A previous article by guest writer Jennifer R., got me thinking more about belonging. That we all need a place to belong, and to definitively know who are our very odd kin.
My husband and I are always in the middle of several different shows at once, usually a variety of genres we move amongst. At some point, we had heard of a show called Doom Patrol, another superhero show by DC, rather than Marvel, but my husband was reluctant to give it a shot (he’s not that much of a fan of the super hero genre (please don’t get him started)), but try it we did.
And we totally didn’t expect what we got from this very rich, dense and quirky show about a pretty disregulated, disjointed, disordered group of reluctant “super heroes” who really didn’t want to be. Then I ran across an interesting term — Oddkin. It definitely applied to the Doom Patrol as they stumbled through various challenges, both internally and externally. The show itself embraces the outcasts, showing us that those of us who are on the “outside” of the mainstream, the “norm”, have Oddkin in each other.
Oddkin, a term coined by Donna Haraway (professor in studies of consciousness and feminism), refers to kin that isn’t what she calls “godkin” (i.e., what I’d refer to as bloodkin). This is “chosen family”, connections we make that are as close (or perhaps even closer) than biological family, who accept us as kin no matter our oddities, providing belonging and supportive spaces in ways that our bloodkin families often cannot. Haraway also made it clear that our Oddkin had to be choiceful: these made families are not groups one lands in automatically, as one does with biological family. These groups have to be chosen, cultivated and marked by acceptance, most particularly an acceptance of the “odd” qualities of their individuals.
I was especially reminded of this during the episode “Danny Patrol” where the Doom Patrol meets Danny, a sentient genderqueer teleporting street (yes, you read that right), while looking for someone of their crew. Danny is essentially a protected space where the outcasts and misfits of society can safely be themselves. That is, a space where they are Oddkin to each other. Larry (played by Matt Bomer), essentially a closeted gay man ends up singing a song on stage which was such a hit that the show actually recorded it for download. You can watch the episode clip here (mild spoilers):
“Oh, people like us we’ve gotta stick together
Keep your head up, nothing lasts forever
Here’s to the damned to the lost and forgotten
It’s hard to get high when you’re living on the bottomOh, woah-oh-oh, woah-oh
We are all misfits living in a world on fire
Oh, woah-oh-oh, woah-oh
Sing it for the people like us, the people like us”
For me, an extremely depressed and “odd one out” type teenager, my group of Oddkin was my Dungeons and Dragons group. I definitely didn’t fit in with my main “peer” group, and I often felt I didn’t fit in with my family. Finding other “outcasts” like myself gave me a place to be and a place to belong, and therefore, a place to survive.
These friends weren’t “bloodkin” family, in the traditional sense of the word. But we helped each other out with the same things which family (ideally) does. We talked outside of the D&D group. We hung out in general. We called when sick, and we would have taken each other to the hospital. We marveled at and supported each other’s successes and commiserated over each other’s failures. We liked each other, including and especially all of our quirky weirdnesses that our families or general society wouldn’t tolerate. We were Kin. I doubt I would have made it through my very depressed and ostracized teenage years without them.
For many people, there is a perfectly connected and supportive bloodkin environment. And for many, many more people beyond that, there isn’t. That’s not judgement, it’s just unfortunately how humans seem to function. Bloodkin is messy and fraught, so it is often our chosen families that we end up connecting with. But even folks with that bloodkin connection can also have their own chosen families outside the ones they were born into. These oddkin families are not merely add-ons; if, for whatever reason, you are outside the mainstream, having your known Oddkin can sometimes mean the difference between life and death.
So, who are your Oddkin? Even if you feel connected with your biological family, you still likely have people in your life outside that system that you consider “kin-like”. Who are they? How do you regard each other. What do you do for each other? In other words, why are they “kin-enough” to you?
The point of the term “oddkin” is not to malign one’s given family, but rather to put a frame around groupings that often already do exist in our lives, but which we don’t recognize as “second families”. This recognition can be helpful in highlighting their nature and value, both for ourselves and others. For ourselves, this understanding can help us focus more clearly on these “found families”, to appreciate what they do for us, and to possibly strengthen these ties. And the term can also help us validate these groupings in others, probably most particularly our children, groups that we might otherwise misunderstand and criticize.
To see something clearly, we need to have a designation for it, and once we do, we can validate them as real and useful. So I’d encourage you to give some thought to what might seem to you like just like “my gang of friends”, and understand why they exist, what they give you, and how you can deepen your odd and wonderful families.
Game night long ago with my Oddkin!
