There are two dreams in life, one in sleep and one we live.
Joined: Feb 2008 Gender: Male Posts: 236 Location: South Australia Karma: 18
Family Structure « Thread Started on Sept 7, 2008, 2:45am »
During some recent conversations it has emerged about families and basically what is a family? I think this is worth exploring with some points that have arisen and the average theme that people’s testimonies seem to run on.
One thing I will ask is that what I am talking about will challenge you through the reception of this article and how it spells out to you. I ask you to put your own prejudices’ aside for a moment and try to read openly. In today’s environment I could be interpreted as pro men or pro women. I am neither; I am pro reunited families in the workable tradition if that is at all possible? I am not for the tradition of marriage but the unison of two people being able to run responsibly a social business of which marriage is, once the flowers and the celebrations of opening a new business reveals the reality of the contract.
Firstly it is better to examine the word family, if you go to http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Family you will find a whole string of explanations and you come to realize that the word is not as definitive as we take for granted. However I have plucked out a short version as this covers more where I want to go.
Throughout history, a family unit has comprised of more than just Mum & Dad and the children. It has as we can see from c.1400 comprised a whole much more being that servants are also included. Whilst we look back on history with scorn about someone having to be a servant and many negative stories which have evolved on this subject with total disregard for the food chain. It was and is the only way a society can positively interact with a structure that worked for all. Exploitation will always be a case no matter the situation and it is this fundamental that has been the author of stories past to which I referred as the negative base. How our values have changed and pour scorn on basic disciplines and workable structures creating a singular independence with a yearning for love of a family but unable to share through a knowledge and experience lost over the last hundred years.
Within these family units which once existed and rolled one into the other; there was what we can class as an industrial network that is supportive both up and down the social spectrum. Though families genetically were proud of their heritage, it also had the format to integrate. Never were families left holding their own (though there are exceptions). Without this structure we would not be as advanced as we are today. Yet today’s interaction seems to be turning the clock back on social structure, evident by the collapse of simple loving friendship within a family.
If we turn the clock back we find that the father, though deemed the head of the household, was in fact the means of income, he was the disciplinarian and the main stay of the organization. His load was more than most fathers of today could even envisage being responsible for. The mother was the head of the household and had to have budgeting skills and was responsible sometimes in unison with her husband for the hiring and firing of staff. The responsibility that a married couple had was far beyond that of today, it was in fact a business enterprise on a social basis with little time for the interaction we expect and see very little of today.
The dispersing of what was called tied communities has seen the gardener of old times, go from a secure life-long position to a franchise set up caring for more than one garden at a time. The cook and housecleaners have also gone to meals on wheels, running their own eating houses, taking in ironing to make a buck, to home help on self employed basis, leaving survival to chance and handy men becoming self-employed in the building industry. Whilst this is called progress it has taken away the social structure of dependency, making the people less capable dependant on welfare, as the more than capable earning a small fortune. This then leaves the remainder in between either above dependency and below comfortability, this being the bigger part of society.
In this middle class society comes a pressure which results in depression states and abuse. Women seem to have taken the whole role of running a family whilst the man has become the point of scorn and abuse, or the woman is left to take on the whole role whilst the male is left to pick up the pieces at times and is tied up in a social structure outside of his family just to keep a job, or impress for the next contract which comes with other distractions that eats into the fiber of the nuclear family usually by adultery which comes with the magic wand of temptation to provide what he already has, but cannot see. Unfortunately as more and more women enter into the work place by choice or circumstance; they too are becoming victim of the same temptations that are deemed a man thing.
The result of this is kids that go astray more than would have done in a stable climate and one person, generally the woman becomes the one that has to hold everything together, giving her a greater power than is deemed sensible and ends up burning her out. Often resulting in divorce or being unfaithful and once again destroying the social unit. Also the parent that is left with this responsibility (as it works both ways) often becomes abusive beyond reason and as this grows over the years it becomes misinterpreted so that the recipients as well as the abuser lose focus of the reality and it becomes a tit for tat argument that is blown out of proportion and destroys the love within. In fact the part that is destroyed is the ability to love, forgive and forget. It is not until one has a spark of wisdom or a mediator (which was once the job of the father) steps into the breach, can sensibility prevail and reset everyone’s emotions.
Uncannily the latter explanation is often formulated or created through a person’s weakness or inability to do something in a situation they feel they should be able to control but lack the ability or knowledge, so abuse becomes the tool for compromise. This situation is often founded in today’s families by the abuse of drugs and alcohol (something I have firsthand knowledge of) which if not handled correctly creates all sorts of venom and internal hates and prejudices being the keys for the next reactionary conflict and these conflict are guilt; guilt by the user for not being able to come to terms with the problem (which it is) and guilt by the parent for not having the guts to research and understand giving the support which is needed and comes across as abuse.
Life/families have become a race for material gain and social acceptance, often though there is more than one loser as in any physical race, there can only be one winner, yet if families were to reform, adjust, and review their situation independently in truth, the whole god dam bunch would be winners.
I will leave this here for the moment. Paul
Could be an article in this to open my AC account.
Joined: Nov 2006 Gender: Female Posts: 1,718 Location: Eastern US Karma: 44
Re: Family Structure « Reply #1 on Sept 7, 2008, 11:31pm »
I'm short on time now Paul, but enjoyed your post. Yes, I think it could be an opener for AC lol You make a strong message.
Quote:
Life/families have become a race for material gain and social acceptance, often though there is more than one loser as in any physical race, there can only be one winner, yet if families were to reform, adjust, and review their situation independently in truth, the whole ******* bunch would be winners.
I have to agree about reforming, adjusting and reviewing independently in truth.
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“A baby is God's opinion that life should go on.”-Carl Sandburg