I don’t really think of that phrase that way. I think of it as “the person that did not follow the family dynamic”. This could either be positive or negative by societal standards.
If the “black sheep” person comes from a crazy racist family, and the person rejects that racist garbage, they might be outcasts from the family for not following the dynamic, but they’d certainly be the better person in my opinion. Conversely, if the “black sheep” person is career criminal, and the rest of the family is law abiding, then the person with the “black sheep” title would the more traditional agrarian reference to black sheep in the herd and be an outcast from the family for their criminal behavior.
I don’t really think of that phrase that way. I think of it as “the person that did not follow the family dynamic”. This could either be positive or negative by societal standards.
If the “black sheep” person comes from a crazy racist family, and the person rejects that racist garbage, they might be outcasts from the family for not following the dynamic, but they’d certainly be the better person in my opinion. Conversely, if the “black sheep” person is career criminal, and the rest of the family is law abiding, then the person with the “black sheep” title would the more traditional agrarian reference to black sheep in the herd and be an outcast from the family for their criminal behavior.
This.
Someone who’s just too different from the rest of the family.
I know people who got cast out for stupid reasons but also people who kind of did it to themselves. There’s never a systematic way to decide this.