Family Relationships

Venezuelans are very family oriented. Everything for them is about family first. Celebrations are centered among family getting together and enjoying the occasion. For example Christmas and New Year's celebrations are more of family reunions than christian ceremonies of going to church and let Jesus be born into your life especially for the first one. During holidays, families would leave for a beach vacation in some island or meet in the house of the great aunt for lunch. 

When you ask a Venezuelan what is important for him/her, the sure answer will be family and God. They are raised that way and much importance is placed on sharing and enjoying happy times with family. 

But the definition of what is family tends to be different here. In other parts of the world, family means parents, brothers and sisters, with uncles and aunts being relatives. But here when one says family, one refers to everyone from parents to cousins. And be told, families are big and extended. People have numerous cousins and uncles. The terms familiares or parientes as I was told by some, it is not used much as everyone is family. There is little effort to draw the lines between close family members and relatives. 

People spend a great deal of time with their family members, and they would go shopping together and even eat out as a family. During an evening on a weekend, beers would be bought with ice from a nearby licoreria. Family and friends would sit down, listening and dancing to salsa or merengue while chatting the evening away, cracking jokes and sharing events that happened during the week. This is a very common occurrence. 

But be told that mothers pamper their kids like nothing you have seen. Sometimes children who might be as old as 20 years and above might not wash their clothes or clean after themselves. Everything is done by their mothers. It is also common to find boys that will not cook as some of my friends here do. Mothers are the great chefs. 

Kids will take a long time to leave their homes, staying even after 30 years old and sometimes even after getting married. This is pretty normal. I have also seen divorcees of about  50 year old going back to stay with their parents. Parents would always accept their kids back to the nest. In fact I was told that it is common for parents to not want their kids to move out of the house. There is a fear of hard life treating them unkind. A friend in fact was stopped by his father from studying in another country, let alone another city in Venezuela.

So to Venezuela, family is first, and everything else comes second.