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By Maria Morava
Relationships Reporter
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A woman at a birthday dinner was confronted with a surprising series of questions insinuating that her entire existing family doesn't "count."
Emily Azrael, 37, posted about the strange encounter in a video on TikTok, sparking a wider conversation about what "family" truly means. She was taken aback when a fellow partygoer, whom she'd never met, opened their conversation by asking, "So, do you have a family?"—but didn't accept anything less than children and a partner.
Azrael spoke to Newsweek about the awkward moment she told the woman she did, in fact, have a family—and how the woman's response has had her reflecting on the question ever since.
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Azrael said in her video that the stranger pressed on about children and a partner, but upon learning Azrael had neither, said, "Oh, well that's what I meant by family."
In Azrael's view, this effectively erased her parents, sibling and extended relatives from the definition in a single moment.
"I was like, 'What a fun way to learn that I don't have a family,'" she said in the video. "I gotta go make some calls to my mom, my dad, my sister, my brother-in-law, my niece and my nephew to be like, 'Guess what guys, we're no longer family. I don't make the rules, okay?'"
Speaking to Newsweek, Azrael elaborated on the encounter.
"It definitely caught me off guard. But even more than that, the phrasing of her question is what totally threw me off," she said. Her internal monologue at the time was one of disbelief. "My gut reaction was, 'What an odd question.' So, I just responded with the truth: 'Yes, I have a family.'"
Upon hearing the woman's response, she couldn't help but laugh and make a mental list of all the people she would have to jokingly inform were no longer her family members.
'A Proud, Childless Lady'
Azrael said the topic of someone's "family status" in the way the woman asked was a "sensitive topic."
"As a single person in my 20s and early 30s, going through the initial waves of my friends getting married and having kids, I definitely felt like the odd one out and at times 'family-less,'" she said. "Now that I'm a bit older and more confident in where I am in life and who I've chosen to be, I take questions about my family and marital status less personally."
And still, the encounter hasn't changed her own definition of family.
"I do not know when or if my marital or maternal status will change, but I do know I will always answer 'yes' when someone asks me if I have a family, regardless of what they mean by it," she concluded. "I'd love to call myself a proud 'childless cat lady,' except I'm allergic...I'm just a proud, childless lady—with a family."
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