. And yet about all this one has no say. I have given the chapter on my parents the title “A Winning Ticket in the Parents Lottery,” for my own parents, though neither went to college, were thoughtful, honorable, and in no way psychologically crushing. They gave my younger brother and me the freedom to develop on our own; they never told me what schools to attend, what work to seek, whom or when to marry. I knew I was never at the center of my parents’ lives, yet I also knew I could count on them when I needed their support, which more than once I did, and they did not fail to come through. As I say, a winning ticket.

As one writes about one’s own life, certain themes are likely to emerge that hadn’t previously stood out so emphatically. In my case, one persistent motif is that of older boys, then older men, who have supported or aided me in various ways. A boy nearly two years older than I named Jack Libby saw to it that I wasn’t bullied or pushed around in a neighborhood where I was the youngest kid on the block. In high school, a boy to whom I have given the name Jeremy Klein taught me a thing or two about gambling and corruption generally. Later in life, men eight, nine, ten, even twenty or more years older than I promoted my career: Hilton Kramer in promoting my candidacy for the editorship of the American Scholar , Irving Howe in helping me get a teaching job (without an advanced degree) at Northwestern, John Gross in publishing me regularly on important subjects in the Times Literary Supplement , Edward Shils in ways too numerous to mention. Something there was about me, evidently, that was highly protégéable.

I  haven’t yet seen the index for my autobiography, but my guess is that it could have been name-ier. I failed, for example, to include my brief but pleasing friendship with Sol Linowitz. Sol was the chairman of Xerox, and later served the Johnson administration as ambassador to the Organization of American States. He also happened to be a reader of mine, and on my various trips to Washington I was often his guest at the F Street Club, a political lunch club where he reserved a private room in which we told each other jokes, chiefly Jewish jokes. I might also have added my six years as a member of the National Council of the National Endowment for the Arts, whose members included the actors Robert Stack and Celeste Holm, the Balanchine dancer Arthur Mitchell, Robert Joffrey, the soprano Renée Fleming, the novelist Toni Morrison, the dancer and choreographer Martha Graham, the architect I. M. Pei, the painter Helen Frankenthaler, and other highly droppable names.

Confronting one’s regrets is another inescapable element in writing one’s autobiography. Ah, regrets: the red MG convertible one didn’t buy in one’s twenties, the elegant young Asian woman one should have asked to dinner, the year one failed to spend in Paris. The greater the number of one’s regrets, the grander their scope, the sadder, at its close, one’s life figures to be. I come out fairly well in the regrets ledger. I regret not having studied classics at university, and so today I cannot read ancient Greek. I regret not having been a better father to my sons. I regret not asking my mother more questions about her family and not telling my father what a good man I thought he was. As regrets go, these are not minor, yet neither have I found them to be crippling.

Then there is the matter of recognizing one’s quirks, or peculiar habits. A notable one of mine, acquired late in life, is to have become near to the reverse of a hypochondriac. I have not yet reached the stage of anosognosia, or the belief that one is well when one is ill—a stage, by the way, that Chekhov, himself a physician, seems to have attained. I take vitamins, get flu and Covid shots, and watch what I eat, but I try to steer clear of physicians. This tendency kicked in not long after my decades-long primary care physician retired. In his The Body: A Guide for Occupants , Bill Bryson defines good health as the health enjoyed by someone who hasn’t had a physical lately. The ancients made this point more directly, advising bene caca et declina medicos (translation on request) . For a variety of reasons, physicians of the current day are fond of sending patients for a multiplicity of tests: bone density tests, colonoscopies, biopsies, X-rays of all sorts, CT scans, MRIs, stopping only at SATs. I am not keen to discover ailments that don’t bother me. At the age of eighty-seven, I figure I am playing with house money, and I have no wish to upset the house by prodding my health in search of imperfections any more than is absolutely necessary.

The older one gets, unless one’s life is lived in pain or deepest regret, the more fortunate one feels. Not always, not everyone, I suppose. “The longer I live, the more I am inclined to the belief that this earth is used by other planets as a lunatic asylum,” said George Bernard Shaw, who lived to age ninety-four. Though the world seems to be in a hell of a shape just now, I nonetheless prefer to delay my exit for as long as I can. I like it here, continue to find much that is interesting and amusing, and have no wish to depart the planet.

Still, with advancing years I have found my interests narrowing. Not least among my waning interests is that in travel. I like my domestic routine too much to abandon it for foreign countries where the natives figure to be wearing Air Jordan shoes, Ralph Lauren shirts, and cargo pants. Magazines that I once looked forward to, many of which I have written for in the past, no longer contain much that I find worth reading. A former moviegoer, I haven’t been to a movie theater in at least a decade. The high price of concert and opera tickets has driven me away. The supposedly great American playwrights—Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Eugene O’Neill, Edward Albee—have never seemed all that good to me, and I miss them not at all. If all this sounds like a complaint that the culture has deserted me, I don’t feel that it has. I can still listen to my beloved Mozart on discs, read Tolstoy, Jane Austen, Dickens, George Eliot, Willa Cather, and the other great novelists, watch the splendid movies of earlier days on Turner Classics and HBO—live, in other words, on the culture of the past.

“Vho needs dis?” Igor Stravinsky is supposed to have remarked when presented with some new phenomena of the avant-garde or other work in the realm of art without obvious benefit. “Vho needs dis?” is a question that occurred to me more than once or twice as I wrote my autobiography. All I can say is that those who read my autobiography will read of the life of a man lucky enough to have devoted the better part of his days to fitting words together into sentences, sentences into paragraphs, and paragraphs into essays and stories on a wide variety of topics. Now in his autobiography all the sentences and paragraphs are about his own life. He hopes that these sentences are well made, these paragraphs have a point, and together they attain to a respectable truth quotient, containing no falsehoods whatsoever. He hopes that, on these modest grounds at least, his autobiography qualifies as worth reading.

Joseph Epstein  is author of  Gallimaufry , a collection of essays and reviews.

Image by  Museum Rotterdam on Wikimedia Commons , licensed via Creative Commons . Image cropped. 

Articles by Joseph Epstein

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2023-2024 Bermont Family Distinguished Visiting Author – Phillip Lopate

Phillip Lopate   is a central figure in the recent revival of interest in memoir writing and what has come to be called “the personal essay.”

 Lopate is the author of  Portrait of My Body, Confessions of Summer, Against Joie de Vivre, The Rug Merchant, Being with Children,  and  Totally Tenderly Tragically . He is also the editor of  The Art of the Personal Essay  and was the series editor of  The Anchor Essay Annual .

 Lopate’s work has been included in  The Best American Essays  and  The Pushcart Prize Series . Recent books include  To Show and Tell, Portrait Inside My Head, Waterfront, Getting Personal: Selected Writings  and  Notes On Sontag . In 2023, he published A Year and a Day: An Experiment in Essays.  Lopate formerly directed the non-fiction MFA program at Columbia University. “

Time: Monday, April 8, 2024 (7:00 PM) Location: Rogers Free Library - 525 Hope Street, Bristol RI