Published on 16 May, 2025
The notion of ‘Family of origin’ was something I recently learnt in a Focus on The Family’s programme: ‘Family Future Makers’. Family of origin refers to the family that an individual was raised or born into. In that session, I learnt the significance of the family of origin, and its impact on who I am today through introspection and reflection.
How we relate with fellow family members, how family members relate with one another, and how each family member is like as an individual can all have an influence on who we are today.
For me, my family of origin consists of my mum, dad, and my siblings – an older brother and sister. In this article, I will focus on how my father’s interactions with the rest of my family have shaped me for the better and for the worse. Let’s start with how it has shaped me for the better.
My father is a man of few words and is a perfect prototype of the ‘Asian father’. He is not the most expressive with words, but instead, his love is in the form of food and gifts. We never have a shortage of snacks at home, and even a slight mention of how a certain snack is nice would mean multiple restocks over the next few weeks.
As I think about who I am today and the way I show love to others, I realised that my father’s method of silent love and quiet service was something I caught quite easily. I subtly think of others whenever I am out; sometimes I buy snacks or items that I remember that others had mentioned they needed in past conversations.
It is a very natural thing for me to do, and I also feel glad when I see the joy in others when I love them through these small gifts.
My father modelled to me how love can be through acts of provision and cultivated in me a habit of thinking of others.
My father’s silent love has also influenced how verbal I am about my thoughts and feelings. While I appreciate his method of love today, I did not always do so. When I was 15, after an argument with him, I remember thinking to myself: “He can only say hurtful things to me! He can’t even say ‘I love you’, is it really that hard? What’s the point of buying us (me and my siblings) so many things but he can’t do that?”
While I swore to be different from my father in this aspect, I see that I too, also tend to keep my thoughts to myself and am not the most expressive person to my friends and even to my partner. One day, my partner made a passing comment about how I am not the most verbally expressive when it comes to my love for her but that she sees it through my actions. Her observation made me think about how I relate with friends and even family members. I realised that I was inclined to express my love through actions rather than words of appreciation. As a result, there were times when I fail to express my gratitude to the people around me well. I would awkwardly smile or buy them a gift, but rarely would I verbally express my gratitude. Being on the receiving end of love that mostly expresses itself in actions, I know that gifts cannot fully replace verbally expressing how I feel.
In recent years, I learnt from my mother that my father struggles to express himself because of his family of origin. Fights were frequent among his family members and there was much distrust even up till today. There were far more arguments than conversations between each family member. This has helped me understand why he choose to love through gifts instead of words.
Growing up in such a hostile environment must have meant that staying silent and keeping to yourself was easier than trying to have conversations. Since then, I have learnt to see his actions of provision as a way he says, “I love you”.
Thankfully, my father has also learnt to be more expressive towards us as the years past and I finally heard my father say those precious three words when I was 19, during my national service, which was a major milestone in our relationship!
He has even started to be more open with his thoughts and feelings, though there are still times he would remain reserved. Lately, he even shared with us his thoughts about whether he should retire soon, which gave us a rare opportunity to support him emotionally – something I was glad to do seeing how much as he has supported us materially all these years.
Reflecting on how my father’s family of origin has shaped him and how my family of origin has shaped me and the way I love, has helped me to have a clearer idea on what I hope to bring into my future family.
I hope to love like how my father did and is doing today. Providing for every need where I can and taking joy in meeting the needs of my wife and children.
However, it also made clear to me what I hope to unlearn as I think about my future family. I want to unlearn thought patterns on how I am meant to keep everything to myself. Instead, I hope to be a husband and father that expresses his love to his family verbally and not just through material provision. I hope to never stop telling my loved ones that I love them and not assume that they know it.
May you also be encouraged to think about your family of origin and how it has shaped you or is influencing who you are today, be it in a positive or negative way. By returning to our family of origin, we can shape our family of the future for the better.
Author: Lam Zi Yang is a final year student at NUS pursuing a double major in Psychology and Business Management. In his free time, he enjoys going to the gym and playing with cats!
The Family Future Makers programme provides development opportunities for young leaders who are keen to contribute as active citizens to uphold family values as foundational to nation-building in Singapore. For information on how to register for the next run, do write to us at: partnerships@family.org.sg.
