The Case for Families

 

There are a lot of people who have decided not to have a family for their own personal reasons. While that may be the case, family as the basic unit of society proves to not only bring benefit to individual members but society as well. Husband and wife, Emmalou and David Penrod speak out about this issue, approaching the subject with facts and true to life experiences. They talk about the benefits of having a family along with their fair share of hardships.

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The Case for Families

We’re making a case for families.

Families? What do they need a case for?

Some people make the argument that the family has failed. The family is under attack, but I disagree that we no longer need families. Families are a fundamental building block of any strong society.

I’ve seen many societies in my study of history that didn’t support families and they didn’t do well, at least not for long. Those that did support families and encouraged families did much better.

This topic intrigues me enough. I did some research and I found many benefits to the family.

Besides having a smiling wife with dinner ready?

Far more than that. Did you know you are more likely to live longer because you have children?

I thought they were going to do me in.

According to an article I read on Harvard Health Benefits, researchers collected data on everyone born in Sweden between 1911 and 1925. That was more than 1.4 million people and they found that as compared with childless individuals, those who had children had a slightly longer life expectancy. By age 60, life expectancy was two years longer for men and 1.5 years longer for women. They found parents live longer well into advanced age. By age 80, life expectancy was still longer, nine months for men and seven months longer for women. You have to stop and say, “Why?” This article refers to previous studies that had been done that showed that parents have healthier habits. They are less likely to smoke, they don’t drink as much, they’re more physically active and they eat better diets.

I can certainly understand the more physically active, because if you lounge around all the time, you’re definitely going to be shortening your life span.

The more social interaction you have, the longer you can expect to live. Click To Tweet

Do you remember when our children were little. We got a lot of physical activity to keep track of them and keep up with them.

Where are they sleeping now? What are they doing? What are they getting into? Did they go down the street? Are they getting into trouble at the neighbor’s house? Did they take the bike? Are they pestering the dog? What is it?

We have to admit that we go on outings more often. We went hiking more often, swimming and biking to the park more when we had young children living at home.

Now, we only get that when you invite the grandkids to go to the park and then we get to take them out.

When I was growing up that my dad took it seriously. He knew that as children, we would imitate what he ate. We would adopt his eating habits. I remember any time my mother served healthy food. At that time, the liver was considered to be a healthy thing to eat. He would eat it with gusto. One time as an adult, I invited him over for dinner and decided to serve his favorite food, liver. It was then I found out he never liked it. He only ate it to be a good example. That was an eye-opener for me.

With a straight face yet.

He was a good actor. He could have won an Academy Award. It’s not that they have healthier habits, they also have more social interactions. Networking with other parents, arranging times to get our children together, contacting the school, soccer coaches and anyone else who interacted with our children. There are a lot more social interactions. Those are established. Studies show that makes a difference. The more social interaction you have, the longer you can expect to live. There is also the point that children help support their parents in their old age. Someone who doesn’t have children doesn’t always get to enjoy this benefit. There is that plus two. If you have a neighbor who doesn’t have children and they’re getting on in age, make sure you interact with them. Visit them on a regular basis.

As a kid, I used to visit with a lot of older people that didn’t have children, at least at home, anymore. We used to think it was a great diversion to be able to go spend some time, talk to them and get the treats that they almost always would give us. As kids, we loved interacting with old people and it did us good. Any interaction of a service nature or of a friendly nature between any two people is always beneficial to your health.

Not only your physical health but your emotional health. This is another advantage of families. In the past, we’ve considered a family to be just mom, dad and children. Families can include a single parent. Anyone who is sharing their lives with each other, sharing living space and providing each other with support. It’s emotional support that is critical. Abraham Maslow, several decades ago, came up with the hierarchy of needs. Do you remember learning about that? A sense of belonging is one of the foundations for meeting our needs. We have our physical needs that must be addressed first. We also need to feel like we belong and that we’re part of a group that’s bigger than we are. That need must be met before we can progress on achieving our goals, reaching out to others and becoming a better person.

 

We do tend to be social animals and life is much more fulfilled or enjoyable when we are around other people, maybe not exclusively 100%. We do need some downtime and alone time. If we have 98% alone time, we’re not going to be as happy as if we have a greater percentage of social interaction.

Think about when you have exciting news about you got a promotion at work. Doesn’t it feel good to share that with someone?

Talking to the mirror doesn’t cut it.

What about when there’s a crisis? Aren’t there those times you need a sounding board, someone to talk to, vent to, someone that you can trust and you know will not be judging you. They will allow you to speak freely, listen to your words and maybe even give you a wake-up call. You know what they’re doing it because they care about you.

That’s always helpful. Sometimes, you do need a little bit of different perspective to allow you to see the other side of the argument as to whether you’re making a decision that’s going to be for your good or not for your good, because you’ve already got your perspective and that’s the only one you’re seeing.

Sometimes, being taken out of your own head is the most valuable perspective to have. I remember my sister was commenting on how much she appreciated a friend who could keep her from taking herself too seriously. Sometimes, close friends become family. Don’t they?

Yes. We’ve had a few times in our life when we had foreign exchange students or kids in the neighborhood that our kids got close to and they practically became family.

Some families have a shared sense of purpose. Their values are the same. Maybe they set a goal together. There are families that perform together. The Osmonds, The King Sisters and families that have a business together. I know a lot of successful family business. A lot of times a family can give you that sense of purpose and that direction, that strong sense of belonging and being a vital member of a team.

There have been a lot of more successful teams than there have been solo acts. It’s a rare actor that can get on stage and do a solo act that would ever win an Academy Award.

Life is much more fulfilled or enjoyable when we are around other people. Click To Tweet

There is that quite, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, get a team.” Families are that fundamental team in our society. Families also help meet the needs of those who can’t care for themselves. Think of a helpless newborn baby. They would die without a family to care for them and not just the physical care. Do you remember that research where they had infants in an orphanage and they found there was one ward where the baby’s thrived? In the other wards, the babies didn’t live long but in this one, they thrived. They wanted to find out what made the difference. They found out that the caretakers in the other wards were doing physical care. They were just feeding them. In this one ward, the woman in charge was picking them up, was loving them, was singing to them and crooning to them. That made the difference in whether or not they survived. It’s that care for those who are not able to take care of themselves. Also, this explains the longevity because you have the younger members of the family caring for the elderly.

When they figure those statistics, they’re averaging the number of people from any given age to the extreme age. If you’re losing a lot in the early years, that’s going to cut down on longevity expectations. Whereas later on, it’s not as critical and is not going to make that big of a statistical difference. The contact is still important because we live in a community with a lot of older people and they need that contact as well.

We can provide that. What’s dear to my heart with my background in special education is I feel strongly about including people with special needs. For a child born with special needs, that family is important. There’s a saying, “A concerned mother does more research than the FBI.” I have seen that over and over again when a child is born with a medical, physical or mental challenge. The parents want the best life for their child and they’re best qualified to decide what that means and how to provide it. That’s why I always felt when I went to an IEP meeting that we needed to listen to the parents because they understood that child better than anyone else. A lot of students I worked with did much better than anyone would have expected. Looking at their diagnosis and what their challenges were, they far exceeded anyone’s expectations in most cases because of supportive parents. Also, because of a strong family unit behind them, building them, encouraging them and lifting them up. It was beautiful to see.

It doesn’t have to be a parent. Other people can join in and help the parents out. Especially, if you get two parents working, they could use some support from outside. Either a grandparent, a neighbor or something like that because it is important to have good supervision, loving care and more hours than sometimes we can provide as a single parent or even as a two-working-parent family.

It’s the power of an extended family. I’d love seeing these uncles and aunts taking their nieces and nephews on outings. Being involved in their lives, showing up for their dance recitals and sports games is beautiful.

Your brother had his 80th birthday, and it was interesting for me to see that this was put on by his second wife. His first wife had passed away and he married this other lady who also had some children of various ages. He still had some young ones. It was interesting to hear that not only his children could remember the great things that they appreciated about him but so did the steps, including his second wife’s brothers and sisters. Everybody found that the way this particular marriage worked in the support that they gave whichever kids were there, whether it was his kids or her kids, they all got the support and everybody appreciated that. Everybody remembered it.

That was so touching when I heard those stepsons saying how much they love him and that he had taught them what it meant to be a husband and a father.

That was despite the fact that when they first got married, a lot of those kids on both sides of the family didn’t like the idea that mom or dad was getting married to somebody else and replacing their mom or dad.

That’s a hard transition to make.

 

There’s another one that I saw and it went viral. When it was out there, it got picked up by the news wires and it went worldwide. It’s about a young girl and she was somewhere around ten. She decided that she wanted to make a difference in people’s lives. She started going to a care facility for older people. She would go around and visit them. She always took a pen and a notepad then she would write down the person’s name. She would ask them how they were doing. Her first visit included the question, “If you could have three wishes, what would they be?” She would diligently write down everything that they said and it usually wasn’t something like, “I wish I were twenty years younger.” It was simple things. One person asked for a flower and somebody else asked for their favorite snack. She would diligently write down everything that they wanted and then she would spend the next week doing everything she could to doing extra chores to earn money and what not to see if she could accumulate those things that these people wanted. On her next visit, she would deliver them. That story went viral.

That makes you wonder, what did her parents teach her? How do you raise a child that is kind and compassionate? In addition to parents being the first teacher a child has and being responsible for the quality of the education they get because we live in an age where there is school choice. In most states, you do have some options. There are some charter schools. In some cases, private schools are an option. Parents doing the research and putting in the effort. Maybe it’s just communicating with the local public school, communicating with the teacher, working out an agreement, explaining their child’s unique needs and offering to volunteer in the classroom. This is to make sure their child gets a quality education. The most profound and impactful education they will receive is the one they get at home.

You never know when you’re volunteering to help out with something like that in the schools. You never know when that’s going to hit you as well. How many people do we know that volunteered in the schools when their kids were there? They’re still volunteering in those schools twenty years later.

Because they love it. Along with what parents teach their children, there are finances. Parents have that opportunity to teach their children how to manage money and how to have a positive relationship with money. They know how to save it, invest it and make it their servant and not their master. This is all part of the financial security of a family. In a family, all working members are contributing and they’re sharing the resources. You can have a higher standard of living in a family than the individual living alone.

When everybody’s working together and considering one another rather than focus on their own wants, that can easily happen. We’ve known some families that were able to raise large families with small incomes. We’ve known some other people with small families and large incomes that couldn’t make ends meet.

Learning managing those resources is an important lesson that children learn in the home. I feel strongly about families. I feel passionate about them. I’m grateful for the family I grew up in. I’m grateful for the family that we have together. Let’s talk about how we can support families. It’s easy to be critical. It’s human nature to immediately notice what’s wrong. Any time I go out in public and I see an adult with children, I try to smile and to acknowledge the fact that children are a blessing. Our society would come to a screeching halt if no one wanted to have children anymore.

I’m grateful to adults who are willing to raise children and it may not necessarily be their biological child. Maybe they’re married to the parent of this child or adopted the child. I am grateful to adults who see the value of children and are willing to make that time commitment to raise them. They need much more encouragement than criticism. The ideal situation is when there are two parents. Do you remember when we were raising our kids and we can tag team? I could take over and you can take a break. When I’d had it, you could step in and I took a break. My admiration is great for those adults who are raising children alone.

In this day and age of divorce, disinterest and things like that, there are a lot of families that get in that position. We’ve even known a number of people that ended up raising their grandchildren because their children either couldn’t physically, financially, mentally and emotionally do it. They couldn’t handle parenthood.

Rather than being judgmental about that and saying, “They’re wrong. That’s bad,” I see it as much more beneficial and helpful to be supportive and accept that they’re doing their best. Have a kind word and smile. They’re beautiful children. Give them something positive.

Sometimes, being taken out of your own head is the most valuable perspective to have. Click To Tweet

There have been some times when I’ve been in a checkout line at the grocery store. The person in front of me is a harried parent trying to get the goods on the counter so that it can be checked out and a child that’s not in the best spirit. I enjoy trying to engage the kid in something that will distract them from any negativity and get them smiling.

In the presence of the parents.

I’m not trying to interrupt their family. I’m trying to support them.

If you have a neighbor and they’re getting stressed out, maybe offer to take the children on an outing as extended family members. As we were raising our children, both of our parents were wonderful grandparents and taught our children. They would take the time and effort to teach our children many useful skills.

Your dad would teach the kids how to do things, take them on horseback rides and all things like that when we visit. He would do that with neighbor kids, too. I remember that. One thing that we should encourage in our society is to get back to the feeling, even if not the fact, of smaller and more friendly neighborhoods where people know who lives next door. They talk to them and they’re friends. They don’t have to get along but if your next-door neighbor is a total stranger. If you don’t know anything about them, you’re going to worry about what’s going to happen to your kids if they go out to play and stray into their yard. If you know your neighbors, get out and talk to them.

You might find that your neighbor would love nothing more than for your children to stop by and say, “Hello.” It could brighten your neighbor’s day.

They may have some kids and they need you to help out, occasionally.

We can be good neighbors and we can strengthen families. There are many challenges in families. The biggest one probably would be communication. Our goal was to point out the benefits of family life. We need families. We need to support families. We need to do what we can to strengthen them and build each other up. It’ll make our world a better place.

It’s guaranteed that every family is going to have some rough times, but every family pulling together can get through them.

That’s right, I love that. We hope you have a great day.

Important Links:

• Harvard Health Benefits – article