posted on Feb, 20 2010 @ 09:14 PM
This is not a new topic and I think everyone is aware of it on some inner level. But for some reason it's really bubbled to the top for me today: the
social destruction of the family.
Briefly, we have the large divorce rates, the children shuttled between home and home, less contact with extended family, etc. Then even supposing a
faimily stays together there is often internal alienation, lack of communication between spouses and parents/children, "drama," conflicting values,
etc.
I know that things weren't always easy in the old days so I'm not going to overemphasize the "good old days" in a simplistic way. For one, a lot
more people got sick and died back then. I know a lot of people who died when I was still quite young. Also, people were locked into sick family
situations and couldn't leave. All kinds of abusive stuff went on behind closed doors and people didn't talk about it.
But I don't think what society has produced today is any great miracle, either. Just to have a family most people these days need both parents
working (if they are lucky enough to get jobs in this crazy economy) and that brings its own stresses. There is no security, you are seeing a lot of
people living on the edge, literally a month or two from homelessness year after year. And of course increasing numbers of families actually are being
tipped over into real homelessness. The cultural rot is spreading quickly in all directions.
I know there are still millions of committed and good familu people who love their kids and their relatives and keep strong contact and support.
Millions of everyday people move the earth for their kids or their sick parents or their relationships or what have you. It is this basic human trait
that gives me the most hope in the species because its still strong. But its under such withering attack from so many angles now that I deeply fear
for the family and what it means. Further decay could mean literally catastrophic implications for the very underpinnings of civilization and humanity
itself.