Family Collage: A Picture is Worth A thousand Words

Hugo RobinsonCommunication in The FamilyApril 8th 2011

The TV show Weeds is born when Nancy Botwin turns to selling Marijuana to maintain her family’s upper middleclass lifestyle, after her husband dies of a heart attack while jogging with their youngest son.

From there, an interesting series of events unfolds full of interesting family dynamics.

The Family

• Nancy Botwin- Mother to Silas and Shane

• Judah Botwin- Nancy’s late husband, father to Silas and Shane

• Silas Botwin- Nancy’s oldest son

•Shane Botwin- Nancy’s youngest son

• Uncle Andy Botwin- Judah’s brother

• Peter Scottson- Nancy’s 2nd husband, the DEA agent

• Esteban Reyes- Nancy’s 3rd Husband, Mexican drug lord

• Lenny Botwin- Judah and Andy’s father

•Bubbie- Andy and Judah’s grandmother

The Systems perspective

When people come together to form relationships, what is created is larger and more complex than the sum of the individuals; they create a system. Due to the interconnections, if one component of the system changes, the others will change in response. Therefor, a change in one part of the system affects every part of the system

(Galvin, Bylund, Brommel, 58)

When Judah, the head of the Botwin household, dies unexpectedly, because of the family’s interconnections, all components of the family system change drastically

Dialectical Tensions

Uncle Andy moves in after Judah’s death to help out, but tensions are apparent and, while he helps in some areas, he also disrupts Nancy’s life and messes a lot of things up.

Communication Patterns and Family Functions

When Nancy becomes a drug dealer, the family’s cohesion becomes seperated.

Without their father around, Silas and Shane separate themselves emotionally and Nancy limits her openness as she tries to hide from them her new way of making money

Because of the sudden disruption in their family, shane, being only ten years old, starts acting out and bites the feet of another kid during a martial arts competition.

This act earns him the nickname “strange botwin” from his peers, making it hard for him to make friends and making him feel that much m ore alienated.

Healthy Sexual Communication

While Silas was having no trouble whatsoever in the area of sex, Shane was much younger and in need of some sexual education. Nancy was absolutely not going to have that conversation with Shane, as it is most times harder for the parents to talk about those sort of things.

Andy takes on the responsibility of sex education, teaching Shane different methods of masturbation ( the banana peel method as shown) and the dangers of unprotected sex, which he is all too familiar with.

Parent-Child Destructive Conflict

Nancy becomes romantically involved with peter, the single father of the child bitten by Shane previously. Peter turns out to be a DEA agent but he doesn’t care about her dealing as he thinks of her as too “small time” to bust. Just incase, they decide to get married as part of a deal to legally protect him from testifying against her.

Naturally, Silas and Shane are very upset as they see this man as trying to take the place of their father. They become very rude to him, which results in Peter manhandling Silas. Nancy freaks out at him and they end their relationship.

Cohesion Changes

Silas figures that Nancy has become a drug dealer in order to make money for the family.

The Cohesion changes and everyone in the family becomes extremely open and honest about everything (well, almost everything) for the remainder of the family.

Family Decision Making

Decision making is the process by which family members make choices, reach judgements, or arrive at solutions that end uncertainty

Decision making means getting things done in a family when one or more family members need to agree with each other to accomplish something

In order to avoid massive legal trouble, Nancy relocates her family to the California town of Ren Mar. They stay with Andy’s father, Lenny, and they find themselves having to make a very controversial family decision. Also living with Lenny is his mother, Andy’s grandmother, but she is very old and very ill and doesn’t have much of an existence.

After a long argument, Andy and his father remember how animated and lively she used to be and decide to put her out of her misery and pull the plug on her.

While the family is in Ren Mar, Silas and Shane go to a new school. Because of the traumatic things Shane has been through at a young age, along with the opportunity for a new image at his new school, he snaps and randomly attacks the most popular kid in school. This changes his identity drastically and his peers start to fear him, giving him a sense of confidence and empowerment that he’s never had. His attitude totally changes and he loses the young and innocent appearance.

Unpredictable Stresses

Nancy becomes pregnant after she develops yet another relationship, this time with a Mexican crime boss/politician. Once again, another Family Decision must be made. Andy suggests Nancy gets an abortion with the reasoning that she will never be free if she has a child with a Mexican drug lord. Nancy ultimately makes the decision to move in with him and he later proposes to her and they get married. Shortly after, Nancy has the baby.

Shortly after the birth, a woman from Esteban’s past, Pilar, threatens to kill Silas and Shane and make it look like a car accident. Shane overhears her, grabs a croquet mallet, and bludgeons her across the head. She falls into the pool next to them and dies. Right after, they realize the whole thing was caught on tape.

Family Roles

Nancy realizes that Shane will be wanted for murder, so she decides they need to get out of town. They immediately start driving to Nancy's hometown in Washington State with the intention of leaving the country. They don’t have enough money for plane tickets or fake passports so they all get jobs, except for Shane. Shane acquires the new role of babysitter and spend his days mostly with their newest family member.

Family Secrets

While in Nancy’s hometown, Silas and Shane discover their mom’s high school boyfriend, Lars, who they both notice looks strangely similar to Silas.

While Silas is talking to Lars about the car he is selling on his front lawn, Shane goes into his house and steals one of his combs in order to establish if he is, in fact, Silas real father.

Toxic Secrets

Toxic secrets poison family relationships. Maintaining such secrets may have chronic negative effects on problem solving, conversational repertoire, perceptions, and emotional well-being. Even when no one is in immediate physical or emotional danger, toxic secrets nonetheless sap energy, promote anxiety, burden those who know, and mystify those who don’t know. (Imber-Black, 1998)

When Silas discovers that Lars is in fact his father, he becomes extremely angry at Nancy and is forced to re-evaluate his whole childhood. He makes the decision not to go with them to Europe

He starts to hang out with his father more and they bond. They drink beer together, like father and son should do, and he lets him ride his Camero. Lars begins to teach Silas how to play the guitar and shows him how to change sparkplugs before silas changes his mind and rejoins the rest of his family at the airport.