by Lisa Shaver

Created on: July 02, 2009

Dad comes in the door after a long day of work. His wife is at the door ready to welcome him home while wonderful smells of a dinner cooking waft in the air. The kids are sitting at the table doing their homework while Fido lies at their feet. After awhile that homework is cleaned up and that wonderfully smelling dinner is put on the table as the family gathers around the table for the family meal. During supper the kids share their day with Dad all the while Mom is smiling as she looks about her family. Later that evening the kids are in bed and Mom and Dad get some down time together talking about their days and just being a couple instead of Mom and Dad.

The scenario above is what a family structure intact would look like. Or something similar. However, in today's world there sad reality is that the family structure is already broken down. Divorce today is as common as turkey for Thanksgiving dinner and single parent families are now the norm. Society sadly has placed family at the bottom of the totem pole. What happens when society breaks down? Let's take a look.

Jimmy's dad ignores him and as a result of the ever important father figure in Jimmy's life, he has not learned what a man is suppose to be. Instead he learns this from his so-called friends and now is a drug addict spending his life in and out of jail. Anne has a mom and dad both in the home together, but mom spends all her time drinking to stop from thinking about dad's "working" late and what that means. Anne did not learn the birds and the bees from her mom as she should have, she learned it from her boyfriend by having unprotected sex. Now Anne is pregnant and no longer free to be the teenager she wants to be. Jared comes from a well to do family but his parents completely ignore him and the kids at school do too. No one knows that Jared exists, or if they do know, they do not acknowledge he does, until he goes to school and kills his teacher and some of his classmates. Sarah is depressed. Her mom died when she was younger and her dad left. After shifting from foster home to foster home she decides one day to end her suffering and takes a punch of pills to end her life.

Do these sound like stereotypes to you? This is reality. This is the consequence of the family structure breaking down. Our society today puts its importance on having more money and more things instead of keeping families intact. Divorce is easier to get than a prescription from your doctor. When bad things happen people take notice and they blame the parents, or perhaps the kids they are hanging out with and its true, it is the parents fault. It is the parents fault because they gave up. They neglected the children they had due to their own personal suffering or personal gains. So not matter how you look at it, the family structure is a thing of the past. Once the pillar of the community and now completely forgotten. Make no mistake, the break down of the family structure is the downfall of society and there is not an "if" it will happen, its happening and it will continue to happen unless people place their families first on their list of priorities instead of sex, money or status.

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