BY: ALEX BROWN
Today’s family is far from the Leave it to Beaver image of nuclear tidiness that it once was. Tattooed moms, same-sex parents and ethnic diversity have increasingly become the face of the modern family—and it’s beautiful.
From Amsterdam to Italy, India and France, photographer Michele Crowe travels the world and captures a portrait of the “Universal Family,” a testament to the growing insignificance of the status quo and the warm faces that challenge it. Her travels have restored her faith in the underlying altruism of human behaviour, and the desire to live in a society of togetherness. As Crowe found out, there are few better places to observe the gentleness of human nature than the living rooms of our planet.
The family constitutes an irreplaceable support system for our mental health and general well-being. Put simply, everybody needs somebody to lean on. From times of crisis to moments of celebration, we turn to our loved ones to make the highs higher and the lows more bearable. The colour, gender, or even style-preferences of this support system are irrelevant.
For Crowe, “that support system is the most important thing in the world; it should not be judged or limited. Families can be big or small, blood related or not, same sex oriented or not, and of course composed of similar or wildly different cultural backgrounds. I believe if you’re lucky you truly understand that love has no boundaries.”
Image source: theuniversalfamilies.com
