Westerners don't have family values

[globby_823]

Nowadays, all you see are single parent families. What happened to the good old days when everyone lived together. We didn't throw our parents to the nursing home and kids to the daycare... What happened to the days when we actually lived with our lived ones. We all ate, grew up, talked together. Everybody shared laughs and sorrowful times.

Everyone is separated today... But I was one of those few lucky ones that grew up in an extended family..., and I'm very thankful to God about this. I was able to learn the importance of family. Today's society is very selfish. When someone turns 18, we throw our kids out of the house because "they need to be independent". ... Sure that's important but do we realty need to tear apart families? Can't we teach them how to be independent in different ways? All I can tell you is that we are becoming selfish and very nai family people..., but keep in mind: family is the backbone of society and if family ties will break up, society will decay

[MissProvocateur]

As someone who lives alone with a maid at age 19, and has been doing for over 11 years (well, my brother was around until a year ago or so.), I can say I mostly agree with this. However, living alone pretty much taught me what I was missing and the importance of family, so no, just because you grew up with a family does not mean that those less fortunate don't learn the value of it. I dare say, those who grow up alone learn to appreciate it more.

The lack of family turns (most) people surprisingly anti-social and distrustful of those around them, since they lacked the company of parents when they were children, however, this does not mean society is completely lost. Yes, it's going to be difficult, but not everyone who grows up without a family turns out to be a fucked-up psychopath without morals.

[Lusos]

Who's Westerner ?

[Marusya]

The demise of the strong family unit is found everywhere in the world, not just "The West." Economic instability has played a large role in the dispersion of people away from their families. People have been forced to move to wherever the jobs are found. Unemployment stresses the family unit, leading to increased rates of divorce and other social ills. A World Bank report summary on Russia, from 2000, highlights that this is not just a "Western" phenomenom:

The authors describe trends in single parenthood in Russia, examining factors that affect living arrangements in single-mother families. Before economic reform, single mothers and their children were somewhat protected form poverty by government assistance (income support, subsidized child care, and full employment guarantees). Economic reform in Russia has reduced government transfers, eliminated publicly subsidized pre-school care programs, and worsened women's opportunities in the labor market. The loss of government support has eroded family stability, and left single mothers at increased risk of poverty. Over the last decade, the proportion of households headed by women has increased rapidly, raising the risk of poverty. Single-parent families now represent nearly a quarter of all Russian households. Using seven rounds of data from the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey, the authors investigate how household living arrangements, and other factors, affect income in single-mother families. They find that a single parent with more earning power, and child benefits is more likely not to live with relatives. But single mothers are increasingly choosing to live with other adults, or relatives, to survive, and to raise their children in times of economic stress, and uncertainty. Half of all single mothers in Russia live with their parents, their adult siblings, or other adult relatives. Help from relatives is important to single-mother families, and that help - including the sharing of domestic and childcare duties - is more efficient, and productive when the single parent lives with the family. The other half live in independent residences, and face increased risk of poverty.

[adsız]

Nowadays, all you see are single parent families. What happened to the good old days when everyone lived together. We didn't throw our parents to the nursing home and kids to the daycare... What happened to the days when we actually lived with our lived ones. We all ate, grew up, talked together. Everybody shared laughs and sorrowful times.

Everyone is separated today... But I was one of those few lucky ones that grew up in an extended family..., and I'm very thankful to God about this. I was able to learn the importance of family. Today's society is very selfish. When someone turns 18, we throw our kids out of the house because "they need to be independent". ... Sure that's important but do we realty need to tear apart families? Can't we teach them how to be independent in different ways? All I can tell you is that we are becoming selfish and very nai family people..., but keep in mind: family is the backbone of society and if family ties will break up, society will decay

An American friend of mine in Twitter said exactly the same thing to me a few days ago. I thought she was exaggerating but seems to be true now.

When someone turns 18, we throw our kids out of the house because "they need to be independent"

Is this true for girls also? What if she does not have a job ?

[Anthony PV]

Everyone is separated today... But I was one of those few lucky ones that grew up in an extended family..., and I'm very thankful to God about this.

In 1994, American feminist Camille Paglia wrote that the reason behind the collapse of the nuclear family was precisely because the nuclear family doesn't work. According to her, what works is the extended family, the one you mentioned.

The predominant fact of modern sexual history is not patriarchy but the collapse of the old extended family into the nuclear family, an isolated unit that, in its present form, is claustrophic and psychologically unstable. The nuclear family can work only in a pioneer situation, where the punishing physicality of farmwork keeps everyone occupied and spent from dawn to dusk. The middle-class nuclear family, where the parents are white-collar professionals who do brainwork, is seething with frustrations and tensions. Words are charged, and real authority lies elsewhere, in bosses on the job. Marooned in the suburbs or in barricaded urban apartments, upwardly mobile families are frantically overschedule and geographically transient, with few ties to neighbors and little sustained contact with relatives.

Two parents alone cannot transmit all the wisdom of life to a child. Clan elders—grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins—performed this function once. Today, poor inner-city or rural children are more likely to benefit from the old extended family or from the surrogate family of long-trusted neighbors, since working-class people are less likely to make repeated moves for job promotions. The urban child sees the harshness of the street; the rural child witnesses the frightening operations of nature. Both have contact with an eternal reality denied the suburban middle-class child, who is cushioned from risk and fear and who is expected to conform to a code of genteel good manners and repressed body language that has changed startingly little since the Victorian era.

[Camille Paglia, Vamps & Tramps: New Essays, 1994]

The lack of family turns (most) people surprisingly anti-social and distrustful of those around them, since they lacked the company of parents when they were children, however, this does not mean society is completely lost. Yes, it's going to be difficult, but not everyone who grows up without a family turns out to be a fucked-up psychopath without morals.

When I witness youths who grow up in broken families, I see some of them trying to socialize with random people to compensate the lack of 'family love' they need... So no, the collapse of nuclear families in the West doesn't necessarily mean a rise in 'distrustful sociopaths without morals'...

[Prisoner Of Ice]

Corporate slavemasters don't allow it.

[MissProvocateur]

In 1994, American feminist Camille Paglia wrote that the reason behind the collapse of the nuclear family was precisely because the nuclear family doesn't work. According to her, what works is the extended family, the one you mentioned.

[Camille Paglia, Vamps & Tramps: New Essays, 1994]

When I witness youths who grow up in broken families, I see some of them trying to socialize with random people to compensate the lack of 'family love' they need... So no, the collapse of nuclear families in the West doesn't necessarily mean a rise in 'distrustful sociopaths without morals'...

Really? I must be an exception then, because I can't commit to any friendship or relationship for more than three months before I feel the person getting too close and I begin to push them away.
I know I'm not the only person who displays this behavior.

[globby_823]

Yes, after the age of 18, both guys and girls move out of their home to go to college. They are also expected to find a job to support themselves

[Anthony PV]

Really? I must be an exception then, because I can't commit to any friendship or relationship for more than three months before I feel the person getting too close and I begin to push them away.
I know I'm not the only person who displays this behavior.

I guess different people react in different ways... The youths I see socializing don't really make friends for life with the first stranger they meet either... I'm just saying that I think the lack of 'family love' seems to push them towards socializing with people to compensate that lack... If you don't have much of a family life, you have a social life instead...