What Happened to the Family Unit?

Slack wrote this interesting commentary on his website and I thought it deserved a second read here. Comments anyone?

Let me start this post by saying I’m not judging. I’m just making some observations, and raising a question or two.

When you become a parent you start noticing things you never noticed before. Your perspective changes on a lot of things. To be cliche, it changes your life. Blaaaaaah, I know. It’s a cliche for a reason, though. Those annoying kids at the restaurants won’t bother you quite as much because you understand the plight of the new parent. You start seriously thinking about the image you project — if you haven’t already. EVERYTHING else in your life becomes less important. It gives you a new perspective.

I grew up in a solid family. My parents were never divorced, together for well over thirty years. For better and for worse till death did they part. I cherish my childhood. Even for all its faults it was damn near perfect. The house was never empty. I always had one of my parents there for me no matter what. We weren’t well off by any means, but we had all our necessities. It wasn’t a typical Nick @ Nite family, either though. There were rough times. My parents fought on rare occasion. We didn’t eat at the “dinner table” like a “proper” family should. Sometimes I’d find my mother drinking wine and ripping up tissue paper, ironically it was her reaction to my father staying out drinking.

Through all of this I believe I was “raised right”. So, what does that mean? Obviously it’s a highly subjective statement, and leads into my question. I notice many key differences in the acceptable norm these days when compared to my childhood. As well I should, right?

What are we thinking today? Arguably, all of us in the thirty-something generation have noticed that “the kids” these days are often misbehaving little demons. They seem to have no respect for their elders, no comprehension of consequences, no ability to deal with stress or mistakes, and a highly annoying sense of entitlement. ‘Bullshit! My kid is an angel!’, you say? Well, you are probably right. Obviously I’m making a generalization and not all kids are this way.

But, I know there are a lot of you thirty-somethings out there saying to yourself, ‘Amen, brother! Sing it!‘ Personally, I think it’s the breakdown of the family unit. I’m wondering what you think. I noticed it seems common — arguably expected — that both parents will be working after the newborn stage. I just don’t get that. Well, let me qualify that. I understand the motivation. As a society, it is difficult to fund a family on one salary. Many families just have no choice but to have both parents working.

What does that mean for your kid? Well, I suppose it depends on who’s raising your kid in your stead. Don’t kid (no pun intended) yourself, someone else is raising your kid. Instilling their values (or lack there of) into your youngling’s impressionable mind. Personally, I think this is a bad idea on all levels.

I also think it speaks to a much larger breakdown in society. It’s like nobody has your back. Remember the days when the entire block used to hang out outside and talk? Remember when you knew all your neighbor’s names? Do you know your current neighbor’s names? I thought it was funny that the first two houses Sweetmunky and I bought were in very old established neighborhoods. I knew my neighbors names back there. It felt very much like they had my back. At least most of them. Every neighborhood had that one bad apple, but for the most part they had our back. We’ve been living in our new cookie cutter neighborhood now for about the same amount of time, and I don’t know the names of my neighbors, and it seems like nobody wants anything to do with each other.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m just as guilty as the rest of the residents. It’s just an observation I wanted to put out there. What’s changed? Are we less caring? Are we too busy? Do we hate our neighbors? Are we less quick to trust people? In a day where society seems so disconnected, it just seems phenomenally stupid to pawn your kids off on a day care… Maybe it’s just this little border town we live in. Thoughts?