What could be more important than families working together? Families with strong ties to each member are usually successful families that care and take care of each other. This isn't something that just happens, it is encouraged and nourished. Differences within family members are known and dealt with but they are not allowed to become issues that divide the family.

Among all families there is disharmony now and then and all have a 'black sheep' or two, but these are never allowed to cause problems that cannot be resolved by group support. Typically these families exist as a support group and to lend whatever help can be given to those in need. Those with more money and more talent and more wherewithal are expected to help the less fortunate members.

Once, a few centuries ago and beyond, strong commitment to family was an absolute necessity if one expected to thrive. Families lived in groups. Springing up around the old home place would be the grown up children who married, built their own houses and started their own family. Then another and another would do likewise.

This type of family living was mostly happy places for children to grow and thrive. They learned different ways of coping and were adept at taking care of them selves and at pitching in with the chores. It was a far cry from the society in which most children grow up in today. No child would have been allowed to sit around playing games and reading comic books; this would have been allowed only when all the chores were completed.

Later, homework took precedence over child labor, but in some families it was done begrudgingly. Sixty or seventy years ago, in some places the school year was only seven months and these months were from July to January or February. Fields needed to be cleared and crops had to planted. All the family had to work; yes even the chidren. Survival was the number one goal. If not enough food was raised, they would all starve next winter.

Then gradually as life styles moved upward and away from the traditional way of live, less and less family bonding was done. Divorce became a way of life, and children had multiple moms and dads and were shuffled from here to there. This has been unsettling and it has taken its toll on the youth.

Yet, it is understandable why families began breaking apart, as the need for this kind of culture was no longer necessary. After World War 11 life everywhere took a different turn. GI's returning from foreign places no longer

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