The Black Sheep of the Family

Did your family call you the black sheep, or did you give yourself that name?

Who Decides Who Belongs?

Every family has its own idea of what it means to fit in. I’ve called myself the black sheep of my family for a long time. I don’t know whether anyone in my family uses that phrase for me. If someone asked, I imagine some of them might say, “Oh, yeah, he’s not like the rest of us.” I don’t know what they would mean by that. Maybe the more interesting question is whether I give myself the label before I know if anyone else does.

I grew up in a broken, dysfunctional home, and I often feel as though God’s presence, or something, watches over me. I can’t explain it neatly. What I know is that I get to choose what I adapt into my life and which standards I make my own. Maybe learning to rely on myself is part of that. Maybe there is more to it.

Distance and the Stories I Cannot Know

Today, I live about 750 miles from where I grew up. Years can pass between the times I see my family, and most of them still live in the town where they were born. That distance gives me room to discover more about myself, but it also means I don’t know much about how they see me now. I don’t want to fill in those blanks with assumptions. I can speak to my side of the story. I can’t tell theirs for them.

Difference, Honesty, and Accountability

The phrase “black sheep” can point to all kinds of things. Sometimes it describes someone whose life is full of trouble or chaos. That isn’t exactly my story. I’m a business owner. I’m also a person who will try things like skydiving, even when I’m scared. I don’t think being different means being fearless. Sometimes it means moving toward a fear or an uncomfortable conversation when other people would rather step around it.

I have my own standards, and I expect people to follow through when they say they will. I get impatient with excuses. I tend to say what’s on my mind. To me, that can feel like honesty or like calling attention to something that needs to be said. To the person hearing it, it may land as a personal attack. I can see that possibility, even if I don’t always notice it in the moment. Being willing to talk about hard things doesn’t automatically mean I handle every conversation well.

Maybe that is part of what makes someone the black sheep: a different set of values, a different way of speaking, or a willingness to rock the boat. Maybe it has as much to do with the family’s expectations as it does with the person who stands apart. A label can come from other people, but it can also become a story we tell ourselves to make sense of feeling different.

When Independence Becomes a Story

For me, being independent feels like both a strength and a mystery. Moving away gives me room to rely on myself and discover more of the world beyond the place where I grew up. At the same time, I sometimes wonder whether I feel the family bond differently from other people, as if I’m missing a gene that makes people feel they need that bond. I don’t always know what it means to need people, or what I need from them. If I can’t be myself and still be treated with care, I’m not always sure what I’m supposed to do with that relationship. I don’t have a tidy answer. I don’t think everyone who feels separate has the same reason for it.

Who Gave Me the Name?

I also don’t know whether my family ever calls me the black sheep. I may be the one who gives myself that name, then grows into the story it helps me tell. Maybe I choose the label because it gives me a little pride in being unusual. Maybe it explains some of the distance. Maybe it does both. The only way to know what my family thinks is to ask them, and I haven’t done that. I’m curious what an honest conversation would reveal, if we could make room for it without turning it into a fight.

Some of these questions about how a life takes shape are part of my memoir, 50 Things at 50: The Year Everything Fell Away, and I Learned to Fall With Style.

I also keep exploring identity, choices, and becoming in my ongoing series, Becoming.

One question stays with me: If I give myself the name before I know whether my family uses it, what does that name help me understand? Does it let me claim my difference, explain the distance, or some of both? When we call someone the black sheep, are we naming who they are, the role we give them, or a distance we haven’t learned to talk about? What might change if we asked the person carrying the name what it means to them, then listened to the answer?