Being Related Does Not Mean Being Required (We Are Family)

Being related does not mean being required.

In this episode of 50ish & Fab, KC Sonshine gets real about family boundaries, family drama, emotional labor, and protecting your peace—especially in midlife.

Inspired by We Are Family by Sister Sledge, this is a necessary conversation about what happens when love and obligation get confused.

KC breaks down:

• Why being the “strong one” comes at a cost
• How people-pleasing turns into emotional burnout
• The pressure to fix, carry, and keep the peace
• What it really means to set boundaries without guilt
• How to love family… without losing yourself

If you’ve ever been:
 👉 the fixer
 👉 the peacemaker
 👉 the one everyone calls

…this episode is going to hit home.

Expect real talk, humor, healing, and grown-woman wisdom on stepping out of unhealthy family roles and choosing peace, clarity, and emotional freedom—without cutting off your love.

Because at this stage of life, protecting your peace isn’t selfish…

👉 it’s necessary.

And remember—

Aging gracefully is cute… but thriving after fifty? That’s FABULOUS.

If this episode spoke to you, don’t keep it to yourself—send it to another grown woman who needs it.

👉  Follow, rate, and review on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and your favorite podcast platform so you never miss a conversation that reminds you who you are—and who you’re still becoming. 

Because around here…we’re not winding down, we’re leveling up.

Aging gracefully is cute… but thriving after fifty? That’s FABULOUS.

 📩 Business, media, and sponsorship inquiries: [real50ish@gmail.com]

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:03

This is idiot and style. For women over 50 who are still becoming, still building, and definitely not done, even if life tried to convince you otherwise. This is where grown women come to tell the truth, take up space, and live out loud. I'm Casey Sunshine. And around here, we're not winding down, we're leveling up. Welcome, welcome, welcome, my beautiful 50 plusins um goldies, to another episode of Fifth Edition Fab. It's your girl KC Sunshine, and I am your Southern Sweet T with the Splash of Brooklyn. Oh, it's another beautiful day. I'm so happy to be back in the studio. You know, I was recording from my home for a little minute, you know, I had a little knee surgery, so things was happening, but I was still trying to be on my grind. However, I'm so glad to be back at the beautiful studios in downtown Brooklyn at Brick doing our thing. Because recording in my living room was giving me like dungeon. I mean, I like my living room, but the shot had to be so close, I felt like people could see up my nose. So hey, thank you, Brick. I'm glad to be back home again. And uh I am also so thrilled to have my fabulous, fabulous producer doing his thing. One half of the fabulous duo from Brunch, Blaze and Babel, one of my favorite podcasts. Y'all better check them out, y'all. Okay, so that to Roger and to Alexis for doing their thing. Those are my mentors and um bringing me up in the game, y'all. So check them out too. I'm so happy to be here today. And today I want to talk about something that is near and dear to my heart, and it is family. Today's topic is we are family. Y'all remember that song by Sister Sledge? It's actually an ironic story because I met Sister Sledge in person. So one of my very first concerts in Greensboro, North Carolina was with this group for children. It was called Applied Youth Development, which was like the Boys and Girls Club, that type of organization that would take kids and show them different opportunities. So one of the opportunities that we had was to meet Sister Sledge, attend their concert, which was Chic, a group called Foxy, and Sister Sledge. So this was one of my very first concerts. I don't remember how old I was, but I thought to myself, oh my God, these chicks are beautiful. I'm talking about big hair, high heels, leather lace. Oh my God, they were incredible. And I guess I must have been maybe nine or 10, because um, we are family came out in 1979. So I guess by the time I met them, I might have been 10 or 11. But it was absolutely one of the highlights of my youth and one of the very first concerts I ever attended. So shout out to Sister Slit for making me some. We Are Family, um, because again, it's something that's near and dear to my heart. But what what happens when keeping it real goes wrong with family? I want to talk about family and the importance of it, but I also want to talk about when uh things don't go so well and sometimes itch pop off. I will uh very politely use my family for an example in uh some of this story, but uh I won't uh throw them under the bus. The beauty of family is that when we get to a certain age, you are able to create your own family, right? We born with some and you know, you kind of stuck with them for a while, whatever. But then God gives us the ability to create our own families. And I think that's the beautiful thing because it's not just about just about me and you know, whoever I was born, my sisters, brothers. No, no, no, no. I can have children, I can have a husband, I can have a wife, I can have whatever it is that I want and be able to create my own branch of family from that. So I don't want to get too deep in it, but again, this is something that's near and dear to my heart. First thing I want to talk about is conflict, family dispute. Okay. I laugh because I have been thrown out of family members' house. I have had uh my CDs run over by family members. Um I have witnessed the bleaching of people's clothes. Like you know, family is just family. So I have to laugh because uh I am first partaker of this message. Mainly because at present I don't think I'm speaking to anyone in my family. I ain't had nobody to go home to for Christmas because we ain't speaking. Okay, let me, I'm sorry, let me stay stay on task. Understanding family disputes. Family disputes can range from misunderstandings to deep-rooted issues. The first thing you need to do is acknowledge how conflict in midlife may feel different with the added stress of age and health than the other things that come with, you know, being older. In other words, when you're older, shit hits different. The ways you would approach conflict in a family, I know when I was younger, oh my God, I was such a people pleaser. And one of my sisters, I won't say which, had this almost hypnotic power over me because she had the ability to not speak to you for a lengthy amount of time. And it would drive me nuts. How can you be in the house with somebody and not speak to them for days? It was just crazy to me. And I spent my entire youth trying to please her and to placate her and to do everything I could to make sure that I was on good terms with her. At some point, it became all-consuming. So as I became an adult, this relationship that I cherished so much with my sister, even though it was steeped in some toxicity that I held so dear, I began to see differently as I got older. I remember I said to a therapist one time, um, I was talking about my relationship with my sister and, you know, her expectations of me, one of my sisters, um, you know how she was always held as the golden child in the family. And he said to me, Well, do you think that you should have boundaries with your sister? And it was almost like he had slapped me. I was like, oh, why would I do that? Why would I have boundaries with someone that I love and care about so much? Okay, so when you have siblings, you spend a lot of time talking about their kids, right? Especially if you don't have any. One of my nieces' nephews, I won't say which, grew up and was just very, very manipulative and very sneaky. In my relationship with my uh sister, I would always hear about how manipulative this child was. I witnessed this manipulation. And then I realized when I started to examine my relationship with my sister, I could see where the child got it from the mama. Because I had spent my whole life placating her and being used in these same manipulative ways. So when the therapist said to me, Have you considered boundaries? it never crossed my mind that, yes, in fact, I should. And as I began to put those boundaries into place and decided that I will not be the core all, the catch-all, because when you are a single person without kids, people just dump all they shit on you. I mean, they will call you, talk your head. I'm not even asking you how you're doing, but just because they think you got the time and the wherewithal, they will drop it all off on you. And then you left stuck with it. It's like, okay, I just listened to 72 minutes of that. What do I do with that? Because now she's clean, right? She just soiled me with her drama. One of the things that we have to do when we uh have conflict is to set healthy boundaries. There's nothing wrong with boundaries. I learned that the hard way. And it was really eye-opening for me because as much as I love my family, I just realized that in some ways I have to step back in order to protect my peace. I have to live with me, and then there are those that love me and care for me that may not necessarily be blood, but they're just as close and they're just as much family as anyone else to me. So I think that uh have an understanding about what it is that you need in a healthy relationship and what those boundaries look like. Now, the first thing that you have to do when you have family conflict is you have to be realistic in the view, because sometimes my thought life can take me all the way around the world and back again, and I wasn't even close to the mark. I'll give a story about something that happened with my ex. So if you know anything about church in any borough, if you park on the street near a church on a Sunday, you're gonna be stuck. Somebody gonna double park you. You're gonna be stuck on a Sunday here. So uh one Sunday, my ex and I were going somewhere and he called me saying, Oh, I'm double parked. This dude in a bright red charger with double engine and all this got me blocked in. So I'm gonna go to the church and uh have them give the plate number so the person can come out. So he went in the church, gave the plate number for whoever this dude was in this red uh charger to come out and move his car. So he's uh sitting there 20, 30 minutes and he is fuming. He's like, yo, when I see this dude, I'm gonna bust him in his shit right. Because he's been sitting there waiting, can't go because he can't move double park, can't get out. So he waits. I was like, babe, just relax. Just go back in the church and ask him to announce the plate again. So he's like, okay, he went back in the church, announced the plate again, and sat and waited for, you know, for this dude to come out and move this car. So by this time, I mean, screaming bloody murder, he was like, yo, babe, get the bail money ready because I'm going to jail on him, son. I'm going to jail, babe, get the bail money, right? He sits there, and all he sat there about an hour waiting on this dude to come out of church. So he's sitting there on the phone, he was like, yo, he was like, I see people coming out. He's like, okay, so he got to be coming out in this group because it was a group of people at church with over. So as he's sitting there waiting on this dude, he was like, Yeah, God, he got brass knuckles. Like he's ready to rumble. So he sees an old lady on a walker. Grandma is rolling her walker to the red charger with the double engine. All he can do is jump out and ask her, can he help her with the walker into the charger that kept him from going for over an hour? So clearly he could not um beat up grandma and he didn't need the brass knuckles. He was just so embarrassed that his thought life took him so far from the truth, right? So I give that example to say that whenever there's a conflict in the family, you have to relegate it to what the true issue is. If you're talking about, okay, look, we fighting over $2, don't be going back to you remember that time you beat me in hot sauce? Mm-mm-no, that's not relevant. Stay on topic because you will only broaden the issue and make it worse. I want to be at peace not only with myself, but I want to be at peace with people that I love. But if you can't reciprocate that kind of energy in my life, it's just not gonna work out. It's just not because at this stage, in our 50s, yo, we don't need a lot of drama and we um won't tolerate a lot of drama. I know people who throw their own grandkids out. Come in here with that rah-rah if you want to. Disturbing grandma's peace. She ain't trying to hear that. Because this is a new day and a new era in our lives. Things that were acceptable in our 30s and 40s, we just not trying to hear that. Um, that's the first tip is to stay on topic whenever you have a disagreement. The next thing is you want to think about communication. When you are in a disagreement, it is best to use I statements instead of using you statements, because if I can take the blame for it, if I can express it from my point of view, then it does not impose blame on the other person. When you, you, you, you, you, you, then that is shifting the blame to that person. And it causes people to be dismissive of what you're saying. When you start pointing the fingers, you're no longer heard. So communicating in a way that's open and honest, effective. I think that communication and well, we all know that communication is key in any relationship, but especially in a family, because when you really think about the importance of a family, I was reading this, and this would have been my put some Jesus on it, and I need to find the scripture, uh, Genesis 17, 12. In the scripture, and this is this is how I know that family is not just people that you are born with, because in this scripture, God is telling Abraham to circumcise everybody in his house, even the slaves. And he's saying that I am making covenant with everyone in that house. So even though the people in that house were slaves, they were still family because God was honoring them in the same way he was his sons, right? So to me, that's a beautiful menagerie of a family. When he um speaks of that covenant, that's just the gamut. Genesis 17, 12 through 14. For the generations to come, every male among you who is eight days old must be circumcised, including those born in your household or bought with money from a foreigner, those who are not your offspring. Whether born in your household or bought with money, they must be circumcised. My covenant in your flesh is to be an everlasting covenant. Any uncircumcised male who has not been circumcised in the flesh will be cut off from his people. He has broken my covenant. So this covenant extended to everybody that was in the house, which was family. And I think that we get stuck on, you know, just blood, but it's bigger than that. I have the most amazing collection of family members here in New York City that I never even imagined, but I can call on some of them faster than I can call on blood. I mean, I don't know if that's the way it's supposed to be, but that is in fact the case. Now, another thing when you are dealing with conflict within a family or any kind of dispute, you have to be sensitive to your own emotional triggers. I'll give an example of that in a family situation where uh one of my younger family members was experiencing a tantrum at the time they were 19 or so. But it was a really ugly scene. It was Christmas. I was expecting us to do the normal family thing that we do, and uh, they just turned into a Tasmanian devil. The yelling and screaming, it triggered me. And I literally got in my car and drove home on Christmas Eve because I couldn't take it. I couldn't take it. Just the bad behavior they expressed and just the response of the parents to just be so, so removed. I was thinking to myself, it was like watching a train wreck, but you're the only one that can see it. I'm like, does anybody else see this? And the behavior was just so atrocious that in order to protect my peace, I would rather sleep at a rest stop in Maryland and drive the rest of the way to Brooklyn than to expose myself to the foolishness that someone else allows in their home. I can't control what goes on in anybody else's home. I can control how I respond to it and I can control what I allow to permeate my spirit. I have to protect my peace of mind. So be sensitive to emotional triggers and remove yourself for situations that cause you distress, cause you emotional harm, that cause you any kind of mental stress. Because at the end of the day, I feel like when you respond a certain way, you also teach people how you want to be treated and also tell them where the line is drawn. If I can tell you that, hey, look, I appreciate you know that you have children, but I just can't be around it. And then they have the option to either say, okay, yeah, or no. But I recognize what it is that in my 50s I'm willing to put up with. And some of it I'm just not going to. And I think that's okay. I also suggest when it comes to communication, I recommend a calm and thoughtful approach. And sometimes that may force you to walk away and to come back when clearer heads prevail. First off, I'm a Libra and I hate confrontation. So I'm never that chick that's gonna be like, uh-uh-uh-uh. No, no, I'm never gonna do that because that's not my demeanor. We can talk about it, and if he's on some rah-rah, I will always walk away because I hate to argue. I would rather gnaw off my arm than to argue with you. So, what I tend to do is say, I need a minute because I have broken relationships for life because I responded badly in a situation. And I responded so badly I couldn't recover from it. So I recognize as a part of my rich maturing process that sometimes I have to walk away and reconsider. In the car example with my ex, I don't have to go to 10 in order to come back because it's an old lady that's approaching me and not some dude that I can beat down, right? I don't have to go to 10 anymore. I need a minute. And then I'll go away and I'll think about it because number one, I don't want to hurt the relationship, family, friend, whatever it is. I no longer want to burn bridges. Oh, I used to carry a torch. Baby, you talking about fire. I set the bridge on fire with you on it. But I don't need to live that way anymore. That was a defense mechanism to protect myself from whatever I thought I was gonna experience. At this stage, I'm willing to put myself out there and be open to the experience, even if it causes me a little hurt. I know how to recover. That's again a benefit of being older. We know how to recover. Our heart is no longer worn on our sleeve where we can't maneuver and we can't move or think without the next person. We're no longer so codependent, hopefully not. I have to speak from my experience, because I boy, I was a barnacle to a ship. Boy, if I love you, ooh, let me tell you. You suck like Chuck. So um, yeah, that's another thing. Just a calm, sensitive approach. Next, you want to think about picking your battles. Sometimes it just ain't that serious. Sometimes it's just not that serious. I had a disagreement with my younger sister at the time. I threw flame on purpose. Like it wasn't accidental flame. I threw flame on purpose. But it was really silly. I just wanted her to um recognize that, you know, sometimes stuff is just not worth the heat. She threw me out of her house.

SPEAKER_00 18:05

She threw me out. My nephew had to come and get me. I was talking Greensboro, North Carolina. She sat me outside like that cat on the Flintstal.

SPEAKER_01 18:18

I think I was mad enough for her too. I don't even remember, but yeah, she threw me out. I don't think we spoke since then. But anyway, I'm okay with that because this is not someone who brings me warm and fuzzies and joy into my life. Would I rather be speaking to her in the conventional sense? Yes. But do I feel a ways because we are not? No, not really. And I don't mean that in a facetious way because we are family and we need each other. Let me be very clear. All right? We're not speaking, but y'all better not mess with her. You better not mess with her. She's still mine, whether we're speaking or not. So let me make that very clear, okay? Now, because you know, we probably kiss and make up whenever. But I have to say that she's not the person who, you know, calls you with good news or, you know, a word from the Lord or like. She's just not that. Always it's some uh some gossip or some drama or some uh something that's happening with somebody that, like, yeah. So I can't say that I'm missing our communication. Do I miss her as a sister? Yes. But do I miss us communicating not at all? Because she's still my sister, whether we're speaking or not. But y'all better not miss with her. So choose your battles carefully. Everything is not meant to be a 10. And the reality of it is, is that it only adds stress to your life. I feel good about my decisions because I know my family, and I recognize that I am the one in my family who is always pushing Thanksgiving. Every year, I'm the coordinator of making sure that everyone is in North Carolina and that we're all having this big Thanksgiving that we've done for probably 30 years. Even when my parents were alive, like it was just tradition that everybody come home for Thanksgiving. And even after they passed away, I made sure that I carried on that tradition and everyone would fall in line. If, you know, if Auntie say, come through, everybody would be in position. Uh, turkeys made. Well, you know, now we got vegans. We used to just have a turkey and a ham. Now we gotta have salmon, we gotta have tofu, all that. But everybody come through. These last few years, I haven't felt like that should be my position anymore. I am cultivating my own family here in New York that may not necessarily be blood, but I am hosting local Thanksgiving and enjoying it just as much with people that I love locally and not having to be the curator of Thanksgiving for my entire family. I ain't got no kids. Why should I be the lead on this? Right? So I have been enjoying these years in a different way and allowing them to navigate their own holiday waters. The next thing is that when we experience these things with family, you have to be able to approach it without experiencing a silk sense of guilt, unless you are guilty. Now, I have been on the side of arguments, uh, and yeah, it was all me. I can't even, you know, say you just I jumped off, I popped off, you know, popping up and popping, and it was it was all me. If I'm guilty, then yeah, maybe I should experience a little guilt. But don't bear the weight of guilt that's not yours. Don't let the weight of someone else's foolishness or someone else's decisions or someone else's thoughts of you be the guilt that you wear because it's not yours. What I take is what I do deservedly, but not uh anyone else's, I won't bear that weight. Because I feel like protecting my peace is a part of self care. You know, if I'm gonna be getting facials and uh all of this, and you know, like why wouldn't I take care of my inner man, which is absolutely more important than anything I have going on on the outside for all the kids. Cuteness and skin treatments and nails and hair and all that, I skip all that for the sake of my spirit. My peace, right? That's something intangible. That's spirit. That's life to me. If I can do all of these things to take care of the outer shell, all the more when it comes to the inner me. Because the inner me is reflected on the outside. I recently caught a video by this man named Joe Dispenza about women who live alone are the most magnetic. And in this video, he talks about when you live alone, you only have your own energy to contend with. When you live with other people, you have to shift and adjust your energy to accommodate that other person in your space. So I feel like because I'm a woman who lives alone and not lonely, again, those are two completely different things. A woman who lives alone, I probably have less tolerance because I'm so accustomed to the peace and the sanctity of my own home. So I don't know what that looks like for people who live with others, but for me, I do agree that because I live alone, I don't have to shift my energy to accommodate other people's. And also in his video, he explains that the electromagnetic uh charges in our brain when we make decisions click much faster for people, for women who live alone because we make those decisions more regularly alone than people who live with someone, right? Like if you have a partner, those decisions are made usually between two or between people in the household, which causes those decision-making charges to click slower than someone who has to do it all the time. When you have to do it all the time, it just becomes second nature. So there are those advantages, but even whether you live alone or not, your peace is paramount. Okay, let the P and P stand for paramount because it's so important and it matters as it relates to how we live and the success of our lives and, you know, just comfort and well-being. So I um am coming to the end of things. I do encourage people who may be struggling that there are options, there's therapy, there's mediation. Family, especially the black family, is the nucleus, right? And I I could go on about how when the black man was taken from the home, that really began the demise of the black family. So we're still suffering from the residuals of that era in the 60s, 70s, even now with incarceration and some other things of the black man being removed from the home, which has made the woman have to be the man and shifted the dynamics completely. But I don't want to uh go too deep in that. I just want you to know that family matters and that when there's the dispute, you know, you can always use any of these resources to try to get things back on track. I'll take my own advice and you know, maybe I'll call my sister. Nah, not yet.

unknown 24:53

I need another minute.

SPEAKER_02 24:54

She sat me out like the cat on the flit stones. That's so rude. How you throw your own sister out? I don't even live down there no more.

SPEAKER_01 25:00

Anyway, uh forgiveness. Also, lean on trusted friends. Lean on your extended family. Again, the most beautiful thing God gave us was the ability to create our own families. My next door neighbor, I consider him family, just as much as I do my brother. As a matter of fact, I'm trying to decide who's gonna walk me on down the aisle once I meet this man. Who's gonna walk me down the aisle this year? Once I meet him, I ain't even met him yet, but I'm just speaking it into existence. When I meet him, I don't know, you know, I don't know if it's gonna be this one or my brother. It'll probably be my homeboy. Anyway, lean on trusted friends. Outside perspectives can provide clarity and help navigate difficult family dynamics, especially if they know your family, because when you talk about it, like when I talk to my girlfriend's about my family, they'd be like, girl, I know that was all. Because they know. So, you know, use your support system to overcome these things. I want to leave you with key takeaways, which is communication is key. Be clear and empathetic in your communication. Avoid blame and using defensive statements by using the word I instead of you. Pick your battles. Not every conflict needs to be addressed. Choose wisely. Protect your peace at all costs. Boundaries are essential. Walking away can sometimes be an act of self-preservation, not abandonment. So don't confuse the two. Don't be afraid to seek help. Again, therapy, mediation, count on your support system, your friends, your extended family. And remember that family is bigger than blood. Family can be born and created. All you need to know is y'all better not mess with mine. We can fuss and fight all we want to on the inside, but let you step in and it's popping. You don't want that. You don't want no smoke with us. Okay, so lastly, I want to put some Jesus on it and leave you all with the good word. In Ephesians 4.32, because this is the crux. Again, I go back to the importance of family. Maybe there's some things I have to, you know, ask for some forgiveness on with my family. So Ephesians 4.32 says, be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other. Just as in Christ God forgave you. Ponder how much God has forgiven you, and it'll cause you to be more forgiving of those who have hurt you. The opposite is also true. Again, that's Ephesians 4.32. I had to put some Jesus on it. I want to thank you, thank you, thank you for joining me for another episode of 50-ish and fab. It means everything to me that you all take the time. And I pray that the grace that you show me by listening is multiplied in your own life a hundredfold. To God in me, honest to God in you, shalom, like, share, subscribe.