Abortion, divorce, illegitimacy, family violence, and teen-age pregnacies are up. Fathers across the country are failing to pay child support. Some working mothers are not making their family a priority. Sadly, the children in state homes number in the several millions. As a people of seeming unrivaled freedoms, our sense of responsibility to each other seems unrivaled in the lack of it.

Though the problem in the inner cities seems worse (the problem of the urban families being exacerbated by crime, poverty, and violence), families outside the city are not doing much better. In fact, a growing white underclass has developed in recent years. This underclass is believed to be a casualty of the failed family. In a post Y2K world, will things be any different?

While it comes as no surprise that critics wonder if it would be easier for a miracle to cure today's family ills than all the social experts and family services. Others say it is the lack of love and responsibility that is the culprit in these selfish times. Perhaps, a miracle is needed for the American family. Indeed, if so basic a social structure is impossible, will Y2K further strain a society stumbling toward its own demise?

Is the American family so beyond repair? Most would agree that the family has been beyond the power of government to repair. Big government and social experts couldn't fix the problem. Today, huge challenges are faced in broken homes and single-parent families. If Y2K turns out to be more than a bump in the road, the challenges that a family will face in 2000 will certainly be difficult. Can the family face these challenges together?

At the same time, there may be new opportunities for the family to come together, be strengthed, and take priority in the hearts of family members. In the midst of a dark night, mother and father may realize more clearly that the family is more important than the golf course or the Oprah Winfrey show. Children may also find a new respect for their parents. A need to pull together and work together as a team through economic down turns may be the unfortunate miracle that makes a family a family again.

Sincerely, Stan Faryna

-- Stan Faryna (info@giglobal.com), August 27, 1999

Answers

Stan

Prosperity, or more accuratly, a prosperous society allows it's members to do many things. Not all of them are good. If you are able to get more income easily you can become more independant, even from your family. One of the forces that favored the family was that it was a real boon to have your family stand behind you and help you out. It made the family a resource that wasn't to be discarded lightly. This made the family unit more able to pester you in to socially acceptable behavior because of the obvious value of being a part of the family unit. Laziness wasn't tolerated because the people who would have to carry your load lived in the same house with you and it was obvious who wasn't doing their share and who was. In less prosperous times, the family depended on it's members. Conversely, if you were very productive it was usually noted and rewarded, at least with praise, often with schooling or tools. I believe that this is the origin of the work ethic. I also believe this is why welfare is poison to the family structure. It's the power of currency given to those who can't appreciate because they don't understand what goes in to earning it. If you raise an animal in the zoo, it doesn't learn how to hunt. Lacking those skills is deadly if the animal is then released in to the wild.

We may very well be released in to our "wild" of a less prosperous society.

Keep your...

-- eyes_open (best@wishes.net), August 27, 1999.

1) Many would say that the government's actions have hastened the disruption of the family. It the government willing to fix what it helped break?

2) After a severe Y2K disruption, some family units will break down further (e.g. completely), others will strengthen. Strong family or similar ties will no doubt be survival strengths.

3) I don't think that the American family is beyond repair. Many groups may not want to see it repaired...but that is a different matter. A number of groups are working to try to strengthen marriage and family.

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), August 27, 1999.

If I may...

The "problem" with the American family, or more specifically, the nuclear family, is that it is unnatural. It really is only since the advent of the automobile, and post WWII mobility, that the nuclear family has become prevalent.

Throughout history, the extended family, as part of the village, was the prevalent configuration. It's really only the last half dozen or fewer generations where the nuclear family was considered the norm. It takes more than a half dozen generations to make any fundamental behavior "normal", and I think the "breakdown of the American family" is not a breakdown at all, but rather a symptom of the fact that we're not built to live this way. (most of us, anyway.)

As a culture, we are still bombarded with this idealistic view, the stepchild of the "Father Knows Best" feeling; and if we can't succeed in this idealized fantasy configuration, then there must be something wrong with us. There is nothing "wrong", per se, with individuals who can't succeed in this configuration, it is the configuration itself that is broken. We need grandparents and aunts and uncles and neighbors to properly raise kids; that gives the parents a break, as well as input from others.

As much as I dislike Hillary Clinton (and I haven't read her book), I agree with her 100% when she says that "It Takes a Village." The nuclear family will never be natural, or successful on a large scale, as long as we have primate blood running through our veins...

-- pshannon (pshannon@inch.com), August 28, 1999.

I agree with pshannon, our current concept of family is both recent and artificial. If y2k disrupts techno-tit society I would expect to see an immediate resurgance of the extended family, even if not all members are blood related.

And for me, Stan, this answers your question in the other thread, "Will we Remember what Life is About...". Yes, our very needs will shatter this artificial individual independance far too many of us quest after. We are social animals, needing touch, functioning best in smallish heirarchical political aliances. In times of stress, above the purely physical animal survival, people draw together. If one is speaking "10", my take these days is that will be pure animal survival, and for that reason I have changed by personal prep scenario from being a 10 to a 9.5. I can prep and make plans for a 9.5, a 10 is beyond prep. It might still become a 10, but psychologically I need more than pure animal survival to get my clock ticking. :-)

-- Mitchell Barnes (spanda@inreach.com), August 28, 1999.

And here I thought the nuclear family included aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.

Oh well. Keep your...

-- eyes_open (best@wishes.net), August 28, 1999.

Forrest Gump has the answer the the family of the future..."family is as family does".

We all need people around us. I agree, the nuclear family is artificial. The Leave it to Beaver product for the consumer society.

Post y2k will be a time of great experimentation in what the family means. For the first time in history we will also see great experiments in families with mixtures of many races.

-- Thom Gilligan (thomgill@eznet.net), August 29, 1999.

Can an extended family live under one roof? While necessity may seem to dictate that such a cooperative effort serves the common good of the extended family, it may be that the actions and attitudes of family members prior to a Y2K socio-economic crisis prevent a reconstitution of the extended family... or make such reconstitution difficult at best. Without a history of cooperative effort and some with a painful history of individuals acting in self-interest and to the detriment of other family members, coming together may not seem intuitive or prudent. There are also some real problems to be considered.

The uncle that molested you as a child, the younger sister that had borrowed $10,000 (and boasted with impunity that you would never see that money again), the brother that is an alcoholic and smashed up your car, the father that bear you and your mother in frequent rages, etcetera... all of these describe a variety of disfunctions that previous generations managed to put up with, but that we have no tolerance for, today. Some argue (and not without merit) that the independence of modern society has allowed us to escape the terrible disfunctions of family.

Sincerely, Stan Faryna

-- Stan Faryna (info@giglobal.com), August 29, 1999.

Mitchell Barnes makes an interesting point: that the extended family would not necessarily include blood-related members or not exclusively. Certainly, post-Y2K could be a time of experimentation with the family as Thom Gilligan suggests. I do also wonder how multi-culturalism and multi-racial composition will have effect on extended families that result in both advantages and disadvantages.

Prejudices, for example, may complicate the ability of an extended family to be cohesive. I'm not just thinking of black and white issues, but also the various minority attitudes towards each other or towards white people. On the other hand, multicultural and multiracial composition may bring a diversity of knowledge and skills that lend to the improved capacity of an extended family to survive and prosper in hard times.

Sincerely, Stan Faryna

-- Stan Faryna (info@giglobal.com), August 30, 1999.

In the case of an 8+, I believe that we will see many more extended families living and working together. There won't be much choice. Work together or starve...

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), August 30, 1999.

"Civilization is not inherited; it has to be learned and earned by each generation anew; if the transmission should be interrupted for one century, civilization would die, and we should be savages again."

- Will and Ariel Durant, The Lessons of History

-- Stan Faryna (info@giglobal.com), September 04, 1999.

It's because of the come social probles of HIV/AIDS that's we should put much effort inorder to0 fight against it rathan puting all our attention on other social problems of abortion theift and being self motivatded will help.

-- Dowan Norah (stenor2002@yahoo.com), June 09, 2002.