Is family life a thing of the past?

I couldn't think of a better title for the thread. A while ago there was a thread about men being sissys and satisfied. Which I began to reflect upon in my mind. I came to people today feel they wouldn't need a family of their own for children, relationships, sex and so forth. Has anyone really seen this as well. Maybe it's just me here. I come from a traditional family. My parents are married, work, kids, and just family life like you'll see in the Home Alone movies. Since I have been maturing I have been resisting what I used to support. Same sex marriage, sperm donors, and what not. I feel being a man attracted to a woman physically; as well traditional family life is becoming more a taboo subject everyday. I do respect other people with different views. I just like to have a better understanding with what's going on in this little heck we call the world.

I assumed I was the only one who was maturing out of those beliefs. I was previously a strong proponent of homosexual marriage as I seen it as simply equal rights and denying the view that the objectivity to it is drawn mostly from the view of established traditional family and societal order.

It’s not about denying people their rights as it is maintaining and preserving tradition. The family unit was a sign of solidarity throughout our world prior to the onset of the Liberal revolution of the ‘60s and ‘70s and again in the ‘90s.

The replacement rate for a society is a fertility rate of 2.11, at 1.8 the cultural decline has never been reversed and at 1.3 it is impossible to reverse as the society will inevitably die. Currently the US fertility rate is 1.6 but if you add immigration from Latin Nations it goes up to the bare minimum of 2.11. My objection to such things as Planned Parenthood, Homosexual marriage, and other socially liberal causes is not about any Christian fundamentalist view or a view skewed by discrimination but rather a view about keeping our country around in the future.

Just take a look at Europe for example, Spain has a fertility rate of 1.1 that is irreversible and in the future the Spanish people will become the minority since their population is still growing due to Muslim immigration. So Spain, Netherlands, France, UK, Germany, Sweden, and many other countries will become Islamic majorities by mid-century due to these socially liberal causes.

Never before in history have we ever tampered with the basic organic and natural order of society until the late 20th century. More than half of marriages end in divorce, high rates of crime, dependence on the state is increasing, abortion and adoption numbers are outrageous, and yet they still want to continue to make things worse for our society.

Everything about a country goes back to its families. If a country has a failed state of families it too will become an immoral and failed state. When the divorce rate reaches higher than 10% and more than 5% of children are either in adoption or are aborted it is a failed state. The family is the basic building block of a culture and a society, it is where children are born and become the future leaders of their countries. They can either be raised right and be respected members of the community, independent, and productive or they can be raised wrong and be dangerous members of the community, dependent, and counter-productive.

We have such lousy politicians because we have become such a lousy society, parents are treating schools like baby sitters, the government like the father, and are not worried about their kids when they should be watching them. Westerners have become increasingly irresponsible, dependant, and immoral. Everything about a society can be traced back to the family, if we have bad families we have a bad society.




I strongly recommend everyone read this book if they want to know more about education, family, and tradition. It is free and is online at the link provided below.

www.ilt.columbia.edu...

reply to post by Romantic_Rebel


We live in a very different world today, compared to 30 years ago. Hell, even 15 years ago. I was born and raised in South Africa within a "traditional" family. Mom & Dad have been married for 38 years now. Sure, they have their differences, fights, screaming matches if you will, but they always sort things out and move along.

I think it's just too darn easy nowadays for people to get divorced. I'm 33 years old, and amazed at how many of my school buddies have been married and divorced already. Hell, one of my buddies has been M&D twice.

My philosophy is this: Unless I'm 100% sure that the person I'm with is to be my life long partner, I will not propose marriage. Now I know people will say "how can you be 100% sure?" You can't, but you must be 100% sure that you will stick with the person. Unless of course, they cheat on you etc. That however is out of one's hands.

As for family life, well lot's of reasons for that going down the crapper. Kids are addicted to TV and internet. My Mom would only allow us to play our ATARI video games for so long on the weekend, and then it was "outside" time.

I actually feel sorry for the new generation. They will never experience and appreciate the simpler things in life like I have. What's better, sitting in front of a TV playing video games, or climbing a mountain and watching the sunrise? Mountain for me Thanks!

reply to post by Misoir


Awesome post -

I am often representing juveniles in the court process and often meet with their primary custodian-
I often see grandparents raising the child or a single parent - very few are from a traditional home and I often wonder if things would be different for that child if they did

I am not trashing single parents or grandparents raising children- I am just stating that there is a correlation between juveniles with issues and there family structure

I think one contributing factor to the changes is overzealous independence, subtle narcissism and me, me, me attitudes which I think are a result of both choice and circumstance. I too am guilty of a little self-centeredness and a bit cynical about relationships and family, for myself. Values have changed, the world has changed and so too are the newer generations. As mentioned, divorce rate is actually more than half(upper 60 %) and people's idea of family and happiness is eroding in this ever increasing pace of life and information flow/exchange. So of that 60+ percent, the children of those families grow up with less value on family traditions, because many of them have never experienced it. My folks split when I was 5 and I later found out they were never even in love, and I was an accident that they tried to do the best with. No my parents never made me feel like an accident, but you know what I'm sayin'.

People don't sit down at dinner together like they used to and, well again I think it is a big part of the sign o the times as our world shrinks and becomes further commercialized, literally. Sure I miss/ long for the Walton and Little House On the Prairie kind of scenarios, but those modalities have become antiquated, imo. So many of us from divorced families grow up thinking" I'll never have a family to put them thru what I went thru," and this set's in at a young age, becoming hard to shake. Throw in a couple of bad relationship experiences and the fate becomes sealed almost, and cynicism sets in(with regard to starting new families).
My .02

Peace,
spec

Some might say it's another sign of the times. My family life would not be considered normal anymore. We eat at the table, go for walks, get outside, don't have cable, and don't have wii. Our kids have time limits on computer time outside of research.

Originally posted by speculativeoptimist

People don't sit down at dinner together like they used to and, well again I think it is a big part of the sign o the times as our world shrinks and becomes further commercialized, literally.

Man, you hit the nail on the head. Families don't sit down and eat dinner like I used to when I was a kid. It gives everyone time to chat about their day and discuss issues, problems, good news, etc. Essentially it is a bonding process that helps keep families together.

reply to post by winotka


Kudos to you my friend, your kids will grow up better people for what you are doing for them. They may not like it now (peer pressure), not being able to speak about the latest cable TV program, but they will enjoy the simple things in life, and appreciate it

reply to post by TortoiseKweek


It's ironic that these simple things seem so amazing to others. I don't think it takes that much effort to be with your kids, pay attention to them, and teach them respect.

I don't know about other families, but I do know that mine is in dischord because of child-support and housing restrictions that are put on our family. My mother has been battling cancer all my life, and my father has had to stay away from my mother and I most of my life. If he were caught staying with us, we would have our HUD voucher revoked, and we would be forced into the streets (where I spent most of my childhood in shopping carts and motels). So while he is forced to stay away he's billed by child support that took his driver's license because he hasn't been able to pay child support, which he now can't possibly catch up on because the past decade he hasn't had a car for steady work!

Now my mother has passed away last month, and since then my family has had to help me deal with housing and social services with me because my parents made sure I would never have to worry about it. Well now I am because my father helped my mom deal with chemotherapy and just living life in general, to do that, yes, he had to stay with us for awhile, but every night he's had to leave us because he couldn't stay longer than 7 or so hours a day. He and I have had to write letters to housing stating how much income he has brought into the house and how much time he had stayed, and when we sent in our plea (which was much more personal and formal than a request form) asking for my father to be put on the housing voucher with me, so I wouldn't be displaced after my mother's death. We just got the denial letter stating that if he is not married to my mother, adopted by her, or a child of hers under the age of 18, he can't be put on the voucher, and I will have to move out on my own and displace my father yet again. I've had to have family come from out of state to take all of the family belongings because I can't possibly take care of all that if I'm to move out on my own so suddenly.

So to me, yeah, the family life is slowly being broken up by the bureaucratic bull# that everybody is getting caught up in and being shredded by the process.

Maybe part of the dissolution of the family is because it's increasingly common for one or both parents to work 50-60 hours or more a week just to keep a roof over their head and food on the table.

I would say that the women's rights movement probably has had some influence as well. A lot of women are choosing careers over having families, and many career women no matter how enlightened consciously or unconsciously still believe in traditional gender roles where the man is expected to be the primary bread-winner, which leads to resentment if they can't find a man that fills that role.

What about our culture that has, since the 70's 'self help movement', instilled this idea in us that we deserve the absolute best of everything? That seems to have led to generations of people (men and women) with unrealistic standards regarding who they'd consider being in relationships with. Add to that the fact that our culture celebrates the notion that it's not only acceptable, but commendable, to treat people like Mac gadgets, and always be looking to 'upgrade' to the next 'newest' or 'better' model.

You could also say that people expect everything in their personal life should have an easy answer and/or solution, and things that require committed and consistent work aren't worth the trouble. And relationships and families are just that. Work. Constant work.

IMO, it's not just the crumbling sense of family, but also of true friendships and the sense of community is saddening. Kind of seems like we're so caught up in trying to impress and one-up each other in all areas of life that we miss out on enjoying just being in the company of one another.

...its not true that the majority of society used to have the luxury of sitting down to a meal together once a day... for every family who had that luxury, there were many dozens who didnt and for all kinds of reasons - the nuclear family excuse being the least weighty...

...but, of course, lets pretend that life was all hunky dory wonderful prior to the 20th century and lets blame the liberalism of the 60s, 70s, 80s for all of society's woes and lets not forget to blame mexicans and muslims because their birthrate isnt in decline... tsk, tsk, tsk...

reply to post by FuzzyDunlop


I'm sorry that the government has put your family into that uncomfortable position. The way the laws and government welfare programs work are designed to destroy the family unit.

It is the one subject I completely agree with fundamentalist christians on: the Family.

Without families we become easy prey as there are no guiding influences close by. Situational ethics have become the order of the day and people have grown self-centered, greedy and suspicious of others.

Government should make it their guiding principle to not punish families for staying together, It's become a tragic situation and we all suffer for it even if we have functional, loving families. My sincerest sympathies go out to those who have never known a real family life. Sadly, their numbers are growing.

For all the bad we can ascribe to religion, destroying families is rarely one of them.

reply to post by Asktheanimals


I think you may have mixed up or combined my post with jacksterson's (to which I'll add: That's indeed a heartbreaking post and my thoughts are with you (jacksterson)).

I agree with you that whatever faults one may find in (any) organized religion, a lack of value for the family isn't one of them. That being said (and this is where my beliefs may start seeming contradictory), I don't think 'traditional' families are what we should be exclusively grasping to return to. There's no reason why a same sex couple can't form a functional and loving family. Most of us (hopefully) have close friends that we truly consider family in every sense except blood. People who adopt form families every bit as valuable as those who are raising their biological children.
If we want a world where people have actual value, we can, but we have to make sacrifices. We have to stop our bird-like/infantile obsession with anything shiny and new. We have to honestly do a value vs. cost assessment of a political and economic system set up to, for the most part exclusively, reward what amounts to anti-social / sociopathic behaviour. We need to stop viewing genuine kindness, selflessness and compassion as weaknesses to be exploited.
Or we could always keep telling ourselves that the homeless should just get jobs and obviously did something to deserve being where they are and go to sleep soundly knowing that we have a bigger house and a nicer car than our neighbours (who we've never talked to for more than 5 minutes). You know, that part in the Bible/Torah/Qur'an where (insert name of favoured deity) said "And none shall enter heaven unless they haveth a five bedroom home and a nicer lawn than thy neighbours".

Well I am very old fashioned and traditional. I want that family life with the white picket fence and all. I have noticed the whole "family" thing has gone out the window lately. I see it with my friends and their families. They don't have any family time or even sit down and eat dinner together. I personally think that is why kids are so bad now a days compared to when I was younger. They get no family interaction, it's like they are left to fend for themselves and the parents can't be bother with their kids...

reply to post by mblahnikluver


I think you're partially right about why kids act out the way they seem to these days. I'm not sure it's that parents can't be bothered to spend time with their kids so much as a lot of them are working ridiculous amounts of hours a week just to support their kids and are unable to spend as much time as they'd like. On the other hand I spent a year painting houses mostly in upper-class and rich neighbourhoods and it became apparent to me that a lot of people in that income bracket have kids as nothing more than a lifestyle accessory or status symbol. As in 'I'm making so much money that I can afford to have a kid (that I also send to private school)'. They don't actually raise their kids, they have nannies to do that. Marriage and family is also a strategy used by some people to help further their careers.

Originally posted by FuzzyDunlop
reply to post by mblahnikluver

 

I think you're partially right about why kids act out the way they seem to these days. I'm not sure it's that parents can't be bothered to spend time with their kids so much as a lot of them are working ridiculous amounts of hours a week just to support their kids and are unable to spend as much time as they'd like. On the other hand I spent a year painting houses mostly in upper-class and rich neighbourhoods and it became apparent to me that a lot of people in that income bracket have kids as nothing more than a lifestyle accessory or status symbol. As in 'I'm making so much money that I can afford to have a kid (that I also send to private school)'. They don't actually raise their kids, they have nannies to do that. Marriage and family is also a strategy used by some people to help further their careers.

I don't think it's that the parents are working a lot of hours, that too is a cop out imo. My mother worked 2 jobs went to school and raised 3 kids alone and we still had family dinner with no tv, games or cell phones. We had chores and family time. You make time for your family.

Agreed on the other parts. I don't have kids, can't have them myself but I will adopt and it really bothers me sometimes to see people with kids. It's like they don't want them or they are an inconvenience to their life, it's sad. If you don't want kids please don't have them! They are not an accessory, it's a life!

Personally, most of my friends have a pretty "normal" family life. Mom and Dad are married, they have kids, the kids play together, etc.

My wife and I don't have kids, (she has a son and a daughter from a previous marriage, but they aren't with us). We don't have any plans for more, as financially it wouldn't be the best idea (and we always agreed that we should be in a position where at least one of us could be home with the kid/s). There are other complications as well, but suffice to say, we do babysit our friends' kids as often as we can.

So, what are the common threads?

1. Each couple got married a little later than the norm (i.e. in their 30's, vs. their 20's).
2. Each couple brings in enough income for the mom to be home (and/or work from home).

These TWO factors, I think, are what could really rebuild the idea of the nuclear family, that many of us feel is ideal. There are also additional factors....

3. Family in the same city (allows for babysitting, sense of family, etc.)
4. Friends (so they don't feel as if family life is cutting them off)...

Most of the "normal" families are either home-schooling, or private schooling.

If you have a normal family, be prepared to deal with your children's friends, who cannot figure out why there are so many rules. "turn off the TV so we can eat," "finish your homework before you can go play." "you cannot go over to Billie's house unless his grandma calls me and says it's ok."

Then be prepared for the kids who initially mock your lifestyle to ask if they can move in. Seriously.

As much as i think that everyone should be entitled to try and be a "nuclear family" its fair to say that this shape does not suit all. I agree that it *MAY* be more beneficial for society as a hole, but i also accept that there are a diverse amount of different families. Lone-parents maybe a common occurance here in the uk, But the reasons why thats happened is because the other parent is either unsuitible and cannot furfil the role needed or both parents have grown to hate eachother and can no longer be civil to one another.

I think its more important to recognise the reasons why the nuclear family structure (Notice i didnt call it traditional?) Has decayed over time. I think one of the main reasons is because of economic hardships. The second being changing attitudes to sex and lastly this generations expectations of love and marriage. Another factor that also plays a big role in the break up of nuclear familys is class. You will notice that the traditional class structure of british society is coming back into play and previous studys suggest that the working class are more likely to end up divorcing and therefore, breaking up their familys. Which calls into question - Are there more people now that fit the working class structure then what there was 50 years ago? What is clear is that people living 50 years ago got more for their wages and thus, less money problems.

Lastly, i dont believe we will ever see a complete return to a common nuclear family structure - The boat has sailed so to speak. Women are enjoying being independent (Having their own money and not having to ask their husbands) The current generation (From 18-30) are living in a time when abuse of alcohol and drugs is rife, combined with a changed attitude to sex which gives the green light for promiscuity with little, to no consequence. The lack of housing afforded to the working class (council houses, not privately rented at extortionate prices) will also be playing a part on limiting the revival of nuclear familys. And lastly, until the minimum wage becomes WORTH working for, people being "Married to the state" will remain a common "Occupation"