Family: So much attention is paid to the notion of the Family that it has become a separate issue almost as if
one was outside the family of mankind. Whether or not we are together on everything and the relationships
are right is of desperate importance.
Consider the write ups in the press about the plight of the elderly who are kept in Old People's Homes,
and are forced to sell their homes to keep alive and well, and how is it that the Family they
produced have deserted them or so it seems.
They no longer are surrounded by loved ones and they are now in a club of being kept at a distance from
the family.
Authors write stories about the elderly relative and it seems at first hand it is usually described as a woman
who is living alone after years of bringing up her family so where is her husband her daughters or sons?
They have flown the nest and she is alone in her old age. So sometimes the breakup of the family is due to
divorce when the outsider observes that they no longer live together but have broken up and one or other is
worse off than the other in not having a partner to recreat the family unit.
Splitting up does cause desperate circumstances and only today I read of the lover and the man's separated wife being in a brawl and he got out his gun and he shot his wife's lover stone dead.
That is extreme but it makes negative headlines for the family; some of the troubles of the family are associated with financial hardship or poverty and that in itself is a social eveil.
Let us consider the positive aspects of the family; there is the being all together through the good times
and the bad times: the sense of unity where you have someone to lean on or someone to call in tiimes of
need. Afterall the survival of the family creates a successful community!