My Family

My dad is quite old, he’s 81. My mum’s about 15 years younger. I have two brothers. Nigel, who is seven years older than me, is a computer programmer, or he does something with computers, I’m not sure what exactly. His main interest is music, and he plays the guitar very well, and the piano. He’s married to Nikki, who is an artist. She’s half Swiss, and paints pictures for a living. They live in London, and have two children.

My other brother, Chris, is a stockbroker, and he lives with his family in Hong Kong because the firm he works for sent him out there. They send him all over the world. He met his wife Leslie in South Africa, when he was working there. Leslie doesn’t work – she’s a housewife and she brings up the children. They’ve got four children. So I have six nieces and nephews, which means I have quite a lot of presents to buy at Christmas!

I come from quite a big family. I worked it out once that I’ve got 25 cousins, because my dad’s dad married twice, and my mum’s mum married twice. However, I only remember one grandparent, my grandmother on my mother’s side, but she died when I was very young, so I only have very vague memories of her. My mum has two brothers and sisters, and she has three half-sisters. And my dad has four brothers and sisters and two stepbrothers and sisters.

My two brothers are a lot older than me, so I didn’t see them much when I was little because they weren’t at home that much. There are seven years between each of us, so one brother is seven years older than me and the other is fourteen years older than me. However, my auntie Patty lived with us in the country for a while, and she had four children; and the two girls, Catherine and Sarah, were around my age, so it was like having two sisters. This was nice, because we went to school together and we could play together, and is was nice having people of my age around.

My parents live in the country, in the south-west of England. When I lived in England I used to go to visit them maybe every month, but now of course it’s much more difficult, and now I go about twice a year. Normally I go at Christmas, although not this year, and sometime in the summer. They live in the middle of the country and it’s really nice. There is a river, and you can go for long walks and get some peace and quiet after living in the city. My brother Nigel who lives in London goes home quite a lot to visit them with his children, but my older brother Chris can’t go that often, of course, as he’s always very busy working in Hong Kong.

In England, the stereotypical family is husband and wife and 2.4 children, so they say, and a dog and a cat. We have two cats, by the way. They were my cats, but when I left to come and live in Hungary I took them to my mum, who wasn’t overjoyed at the time, but now she quite likes them. We used to have a dog, a big golden labrador, but he had to be put down ‘cause he got very sick, so that was quite sad.

The English stereotypical family of husband and wife is, I suppose, changing now because there are a lot of one-parent families. A lot of people get divorced now and live on their own, and bring up their children on their own.

What about my parents? Well, my mother never worked, she was a house-wife, and she and my dad lived in Sri Lanka and India for much of their married life, ‘cause my dad was a businessman. He’s retired now but used to import, I think it was whisky and fertilizer, from England to Sri Lanka. My mum brought up two children there, so both of my brothers were brought up in Sri Lanka and India. They must have had a very idyllic childhood – I heard stories about them swimming in tropical seas and going on expeditions to tea plantations, and it sounded really nice. I was born a year after they moved back to England, near London, so that’s a bit different from exotic Asia. I suppose in a way we conformed to the typical stereotype of a family, in that my father was the breadwinner and the head of the family, and my mother was a housewife and brought up children. Nowadays in England, most women seem to want to go out to work, and even if they have children they send them to a nursery or a crèche [kreʃ] at a very early age, and go back to work to resume their careers. Also, quite often now just the immediate family live together, and a lot of old people live on their own, not usually with their children and their grandchildren as used to be the case.

30. Find information about:

a) the narrator’s parents;

b) her two brothers;

c) the English stereotypical family:

· present – day situation;

· reasons of changing.

1. After reading the text decide if the following statements are true or false:

1. My four brothers are a lot younger than me.
2. My sister is a computer user.
3. I have neither nieces nor nephews.
4. I come from a small family.
5. All my grandparents are alive.
6. My dad has two brothers and sisters, and he has four half-sisters.
7. My parents live in the country.
8. In England the stereotypical family is husband, wife, 2.4 children, a dog and a cat.
9. There are no one-parent families in England.
10. I was born in exotic Asia.
11. Nowadays in England most women seem to want to be housewives.
12. A lot of old people live on their own.