The Importance of Extended Family

 Extended Families as Important as Minerals and Proteins

Yes, and Trout harped on the human need for extended families, and I still do, because it is so obvious that we, because we are human, need them as much as we need proteins and carbohydrates and fats and vitamins and essential minerals.

 Vonnegut on Ibo Extended Family

I met a man in Nigeria one time, an Ibo who had six hundred relatives he knew quite well. His wife had just had a baby, the best possible news in any extended family. They were going to take it to meet all its relatives, Ibos of all ages and sizes and shapes. It would meet other babies, cousins not much older than it was. Everybody who was big enough and steady enough was going to hold it, cuddle it, gurgle to it, and say how pretty or how handsome it was. Wouldn't you have loved to be...