FAMILY

Genealogy is the study of your ancestors to learn about your unique family history. This blog, however, is about the concept of family and how crucially important is is. An individual's earliest and most profound experience of the world takes place at home. The experience of family life leaves a distinctive and lasting imprint, and shapes our understanding of how the world outside the home works. The meaning and nature of family and household varies widely across cultures and over time. Families are socially and culturally constructed, not just biologically determined. Family units are nearly universal in world history. Yet whatever their form, familial units were used by peoples around the world to construct the order of their lives at home and they influenced — and were influenced by — the hierarchies of social and political life in the wider world. A review of history proves the point.

In Genesis the Bible records the creation of the first man and woman as well as the command to multiply followed by Eve giving birth to Cain. Historians have found that families and households are universal in world history, but that their specific form is a product of culture and historical change. Moreover, the historical record as represented by official documents — such as codes of law — merely reports the prescribed or dictated ideal behavior; actual historical practices often differed greatly from ideals (imagine a future generation finding a speed limit sign and assuming we all drove slower than that number). According to the learner.org family chapter in their history course, families interacted with and were influenced by various large structures — political, economic, and ideological. The dynamics of historical change is evident not only in the rise and fall of rulers, states, and empires but also in the shifting patterns of family and households over time and across cultures. That's a fancy way to say family life ultimately determines society.

Before the industrial revolution, it was assumed that families were close knit in terms of social duties and obligations to relatives and were extended. As people migrated to the newly developing towns to find work in the new factories, they would go and live with family members who were already there (notice a similarity to the legal and illegal immigration patterns in the USA today). One effect of the industrial revolution in the early days was to extend the family. There was no welfare state to rely on in those days. For a group to be called a nuclear family there must at some time be a father, mother and at least one child. The modern family type is the ‘isolated nuclear family’. Families in the past were extended and networked in terms of social obligations. Although families lived geographically separate from their relatives, they still kept in regular contact with their relatives through visits and phone calls etc. Most of us have been brought up in a typical nuclear family with both our biological parents who are married and living under the same roof, but that situation is changing quickly.

The relationship between parents has also changed in that in the past people had children for economic reasons and were very disciplinarian. Today people do not have children (or have fewer) for economic reasons and relationships are less stern. The period of childhood has also increased, as people are now more dependent on their parents for longer time periods. The nuclear family is a nurturing environment in which to raise children as long as there is love, time spent with children, emotional support, low stress, and a stable economic environment.

In nuclear families, both adults are the biological or adoptive parents of their children. Your family of orientation is the family in which you were born and grew up, while your family of procreation is formed when you marry and have children. The conflict caused by the difference between these two views of family can be severe. In May we celebrated Mothers Day and in June we celebrated Fathers Day. Despite the claims of some, children REQUIRE both for an ideal upbringing. In most cases (but not all) the Father is more strict and the Mother more nurturing. Even when reversed it is a balance that allows a child to thrive in society. There are certainly situations where only one parent does the best they can, but the family and gender orientation rarely can be made diverse enough to be considered ideal.

Some of the adjustments people must make are caused by their relationships. Politics is sometimes referred to as the lubricant of society. Personal preferences are more likely to be enjoyed if you are the only one in your "family". When marriage occurs, two differing sets of personal preferences have to be integrated. The larger a family is, the more skilled each person becomes at balancing their needs and wants with what others need and want. In Matthew 22:37-40 Jesus replied" Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments". I hope you can see the correlation between the command to love your neighbor and the process of integrating the needs of others as high as your own, made easier by higher numbers in larger family groups.

I was born the 6th of 7 children with a 25 year gap between the oldest and youngest. If my parents were still alive they would have 14 grandchildren, an example of zero population growth as an average of the seven children. In only one generation the average children per family dropped in half, a trend quite similar across the United States and the western world. Of the 5 remaining children we all now live in different states with a family reunion attempt every two years. It's not a picture of a close extended family with numerous children at each generation carrying forth a family legacy. You may have noted in the picture of my family of procreation at the beginning that we have three children. The command God gave in Genesis was to multiply but we were too focused on economic reasons during child-bearing years to comprehend what that meant.

Vodie Baucham is an evangelist from Houston with a startling message for The Church regarding the family. Google his name and you'll find a link to a recent presentation where he describes this phenomenon of reduced birthrate as the beginning of the end of civilization as we know it. Groups like the American Family Association, The Alliance Defense Fund, and the Family Research Council are working on the political and legal ramifications of a changing description of the word family. James Dobson at family.org offers practical tips on family life and parenting. Is this blog an expression of concern over the decay of the family and a sign of the crumbling of contemporary society? Yes it is!!! The family structures of the past were superior to those today and families were more stable and happier at a time when they did not have to contend with problems such as illegitimate children and the proliferation of divorce. In the United States of America today we are the wealthiest nation in the world and have more net worth than at any time in history, but don't want to prioritize our money for children. I haven't even mentioned abortion (yet), which is primarily used to prevent added economic hardship on those who practiced procreation.

When we focus on ourselves and our preferences we have no flexibility for the differences of others. In society that comes out as bigotry and war. In the modern family that comes out as divorce, abortion, reduced birthrates, domestic violence and additional stress. When we refer back to the owners manual I call the Bible, we're reminded that life is not about us. The secret of family and the importance of family as designed by our Creator is summed up in the verses mentioned before: Love the Lord and love others as yourself. Now that you know that secret, here's the clincher where John 15:15 quotes Jesus Christ: "If you love me you will obey what I command" and Ephesians 5:21: "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ".

So we've come full circle. Our spiritual life determines our family life. Our family life ultimately determines society. The hierarchies of social and political life in our country as well as the societal health of our entire world come from the critically important family unit. Let's stop shaking our head at newspaper headlines or listening to the news alert about what's wrong with politics, war, and society and fix the root cause starting with our families. If Vodie is right, the future of our civilization rests on us getting on our knees and in our Bibles. Then take time to listen to each other.

There are other practical things that we can each do based on our season in life. My children are grown but I don't yet have grandchildren. I can still invest time in my children and prioritize time when future grandchildren arrive. I can invest more of my time with the families in my church and the 20 something group I try to influence. I have a neighbor who's spending 6 months in California taking care of their grandchild while the parents are on location making a movie (your example might not be as exotic). I can pray intentionally for those God lays on my heart each morning. I can write a blog to get this message to those who have influences with those I don't even know. And now I have.