The world is in need of traditional famlies!

I have always believed that we live in a world where the importance of families is being diminished. I am now just starting to understand just how true that belief is.  We have seen many trends over the last few years that show a decrease in the importance of families. For one there has been a decrease in family sizes.  There have been more people having sex out of marriage and cohabiting couples which have lead to more children not being born to wedded parents and higher divorce rates. There have been less mothers at home to take care of there young children and these are just some of the many traits we have seen.  some may ask if all these traits are bad and to you I say yes and here is why.

Lets start with the trend of decreasing family sizes. I would like to quote my self from a post I had written for a class assignment. I stated, "How many children you have can economically effect our whole nation. During the time of the baby boom many started to believe that we are over populating the earth. This and other factors such as more woman in the work force and people getting married later have led to a trend of having less children. This has actually led to what will soon bthe decline in our population. Such a decline will have many negative effects.

One negative effect is we will end up with more old people then young. The average number of kids right now for people is between 1 -2 kids. This means there are less kids then parents and hence less young people to replace the old. This means there will be less people in the work force to support those who are retired. which will lead to those who are in the work force having to work harder for the same amount."  

Originally this idea of havng to work harder didn't seem like all that bad of an idea. There was less people but more people where going to college and so they where smarter people. That is starting to become not true though we are seeing more people droping out of schools and with a shrinking population we simply can't afford that.

To give you an idea of how much our population is shrinking the average person has between one to two kids.  If you have 8 couples and each only have one child then within 4 generations you only have one person. If you have a million people and each only have one child then within only 20 generations you are left with only one person.

This sounds so lonely to me. With less siblings you have less aunts, uncles and cousins in the direction we are going exstended families will become more and more obsolete. We will be forced to make fake family connections to have that support which just isn't the same. If you want to learn more about our shrinking population you can go to BYUtv.org and find the "The New Economic Reality: Demographic Winter".

Another trend we see is how there are more people having sex out side of Marriage and cohabiting couples. I admit at first I didn't understand the big deal about cohabitation besides that I believed that sexual relations should happen only after marriage. Some new facts I learned though changed that. One statistic I learned was how you are actually 3 times more likely to get a divorce if you cohabitate before marriage. One reason for this is a couple is shown to be less committed to eachother when in cohabiting relationships. Another way I heard it explained for how cohabiting leads to divorces is that you get use to living as everything is his and hers. Their bank accounts are separate, their taxes are separate, though they live together much of what they do is independent. This leads to probelmes when they do get married because neither knows how to make it theirs instead of his and hers which leads to problems.

If you still don't think divorce is enough to call sex before marriage and cohabitation a problem think about the children. Statistics show how kids live more law abiding, successful and stable lives when they grow up in a home where both parents live together and are married. As someone who grew up in a home with divorced parents it was by no means easy. I hold no ill will towards my parents and I am greatful to have my step dad and step siblings in my life who love me and support me. I can say though that growning up in a divorced home was not easy nor fun in anyway and I would have preferred to grow up in a home where there was a committed and loving mother and father.

I also quickly just want ot touch on how there are more woman working outside of the home with kids under the age of 6. I am greatful we live in a time where woman can get an education such as I am and where we can work if we need to to help us achieve personal goals and make an income. I also know though that those early years of childhood are some of the most critical yeas of development for children. What kind of home a child lives in between those ages efffet who they are for the rest of there lives. They need nurturing mothers there to help during those critical stages.

Our families are under attack! The family is where the root of where all stems. This is where we first teach people morals. This is where we teach people how to interate with others where we teach them the good from the bad. The family is where children first see their example of what the world is like. Let us bring up a healthy generation, a generation where they can grow up in good, strong and stable families. The family is important I believe this, I know this, with out a doubt and I hope through out this blog you can come to belive and know this too.