My friends are my family 2026

Raise your hand...

• The one who has not turned to a neighbor, or someone who lives nearby in one of those surreal moments of having to run away due to an emergency... Something like "stay with my baby for a moment, I parked wrong, they are giving me a million-dollar fine and I have to go fight with the civic forces of order."
• The one who has not met a friend for life thanks to children. Children have the strange ability to unite mothers in very lasting friendships.
• The one who has not entrusted the most precious thing in her existence to her best friend (and I'm not referring to the Wi-Fi password or that incredible dress, but to her own son or daughter).
• The one who has not taken refuge in someone very close after arguing with her partner. Nobody like a friend understands the string of insults you can let out in a quarter of an hour to end up saying “I just adore him, he's so ideal…”
• The one who has not welcomed someone close to her home, very close, who sleeps, eats and lives together and is like the coffee maker, the rug or a doorknob: part of the home.

That's a family

That's what made you raise your hand, my friend... that's a family. An unrelated family.

Amazon Essentials by Sofia Grainge - Summer 2026 Promotion

For work reasons, I had to visit the Santillana del Mar zoo, in Cantabria, a few years ago. It is a magical place, full of respect and love. There are Iberian lynxes, an amazing butterfly garden with classical music, happy captive species and many wild animals to which Jose Ignacio and Maribel, the owners, have slept in their arms and given bottles at all hours. I remember that she, Maribel, told me while caressing an imposing feline: "These animals are more than my family, they are my true friends." That stuck in my mind, "more than family"? Some animals? What is more than family? Well there is, yes.

The traditional concept of family includes two parents - one male and one female - and their offspring. But that is precisely just a “traditional concept.” Reality can be very variable.

I myself am an example of an atypical family. I live with a roommate and my children. He is not my partner, nor my cousin, nor a homeless person I have sponsored (although sometimes it might seem that way). He is a friend. A real friend, who fixes the blinds, tells me how his day went, takes care of my children and has seen me cry (and fortunately laugh a lot more). In fact, he is the spearhead of a very familiar entourage of colleagues who are in my life, who have chosen me and whom I have chosen. We help each other, we support each other, we have fun, we listen to each other and we go on vacation together. I'm afraid I'm not the only one. In every home there is a tribe implicit…

The tribe

The family nucleus in all cultures extends outward. We are social animals and it is not difficult for us to empathize with our fellow humans (well, some do). And in the West, great friendships are forged in the work environment, in one's own family, at leisure and in similar situations. For example, when you have children.

When you're pregnant, you don't just see more pregnant women than ever (when you buy a stroller you only see strollers on the street, it's a fact).

In addition, common interests with others develop. And from there an inseparable friendship can emerge, the kind of being tough. In preparation for childbirth, in motherhood, or in line at the supermarket... We tend to join our peers.

Once you are a mother, you start to meet other mothers: obviously of a similar age and similar situation. And they integrate into your life, into your life, in which there are possibly quite a few members: your family and trusted friends. That mix of family and friends that we could call under the name of “friend.”

A friend would be one more degree of closeness, a friend in the same family intimacy, someone essential in our life, with whom we are united by brotherly love. No commitment or DNA... just (only?) feelings.

Is he my friend?

If you still have doubts about this very close friendship, I propose a test in which you don't even need to write anything down. All you have to do is add up the “yeses” you get in response to the following questions. Think about that friend or close friend:

1. Have I/would I trust you with a secret?
2. Have I left him or has he left me money
3. Do you know my child's exact birthday/birthday date?
4. Have you seen the worst and the best of me?
5. Can you handle it with my son?
6. Am I happy for his achievements and sad when things go wrong?
7. Do you respect my way of understanding motherhood?
8. Do I feel love for him/her, even though I would sometimes slap him/her in the face?
9. Do I have the confidence to tell him to leave in a certain situation that I don't want him to be in?
10. Do I know your family and closest people?

Up to 4 yeses: That person is not even your friend. You don't know each other well enough. In fact, Miley Cyrus or Cristiano Ronaldo would have the same score. From 4 to 6 yeses: That person is someone close to you, from your most intimate environment, someone you appreciate and who appreciates you. But it has not crossed the sphere of family intimacy. Maybe in the future I will and this is a friendship about to be consolidated, but for now it is just that, a friendly person. From 7 to 10 yeses: Indeed, friend, you are thinking of your close family, of that person who you would ask to take care of the baby for you to go to a concert and would understand it (if it is not reggaeton); that person who leaves you the keys to his house so you can water his plants on vacation, that person who belongs to your tribe. So… Congratulations. Famigo is a commodity as precious as Iranian caviar or Louboutin shoes, so... take care of it!

Conclusions

How many times have we heard something like: “Well, she's my friend, but it's like she's my sister.”

And if we stop to think, it is one of the nicest things that can be said about someone. The family, however wonderful it may be, has been given to us, we have not chosen parents or siblings. At most, we choose a partner with whom we perpetuate our DNA, and we get the children who "are our lot" with that genetics.

But a friend is someone we have chosen and who has chosen us, with whom there is no family, sexual, maternal, or other interest. It is the most sincere of loves, as equals... And furthermore, it is forever. How lucky we are to have friends, right?