A family is a group of loved ones, bound by time and common experience, and sometimes, it is a legal and biological construct, meant to draw the line between our "official" and "unofficial" relationships. Most of have our own definition of what a family is, even though it is usually based on the same principles. In some ways, however, these definitions are changing. Families are like a team. Each individual family member brings skill, personality, and role to the family team, just as each sports player has a specific position on the team. We need our families to help us live through the happy, sad, and painful times. Providing an opportunity for learning, trying things out, or accepting defeat is an important role of the family. As a family team, we can help each other get through tough times. Because we have family teamwork, they can balance one person’s difficult time with other family member’s strengths.We cannot exaggerate, then, the importance of mothers and fathers to the life of the child, and the community. In light of the undeniable evidence of family breakdown, especially the severing of basic parental ties, it is enormously disturbing to read and to listen to those who, despite all the evidence, continue to paint a rosy picture of "change" and "readjustment" and who refuse to confront the actual situation in which America's parents and children find themselves. The decline in the well-being of America's children is directly traceable to the stresses and strains which undermine the family as an ethical entity. ...
