Loving the Lunacy
Why I Love My Crazy Family

Illustration by Felicia Lankford | VOX Staff

By Yasmin Miller| VOX Staff

The state of affairs in my household is in constant turmoil. There is always something in need of repair, mounds of laundry that need to be washed and a refrigerator that is never as full as one would like for it to be. Children run rampant, their laughter rising to shrill crescendos that fray one’s nerves. There is no dog; small, defenseless animals could not survive here. One must always watch her step in fear of getting injured on a toy soldier and always look before she sits because there’s a good chance the toilet’s been saran-wrapped, again.

This is where I live. My family is what one would call unconventional. While the traditional structure of mom, dad and children remains the same, our household’s internal workings and the personalities of the people that lie therein are, simply put, odd. We are never on time, can all be described as at least mildly narcissistic, and for some odd reason we regularly quote lines from George Clooney movies. I love it.
It’s hard living in my house sometimes, especially with a mother who you think is prettier than you, a father who flinches at the word feelings and what seems like a million siblings, but I think that all the craziness has helped me to be a better person.

What It’s Like
Life in my house is never boring. There’s always someone to talk to or laugh at, and something interesting to do. But I won’t lie; there are times when my family drives me insane. More than once I have entertained the idea of running away from my circus to join a normal family.

I’m the oldest out of all five Miller kids and because of this, I am stuck with the role of pilot child. This does not work in my advantage, because there are a million things that I was never allowed to do that my younger siblings are. For instance, until my 15th birthday my curfew was 8 p.m. sharp. From the time I was 13 I was constantly pleading with my parents to extend it to 10 p.m. with the case “I won’t die just because I’m out a little later,” to no avail. However, my younger brother T.J. (age 13) now has the privilege of staying out until 9:30 p.m. While it’s not 10, I’m still a little annoyed that he’s been given more leeway than I was. When I asked my mom and dad why he’s allowed to stay out later than I was at his age I was told, quite ironically, “We won’t die just because he’s out a little later.”

Then, there’s my hugest pet peeve — the conditions of our refrigerator and pantry. Our monthly food bill is somewhere around the $1,000 mark, and despite all of this, it still seems we never have enough food I want to eat. Silk is always in low supply (all five of the Miller kids are lactose intolerant), which means that breakfast is a fight to see who will be left to the doom of toast instead of Fruit Loops. In my house there is no such thing as being the sole proprietor of any one food item: If it’s in the pantry, it’s fair game. So despite being the only person in the house who does not eat red meat, my soy-meat burgers belong to everyone. And I cannot count the times that my personally purchased Vitamin Waters have been ingested by someone other than myself.

Meet The Millers
But what drives me craziest isn’t the noise and commotion, it’s the people I live with.

My mother is a minister, but while most may get the image of an ultra-conservative, bible-thumping society-lady, the image she actually presents is one that I find droll and eccentric. My mother’s hair is honey-blonde. She dashes to PTA meeting in three-inch stilettos, and her motto is “Look fabulous. Be fabulous.”

My father has the stereotypical know-it-all, stiff-upper-lip attitude that many fathers do. But that’s where his normalcy ends. My dad is always talking about how much money it takes to run our house (a whole lot by the way), and he never fails to remind me of his insane belief that I am the most expensive child. He is also the most atrociously vain person in the house, and often it is his prettying-up time, not mine, that makes the family run late for social events.

My brother, T.J., is an unapologetic wise-arse. He is constantly making sarcastic remarks that land him in trouble. His attitude on life is if you mess up a little, you might as well mess up the whole way. Meaning that if he happens to break one of mom’s prized Chinese vases, he’s going to go ahead and break the second one, too – just off principle.

At 7, my sister Trinity is a certified over-achiever with passive-aggressive issues. She refuses to settle for anything less than an A+ on her weekly spelling and math tests. And she once asked me — I wish I were kidding — if 90s were considered good grades. When I told her that they were, she gave me an incredulous look and said, “It doesn’t matter anyway. I only get 100s.”
Then there are my two youngest brothers, the twins. I fondly refer to them as ‘Terry the Terror’ and ‘Tyson the Tyrant,’ and they bear semblance to miniature mobsters with a somewhat obscene worship of ‘Food Network.’ They are notorious for simply refusing to put on clothes.

Maybe the Weirdness is a Good Thing
Living with my family has helped me to become extremely patient, and at 17, I know how to do things it takes other people years to figure out. I know at least a thousand home remedies for a cold, can clean an entire house in one hour flat and have known how to balance a checkbook since I was 12.
My friends often refer to me as “the maternal one,” and more than once I’ve heard the phrase “Yasmin’s in mommy mode again.”

It’s kind of annoying to me. I don’t mean to take things as seriously as I do sometimes, but I really can’t help it. Being in such a big family — especially being the oldest — has taught me how important it is to be responsible. On the flip side of this, a lot of people my age are amazed at my stain-removing abilities and I have been known to aid a fellow teen in extending their cooking skills beyond that of Easy-Mac and Ramen noodles.

Why I Love Them
In my younger days I used to be kind of embarrassed of my family. Then one day I was invited to dinner with a friend’s family. At dinner, my friend, her brother and parents all sat down and ate quietly. I remember how freaked out I was by the light conversation and lack of thrown peas and George Clooney quotes. I recall thinking, Is this what other families are like? I was bored, and I desperately wished for the commotion that my house always provided. It was in that moment that I realized just how cool my family is. They may be crude and obnoxious, but they’re also really great people. I can honestly say I consider my family members to be my best friends.

Nowadays, whenever someone asks me if I’m embarrassed to have a family like mine, I’m always like: “No, they’re not weird. They’re awesome, and they’re mine.” They may be hard to deal with, but I wouldn’t trade them for anything in the world.

Yasmin is pretty much the raddest chick to ever breathe. She is a senior at Riverdale High.