Falling Skies 2

In the first post I wrote about what I have come to see as the building block of society, namely families. So what are a families function? I explore 4 ideas next.

Preservation of our species

Providing Structure and protection

Imprinting love, social roles, sense of belonging.

Preparing children to live productive lives… understanding service, and relationships.

Preservation of our species

First of all it is to preserve our species. The creation of new humans. We know we come into the world unable to survive on our own so a family structure gives us that protection when we are vulnerable. We currently find our selves in a society where the term “family” is used to mean any two or more people who live together, but that really is a relationship… but not a family.

Structure and Protection, A Sense of Belonging

Secondly it provides structure and protection. We feel “right” living in families… most children who don’t have families want one… why? Because that’s where we can have a place in a “something” – structure… a group to belong to. In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, “belonging” is a basic psychological need. That is the function gangs fulfill when families aren’t present. In it’s ideal state, children feel love of parents and siblings, working together to get through life and support and protection to find out who they are. I realize that there are very few ideal families, but I do believe there was a time when more families strived to create ideal families. A family where there is a poor relationship between the husband and wife will effect how the children view relationships, and their expectation of what a relationship is. I have always been happy that my wife’s parents and my own parents never fought in front of their families. They were people, so I’m sure every day wasn’t perfect, and I know there had to be hard decisions made at times and the odds are they might not always agree… but as a result, there isn’t fighting in our home. We learned the model from our parents. It’s a common story that when parents get divorced, children can feel like one parent is also divorcing them… that they don’t love them any more… of course usually that isn’t true at all, but depending on the age, they might not be able to understand that… because love happens in families… and bad modeling can also happen… and it impacts generations.

Imprinting Love, Societal Roles

A family imprints societal roles, which have also been vilified in many circles, but that of course is it’s function. Women as nurturers and men as providers is a old idea based on thousands of years of evolution. It doesn’t mean at face value either one is more or less important… that is a projection individuals have put over the roles. The fact of life is that children must be cared for, and families must be fed. Really in objective terms one doesn’t trump the other, both are needed. What has risen around those roles is a human dynamic… “who is the leader”… either role, both roles… those are things we figure out in our own families and of course cultures. A family imprints our inter connectedness. As a unit we rely on each other, as society relies on the family unit… it is a web and serves each other and itself. Families are a partnership of every member… if you can’t learn how to do that effectively in your family, then how do you understand the partnership we all have to each other?

Preparing children to live interdependent lives. Understanding service, and relationships.

Today we have been sold that we should be on our own… we should be strong, independent, and self reliant no matter who we are. We are sold that our personal happiness is some thing achieved only at the sacrifice of the group dynamic. But humans are social beings… and we all strive for that connectedness.

In a strong family, we find it. In the real world, no one makes in all on their own. Whether you are a rock star or the clerk at 7/11, you depend on other people to support you. We first learn that in the family. We should learn to work, to support, and to love each other. It's sister waiting her turn while mom drops off her brother at practice. It's the son going to his sisters soccer game instead of playing with friends. It's a 1,000 little interactions inside the family that build the learning and habits of serving and being served.

Lowering the Bar

I am old enough to remember when divorce was not really socially acceptable. I lived next to Catholic families and divorce never would be contemplated… Now, I understand that there are horrific situations people find themselves in… so changing a bad situation is a good thing of course if the problem can’t be solved another way.

I am not in favor of keeping a bad situation intact under any circumstances… I am just feeling that we have lowered the bar to just not having a good week as justification of breaking up a family. I am simplifying I know, I know… but many of the stories you hear are based on the principle that one person, or neither person is willing to sacrifice anything for the other… where did they learn that? It doesn't happen in a week, but the inability to sacrifice our own interests at times is at the heart of a successful family... and a society.

Families Are In Trouble

So over time and though many cycles we find ourselves as adults being told to accept that a family can be “anything you think it should be”. We have been sold the idea that men are stupid, that mothers can raise their children with out a man, that the typical family is unforgivably dysfunctional and that many times we are better without it. We are told if your life isn’t perfect this day, or week, that you should change it instantly. We are painted the picture where our happiness is the only responsibility we have and that sacrifice for another, or for our family isn’t worthy of the price – the postponement of our own happiness. There is a host of bad ideas and misconceptions being sold to us and it is leading us down a dangerous path.

At the end of the day, what we are left with is people who don’t know how to function in a civil society. And the burden to try and teach them those things they should learn in the family falls to the education system, the police system, employers, and the social services system… and they are the wrong place to learn those things. They are being asked to function in a way the system was not designed to function.

Losing Something of Real Value

Of course there are millions of families doing the best they can, but even in strong families we need to make sure we are teaching our children those skills, characteristics, and traits that will create a healthy society. Children are children, and will learn regardless of what we do, we need to make sure we are doing the right things by our children. The ills of society can easily be traced back to failures in familes. We need to fight for our families, and not lose sight of the incredible value they possess. Healthy families are unique in their abilities to do what they do.