A WORLD OF WANT

Is the importance and influence of friends reaching the level of family? Currently over 50% of all marriages end in divorce. Additionally we have become a society requiring two incomes per family to survive. Do these facts change the structure of society in a way that friends become as important as family in a persons life?

I'm from an "old world" family. My parents are not divorced, although they are a two income family. My grandparents had eight children and each Sunday all the children and their families visit my grandparents and enjoy a rather large, but delicious, meal created by grandma. This is still happening today. As a child it was preached to me that family is all you can count on. I was told that family is the most important thing in life because loyalty doesn't exist anywhere else. And as my friends continued to disappoint me from time to time, I bought into it. I don't say "bought into it" as if I shouldn't have. My family has always been there for me and has never proved the theory wrong. I simply mean it was something ingrained in me.

In today's world family gets less time together. Both parents are typically working which I would imagine has to lessen an influence compared to a family four decades ago. Divorce certainly changes the structure and I could probably speculate for days on how that has an impact on the lessening influence of family. So less time with family means more time with...friends, right? So are friends becoming as influential and important in a societal structure as family? I know several people that seem to place an importance on their friendships equal to that of their family. In some cases, more. Is this a trend? Is this a result of the changes discussed above?

And if this is true and friends are leading larger roles as influencers, how important has a "community" become? Because at that point, as a parent, the community you live in will impact your children's future in ways you probably won't see. I have had a fair amount of discussion with people concerning communities as well. It seems the consensus is that communities are not strong like in the "old days." That in the past, communities would watch out for each other. If you saw your neighbors kids doing something wrong, you would call the parents. And vice versa. I don't know that I agree with the statement that communities aren't as strong, maybe just different. The interesting thought to me is - if communities ARE less close knit, what are the factors involved with that? Are the same factors that are changing the landscape of family the same that are changing communities? If so, how?

Maybe I'm getting old but I can't see many positives in the "new" family structure. Nor can I make myself feel good about the increase on the reliance of friends. I believe a friendship bond at the level of family can happen but I believe it takes years and years of building to do so (and I'm not talking 5 or 6). It used to be that the family bond was automatic. Maybe that has changed a bit as well. In any case, I'm still buying into the "family is the most important" speech but I'm starting to see why others don't. It reads to me like a continued downward slope of isolation for individuals in the world contributing to an increase in confusion and loneliness. And I find it disturbing.