1. Family Collage: A Picture is Worth A
thousand Words
Hugo Robinson
Communication in The Family
April 8th 2011

2. 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.

3. 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

4. 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)

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

6. 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.

7. 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

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. 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.

11. 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.

12. Family Decision Making
Decision making is the process by Decision making means getting things
which family members make choices, done in a family when one or more
reach judgements, or arrive at family members need to agree with
solutions that end uncertainty each other to accomplish something

13. 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.

14. 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.

15. 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.

16. 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.

17. 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.

18. 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.

19. 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)

20. 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.