THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, January 31, 1995 TAG: 9501310042
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E6 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARCIA MANGUM, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 68 lines
IF IT'S Friday, it must be takeout. Not just for my family but for the Gordon and Robinson clans, a group totaling six tired adults and six rambunctious children.
None of us can say exactly how this started, but by now it's tradition. Each Friday someone calls and checks with the others to see if we're getting together for dinner, at who's house and with what take-out cuisine.
To those who don't have children, it may sound like a dreadfully dull routine. And we still remember and occasionally yearn for those days when Friday nights were for going out on the town and unwinding after work.
But we also vividly remember the Friday night we took three toddlers to a child-friendly pizza restaurant. The kids shrieked, they didn't eat and they all wanted to get down and run around. The employees handled the mayhem well and didn't kick us out, but the parents agreed: This was it. No more going out with massive numbers of children until they were much older. Maybe 18.
So we started getting together at each other's houses. But Friday nights were hard. Even though we all love cooking and eating, there were many Fridays when no one felt up to facing a stove and preparing dinner for company.
Thus, a tradition was born. We'd order in. The fare isn't fancy - usually pizza, Chinese or chicken - but the gatherings are fun, and the friendships are reinforced.
There are a few rules - the host family gets to keep the leftovers and the food must be relatively cheap. (We've noticed that whatever the cuisine, it usually costs about $14 a family.)
Another rule is unspoken but is the most important part of these gatherings. We're all family. We hug each other and each other's kids; we know what Chinese food each person likes and how to order to keep everyone happy; we help each other's kids get fed and pottied (we do draw the line at diapers); we know where each family keeps its dishes and silverware and we pitch in to set and clear the tables; we keep each other's wandering kids from danger and pick them up when we can't prevent it; and each week we pour out our problems, successes and dreams over takeout food and a bottle of wine.
Some nights we finish each other's sentences - or realize there's no need to because we all know the ending. And no subject is sacred. Not sex. Not money. Not religion. And certainly not child-rearing.
Our children range in age from nearly 8 to not-yet 8 months, and with each child the bond between the families grows.
Friday nights aren't the only time we get together - there are outings to the park and zoo, weekends at the beach, birthday and dinner parties, walks after work. But Friday nights have become the glue that cements our special family relationship.
When I get misty-eyed thinking how special these friends are to me, my mind drifts to another friend, now far away.
During my brief stint in Southern California, where nearly everyone is a transplant, I had a best friend from North Dakota. Like many no-nonsense Midwesterners, she knew how to get to the heart of matters.
When I felt a little homesick during the holidays or in times of family illness, she reminded me how blessed I was to have close friends who cared for me.
She put it this way: ``We all have the family we're born into. We love them because they're our family. But we may not have much in common with them and we may not even like them a lot. And we can't always be around them when we need them. That's why we have a family of choice.''
Our family of choice is our special friends. The ones who support us and love us and treat us like family, sometimes even better than family.
Like my Friday night family. by CNB