Societal Trends and the Family

"You do what's best for you", "be yourself", "I need to jump start my career before I start my family." These and other phrases are all phrases we have heard at one point or another; and while we understand them, and see the rationale behind them, it can lead us to wonder if our societies are starting to become more focused on the concept of me over we. Ok... so what, big deal, why does it matter? Would a society focused on the individual really hurt us? The answer is yes it would, today I will give you some examples of how only being focused on what we want instead of what is best for families, has grown into some major societal trends; trends that are harming families. Today will be more of a summary and over the next few weeks we will dive further into specific topics.

1st. A society focused on the individual has led to more premarital sex; often leaving children born to such couples being raised by one parent, or in some cases leading to decisions of abortion. Children born into these circumstances are also born to mothers who are still in High school, sometimes leaving children in the poverty levels for the rest of their lives.

• As of the 1980's: 49% of high schoolers had sexual intercourse at least once.
• 2007: 39.7% of births were to unmarried moms.
• 61% of women in their early 20s who have kids are unmarried. 

    Stats come from chp. 1 of a book titled: Marriage and Family in America:Needs, myths, and dreams.

2nd. Cohabitation: A society focused on the individual has led to more cohabitating (living with a partner before marriage). I have many friends who fall into this category, so what I cite is backed by research, and not coming from a religious opinion. Cohabitating has been found to lead to a much higher chance for divorce when married, therefore breaking up families instead of strengthening them. Where cohabitation and children are involved, research has also found a much higher percentage of cases of child abuse. Abuse weakens our family systems, and with that, weakens the very foundation of our societies. 

• "Three-quarters of children born to cohabiting parents would experience parental breakup before they reach age 16. Nearly a third of children born to married parents faced a similar fate."
•  "U.S. and Canadian women in cohabiting relationships were nine times more likely to be killed by their partner than women in marital relationships."
• "Children living in cohabiting households were less inclined to care about school and homework performance and their academic performance was poorer than that of children living with their married biological parents." 
• "Children in cohabiting households demonstrated more emotional and behavioral problems, such as not getting along with peers, experiencing difficulty in concentration and feeling sad or depressed. Among adolescents ages 12- 17, the percentage of those exhibiting emotional and behavioral problems was six times greater in cohabiting stepfamilies than in married biological-parent families. Negative school engagement was also more common among children in cohabiting families"

3rd. Lower Fertility Rates: The more individualistic we become, the more studies have shown that children are being put on the backburner. We choose to have kids, when it becomes convenient for us; and we all know that if we wait to do something when we have time for it, quite frankly it just never happens. 

• One of the consequences of low fertility rates is the fact that the less kids we have, the less people there are to take care of the elderly.
• Let me give you an example: My mom comes from a family of 10 (and I am not saying that everyone should have 10 kids), at a very young age my grandpa was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.  My moms family worked out a plan where one week a child would fly or drive out to where my grandpa was living at the time and would take care of him, and the next week another sibling would take their turn. My mom and her siblings rotated on and off in helping my grandma care for her husband in his final stages of life. 
• Now take this scenario and imagine that at a young age my grandparents had decided to have a dog instead of children. Dogs don't talk back, they always love you, they are less expensive, and quite frankly they are much easier to take care of. WHO would have helped my grandma care for my grandpa? 
• Or take the same scenario and say that they had decided to have one or two kids, imagine two children trying to rotate every other week in order to try to help out. Even from an individualistic perspective, we could see how having bigger families would have its benefits later on.

4th. Employed moms: I realize that there are many moms who have to work in order to keep their families afloat; we applaud those moms, and their constant strength to mother and work at the same time. They are truly doing what is best for their families. We must also recognize, however, that for those who choose to work in order to pay for a lot of extra things in life, maybe what we really need extra of is a mother at home who is positively influencing her children. There is research on the many positive effects of having a stay at home mom. 

I know that there are some who would consider this an outlandish idea, an idea that oppresses women; but I hope you will know that I believe in empowering women. "The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world," and truly that empowerment can come from within our families.

5th. Divorce: like I said earlier, there are always exceptions to certain situations in what is helping and harming the family. I recognize that in cases, such as abuse, divorce is a needed action. However, we also recognize that so many families who chose to fall out of love would have benefited the society, children, and themselves by putting more thought and effort into what had turned into a harder relationship.

The family is the most fundamental unit of society, its stability determines the stability of our local communities, states, nations and even the world. Alex Haley, an american author once said, "In every conceivable manner, the family is a link to our past and a bridge for our future." I guess the question we should really ask is, "How strong is that bridge?"