Fixing the Blame

When something goes wrong, there is a tendency to pin the blame, usually not on ourselves but elsewhere. Is that a learned response or innate? Maybe both.      

Over the years we have seen the traditional family (mom, dad and the kids) diminish. In fact, even we old timers barely remember the extended family (grandparents, mom and dad, maybe an uncle and aunt, cousins and grandkids). It too has almost disappeared. When dad was too lenient, an uncle or grandfather rose to the occasion. Older kids trained and disciplined the younger.

Now, we are witnessing some things that have risen to fill the gaps left by the “nuclear” family (where and when that term arose for the traditional family is perhaps fading as well). We have the single mom or dad family, the same-sex family, the divided family (where the kids go back and forth between households), where grandparents raise their grandkids, foster homes and the like. 

Under normal times this may work better but when times are tough (high unemployment, huge debts for graduates, lowered salaries, listless job markets with long lines), what happens? Many things. Often to the rescue comes the family (or what is left of it). A single mom, on welfare, is hardly able to ease the frustrations of her unemployed graduate. This is one area where good, solid families are sorely missed.

For those existing families, what is happening? For one thing, they are housing their boomerang kids, with or without any regulations, demands or expectations. But they are back home again in some fashion. We're told that between 2007 and 2011, young adults living with their parents increased from 19 to 22 million. Nearly 70% of parents offer their grown kids some assistance including rent, food, debts, car payments and health expenses.

The average debt runs about $20,000 and starting salaries have dropped if a job can be found. For those doubting the value of the family, this could or should lessen some doubts. Rarely a family today knows someone in a stressful situation including parents who elect to delay retirement or as some say, spend their children's inheritance prematurely.

The question keeps coming to the surface: Is the traditional family outmoded, old fashioned, redundant? If so, what will replace it? Will it be better or not as good? And this for the moment has little to do with the birthing process, early training, discipline and affection. As parents of a child who got too deeply in debt, lived lavishly oblivious to the tomorrow which is inevitable, and shows little or no remorse much less appreciation, should they turn a blind eye toward their own flesh and blood?

Parenting is a marvelous invention but does have its limits. With a shrinking potential, is the modern family potentially up to the tasks that lie ahead? Ultimately, that is a question not easily answered. Or, perhaps under the circumstances, the family may need to be reinvented if that is actually possible.