Old Fashioned Family is Best for Children

Well I've got another granddaughter on the way. She is due in about a week but and we can hardly wait. As usual I wish we lived closer so that I could be a bigger part of my family's life. Being a mother, mother-in-law and grandmother has got to be the best part of life. I do believe that having a close loving family is the best way to enjoy life to the fullest.

There is something to be said for the way families used to function. I'm talking about family structure in world history up until about 100 years ago. Families stayed together geographically. Children grew up and married and still lived with their family - often in a new home built for them on the same piece of pasture land that they grew up on. Children were raised by their parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles. Cousins were best friends and family was the central focus of life.

In spite of the technological deficit and physical hardships, children felt secure in the large family unit. They had more than their parents telling them how to grow into adults, they had the example of everyone around them showing them social etiquette and family obligations. Work ethic was taught early on and they grew up knowing that their contribution to the family was important.

Mother-in-laws remembered what it felt like to be the young bride and new member of the family and so it was easy for them to welcome their son's wife with open, loving arms. If fact she was probably happy to have another woman in the family to commiserate with. Fathers were eager to see their young sons become men and so they encouraged them and accepted them as they grew into individuals with thoughts and opinions of their own.

Of course there were families with more than their share of troubles. I'm sure that mental illness, domestic violence and substance abuse tore families apart then just as they do now. And history is full of stories of children growing up to become outlaws and ladies of the night - likely products of these troubled families. But overall, I think that society functioned nicely for most.

Families today are becoming less cohesive and more isolated from each other and from society in general. We are becoming a culture of lonely, depressed islands unto ourselves. Parents rationalize that a nanny is a good substitute for their own time and attention. And the latest studies show that such children grow up narcissistic and dependent rather than feeling like important contributors to the world around them.

Truth is that no era in history seems to have completely mastered a way to produce a generation of whole, self assured adults. But I do believe that we are falling way off the mark in today's hedonistic, personal and family culture. We are experimenting with the lives of our children and paying too much attention to our own desires and not enough to the needs of our children.

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Now playing: KXNT
via FoxyTunes

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Now playing: KXNT
via FoxyTunes