I think of him as family

Question

It's a family business , it's fun to get to go do all these things together, and I love it .
You look at my daughter, my wife , and now my brother is now building all my fan lights and fan lamps , and it seems only fitting that my dad would have to help as well , being that he started the whole thing with a light that I made for him .
It's family , outside of Bill , but I think of him as family because , good grief , I've been stuck with him for 30 years , you know , so he's almost family .

I wonder how one person can be referred to with a word that represents a group of people .
Is this common ? if so could you give me an example ?

can I say : "I think of him as a family member" ?

Answer 1

Referring to someone as "family" is common and idiomatic. Used this way, it always means a member of your own family. All of the following are acceptable:

I think of him as family.

I see him and his wife as family.

Do you think of him as family?

He's like family to you.

We're all family here.

The usage carries the implication that the person is not only related to you by blood, but that you have a close bond or at least an unbreakable obligation to them.

As for why it works grammatically—that's an interesting question. This is only my analysis, but I think "family" is being treated as uncountable. For an analogy, it would also be fine to look at a slice of bread and say "this is bread," even though the slice is part of a whole. I'd love to hear some other perspectives though.