I would agree with it. Happy families bear huge similarities in the feel of the home. But unhappy ones have various problems and issues that give the whole familial situation its own breadth of hell. I'm not quite sure why you think happy families being a rarity speaks less for the truth of it. More on reddit.com

What about your children? More on reddit.com

This is incredibly true. In my family unit there was a dramatic, lopsided energy imbalance between the abusive / damaged / demanding cohort (narc Mom plus narc & fuckup golden child, codependent) and the quiet / compliant cohort (enabler Dad, quiet withdrawn youngest child, scapegoat me). The former twosome consumed everyone‘s resources and bandwidth, dominated everyone’s agenda, and yelled for more. Freud was right. More on reddit.com

I really like the use of the word affinity, that's very good. Thank you for sharing. My SO and I have our family of two where we get to define our own culture. I use a combination of Seth Godin's definition of culture: "People like us, do things like this" and Brené Brown's definition of boundaries : "what's okay and what's not okay" for our own definition: "People like us do things like this, and not like that." We are all part of many overlapping cultures. In the culture my SO and I have created, we are conscious about defining boundaries for what's okay and what's not okay. We revisit and negotiate what's okay and what's not okay often. Circumstances, context, and nuance matter. Circumstances change and boundaries may have to change as well. Toxic cultures often have harsh, inflexible rules that protect abusers, enablers, and bullies; while silencing victims. I grew up in a very toxic Midwestern culture with a very narrow view of "acceptable human". Fake niceness, " fit-in ", or else... It sucks that abusers, enablers, and bullies seem to have an affinity for each other. More on reddit.com