November 1966 — VOL. 47, No. 11 —
The Canadian
Family Enters 1967
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The conscience of Canada as she
enters her second century of Confederation should be determined
upon restoring and preserving the great principle of individual
and national life: the family. The harmonious family forms
the nearest to complete basis for the happiness and prosperity
of the person as well as the necessary foundation of society.
In this latter part of the twentieth century we live in
a highly dynamic world. No one expects or desires social development
to come to an end. No one should expect the family to stop
in its growth and adaptation. But we should see to it that
the family preserves itself, in spite of all change, as a
group united by agreement as to the things they love.
The family is the smallest of social institutions, but it
holds first rank in importance. We must not let it dissolve,
not only because of its national importance or its religious
significance but because by its dissolution every human being
in Canada would lose some of his humanity.
Family virtues
The family unit functions as it does because of its efficiency
contrasted with any other sort of social unit devised for
such purposes. It provides for a child's physical needs and
trains him to survive; it affords the background in which
he learns to live with other people; and it is a major source
for the transmission of the values and knowledge of culture
and religion. It develops the human virtues of love, pity,
concern and sociability.
There is a cold, calm, remote way of describing the family
legally: "A collective body of persons who live in one house
and under one head or management." How far that is from describing
this mother cell of society! Here we find the personal and
social expression necessary to human life. Here is an island
of emotional shelter in the midst of a turbulent sea. Here
are people living together in mutual helpfulness, protecting
one another's interests.
The family confers personhood. Only in it can a person be
fully himself. In all other spheres of life one has to win
recognition by accomplishment, but in the family one has status
by existence.
Family patterns
Everyone has the desire to be not only a person, but to
be part of something, to belong. In the family he finds the
sort of fellow-feeling and mutual identification for which
"we" is the natural expression. The essence of the family
pattern is the acceptance of mutual rights and obligations.
Sympathetic insight, called "empathy", means the capacity
to enter into and share the emotions, attitudes, interests
and experiences of others. The mutual giving of affectionate
understanding is one of the strongest bonds in family life,
and is unique there. Respect for opinions, ideals, habits
and privacy of the individual are part of the pattern.
The shape of family behaviour is made up of many small pieces.
Sacred writings teem with rites that protect family life.
Little rituals observed today may form the framework of a
larger comprehension, a consensus on values and objectives.
A four-year-old is being incorporated into the family group
as he completes his nightly prayer at mother's knee by asking
a blessing for his parents, his sisters, his brothers, and
his grandparents. A mother, who has sung the same little song,
"Sailboat", to her son every evening for years has added a
dowel holding the family structure together.
Anniversaries may be festivals rich in pleasure and meaning.
When parents and children get together for a quiet evening,
talk over the family events since the last anniversary, and
discuss their expectations for future years, they foster helpful
solidarity by recollecting jointly experienced gratifications.
The real core of family life lies in the behaviour of the
individual members toward one another. The family circle is,
as it should be, one of least reticence. The members of the
family are free to speak out, to express themselves about
mutual affairs and even about one another. It is "all in the
family" and frankness is taken cheerfully.
Good families do not just happen, but are the result of
unselfishness, forgiveness and honour. Here is a drama in
which everyone is playing a vital role, sharpening his perceptions
of what is possible and desirable in life.
Family functions
How different that is from the suggestion by Plato that
the State should care for all children. In some countries
behind the Iron Curtain babies are put on a conveyor belt
that carries them from institution to institution and turns
them out into life without their ever having experienced the
tenderness of a mother's arms.
Even in free Western countries the contribution of the family
has been gradually decreased during the past century as state
and community have assumed duties which at one time were the
responsibility of the family.
Suddenly, it seems, in the past twenty years, families have
awakened to the fact that substitutes are not really doing
the job the family did. And so the United Nations thunders
in its Universal Declaration of Human Rights: "The
family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society
and is entitled to protection by society and the State."
Family living needs material things, but only in the same
way as walking requires a pair of feet. Where the walk takes
one is something else. Within the family there must be developed
aspirations and objectives which, while bringing into being
a culture adapted to a scientific age, stimulate and develop
the individuality of its members. The future of Canada depends
upon the fostering of sane, responsible, integrated personalities,
and this is an undoubted function of the family.
Family stability
The word "stability" when applied to the family does not
mean social status stability, or economic stability, or stability
enforced by law: family stability is concerned with the inner
realities of life's experiences.
The world, changing from old controls to new, is finding
constantly greater demand for the individual to know about
and to face the personal and social problems of the modern
age. The central issue in life remains choice. Moral judgments
about how to behave, as well as career judgments about what
to work at, must be made. They are forced upon us. For this
reason, if for none higher, the family must be used to create
the ability to choose and to judge wisely.
It is in the family that children learn techniques, customs,
folklore, and all the many features of their cultural heritage.
These form the basis of judgment and choice. We may measure
the success of the family in the next generation very largely
by its willingness to work out approaches, treatments and
training which will give young people the necessary guidance.
This is its imperative duty.
There are, in our Canadian society, prevailing principles
of right action, decency and justice. They can be traced back
to the Institutes of the Emperor Justinian fourteen
hundred years ago: "to live honourably, to injure no other
man, to render to every man his due."
These are principles taught in the home as preparation for
the time when the child will make the transition to independence.
As discipline relaxes in home and school, the need for self-discipline
becomes correspondingly greater. It is upon what the home
does today in conveying principles of ethics, manners and
individuality that the future of Canada will be built socially,
economically and politically.
Discipline
Family discipline is made up of love, sympathy, persuasion
and compulsion. Children must learn obedience if they are
to fit into adult situations without difficulty and pain.
Obedience to instructions and laws is a primal requirement
of business and society.
Discipline is not only a protective device but a development
device. Family rules have two functions: to restrain from
wrongdoing and to guide simplicity.
It is well, before laying down a law, to determine its purpose
and to set reasonable limits to its practical application.
Every parent, like every manager of an office or factory,
has experienced the gradual pressing that people do against
the fence of rules, testing where they can cause a bulge without
reprimand, or a breakthrough without punishment.
Parents need to be careful not to create artificial illegalities
for the sake of enforcing discipline. Children are sharp-eyed.
Some tend to become slack if special demands are continually
made on them without obvious reason.
One of the younger participants in the Canadian Conference
on the Family remarked that children have good reason for
rebelling if parents say "you can't do it because I didn't
when I was your age". Forms of social behaviour have changed,
and the problem is to know on what line to take a firm stand
and where to stretch a point.
The infant years are important. Human life requires tender
support in its beginnings. Psychoanalysis has revealed the
need of children for warm-hearted parents who allow themselves
to be loved and to love. If a child starts to grow away from
parents it is not because the child is perverse but because
some guidelines of affection have been allowed to fray.
A joint enterprise
Making a family is a joint enterprise. Parents are partners
in a common cause, and as their children mature they too are
brought into the partnership.
Men and women make a supremely important decision when they
choose their marriage partners. There is nothing in life so
much a test of our common sense and sense of decency and our
ability to manage interpersonal relations as is marriage.
One might almost say that four things are necessary to happy
married life. Each partner must have self-interest so as to
keep alive mentally; each must be interested in the other,
not passively and not only materially, but vitally and spiritually;
both must be interested in their home and family in a co-operative
and participating way; and both should share common goals
outside themselves and their families. Such parents give their
children models to imitate.
It is not necessary that the wife should understand her
husband's job or keep up with its technical details, but she
must understand its importance to him. The husband should
be able to express a wide range of feelings openly and directly
to his wife, and to become involved and interested in her
activities.
Both parents must keep up with development of their children.
Some are unaware until it is too late of the changed status
of their daughters. Women were, until not many years ago,
indifferent to the need of securing recognition of themselves
as members of society. Economic opportunity has opened new
doors to them. If a daughter's voice is not heard and respected
in the family council, she is fitted by education and she
is free under today's social code to move out to an apartment
or lodgings.
Changing times
There is something dramatically intense about this age.
It is not to be wondered at that today's children, who have
never seen a world without automobiles, telephones, radio,
television, electric light and airplanes should react to life
in a different way from the way of their gas-lit, horse-drawn
grandparents. When those grandparents looked up at the night
sky they saw the moon and stars and constellations, but when
their grandchildren look up they see space vehicles.
In the course of Canada's past hundred years the family
has witnessed changes in birth folkways, economic activities,
recreation, education, and religious behaviour. The task today
is to evaluate changes, to agree on a basic ideal which shall
be upheld, and to accommodate without disruption to the emerging
pattern.
We must get away from the idea that any disturbance of an
existing condition is a sign of deterioration. Change need
not mean decay. Instead of becoming alarmed at the processes
of change, or of fearing dire results, the family should glory
in the opportunity to live in such a time, to cope with its
problems, and to set up guidelines for the future.
It is not enough to shore up old institutions against changing
tides. We need a type of family that reflects the underlying
springs and currents of this period in time, and bases its
navigation upon principles found through the ages to be good.
Adolescence
As a child grows into his teens it is natural that he should
look more and more outside the family for his play and social
activities. If the parents are emotionally stable they can
grant autonomy to their children without difficulty.
Some things that are done are bound to cause annoyance.
Children, when put in possession of power and freedom which
they feel to be altogether new, will take a delight in the
exercise of them. Their manifestations may be extravagant,
like regressive unkemptness and crude manners.
Parents must guard against leaving room for these young
people to feel themselves to be left solitary at a crucial
point in their maturation from childhood to adulthood, compelled
to work out problems alone or with only the fumbling guidance
of others of their age group.
But we should not underestimate the strength, wisdom and
foresight of young people. Their stubbornness and stoutness
of mind arise from natural pride in the capabilities they
feel they have. They know more than the aged of a previous
generation; they have more information, more stimulation.
However, they still need the family.
If a junior member opts out of the family he is losing something
that is bigger than his gain. He may be venturesome and tough
when making minor experiments in the art of living, but when
it comes to matters which affect his whole life happiness
he must have a place to turn for guidance. Parents have learned
many lessons "the hard way", and they would like to save their
children some of the pain they experienced.
There is a tiresome repetition in published interviews and
television debates of the phrase "they don't understand".
When we hide behind "they do not understand" we are doing
two things: we are indulging in self-pity and we are admitting
our inability to communicate our ideas. Unless both parents
and children make an earnest effort to understand the other
point of view they are in no position to challenge it.
What to do
One way to reach mutual understanding is through the family
council, where a companionable family exchanges experiences,
ideas, and the sharing of burdens. Everyone gets to see just
a little bit more of any situation than was at first apparent.
Where family members engage in intimate, personal and informal
communication, they come to know one another intelligently,
and as a group they become better able to deal with problems
raised by internal and other forces.
A dynamically unified family has not solidified into a closed
corporation run by rules. Its unity is based upon the consensus
of its members; it emphasizes the individuality of its members
and their personality development; it is characterized by
the adaptability of the group and its members in meeting crises;
it works out differences as they arise.
The qualities of the family council are: to hear courteously,
to answer wisely, to consider soberly, to convince and persuade
rather than to overrule, and to decide impartially.
Even highly-charged feelings may have their sting drawn
off in a family conference. Giving expression to conflict
of ideas lessens the tension which arises from suppressed
and unsolved conflicts.
The family council is constructive, too, because it throws
new ideas on the table, and families need new ideas just as
much as do business concerns. One family council, debating
the problem of getting young children away from absorption
with television and interested in reading and constructive
activities, produced 37 suggestions.
Parents who wish to be perfectly stable have the feeling
sometimes in dealing with their children that the world is
on a slight tilt. All parents know, even when their affection
remains high, alternate periods of hope and despair.
An interesting question arises: what is being done effectively
to provide education especially designed to help these parents
and prospective parents? While the definitive plan for family
life is being drawn up through the research of sociologists
and others, some immediate action is called for.
If we accept the conception of the family as that of guiding
children by interpreting and integrating the conflicting impacts
of the world upon them, we presuppose that parents are keeping
themselves abreast of what is happening by studying, reading,
and discussing these things.
Any conversation between parents reveals that they recognize
the precarious state of the family in our society. They see
the need, and they have good intentions about doing something,
but just how to go about it is not clear. Without guidance,
the task is like trying to untie knots while wearing mittens.
During the past thirty years there has been an increasing
awareness on the part of members of many professions of the
function they perform in counselling on marriage and family
problems beyond the traditional scope of their practice. Not
only ministers, lawyers, psychologists and social workers
are consulted, but general medical practitioners, teachers,
foremen and managers are approached: anyone, in fact, who
appears to be in a position to give advice.
We need something more definite, more fixed, more readily
available. No sweeping philosophies or meticulous statistics
will do, but a programme of education and leadership, starting
now.
Churches of all faiths have a vital role. They need to put
forth immediately an imaginative and vigorous and continuing
effort to make themselves the powerful nucleus of families,
sustaining, advising and proffering the infinite help and
comfort of religion.
Not new, but newly urgent
The need for good family relationships is not new. One of
the oldest books in the world, written six thousand years
ago, advised Egyptian princes: "Take care of thine own house,
cherish thy wife."
In 1964 the Canadian Conference on the Family was convened
by Their Excellencies the Governor General and Madame Vanier
to consider how to meet existing and developing pressures.
"The structure of a civilization may change," said the Governor
General in his opening address. "From time to time the emphasis
may be placed on different values, but one thing always remains
immutable: the family."
After mentioning that he and his wife had often spoken of
their hopes and fears in this regard, he went on to say: "We
have talked of our fears because we have been impressed by
the tendency to forget that the union of man with woman carries
noble and great responsibilities that are fundamentally sacred,
and that the raising of children depends upon the devotion
of their parents. We have not been without hope, however,
because we are confident that Canadians in facing up to the
problems that exist will be able to work together in building
a society that is more aware of truly human values, and so
more respectful of family ties."
The Conference gave rise to the Vanier Institute of the
Family, whose President is Dr. Wilder Penfield. The Institute
is to continue the work started by the Conference, directing
large research projects, holding periodical scientific meetings,
and co-ordinating research for other welfare agencies.
There is no place like home
We are still turning pages in the history of Canada and
the development of the family.
What sort of family seems to be emerging as Canada celebrates
the hundredth anniversary of what the City of Saint John saluted
in 1867 as "the greatest of all modern marriages"? It is,
indeed, like the confederation of the provinces. It is a companionship
family, emphasizing intimate interpersonal association. It
is characterized by the giving and receiving of affection;
the assumption of equality of husband and wife; democracy
in family decisions, with a voice and a vote by the children;
the personality development of its members as a family objective;
freedom of expression consistent with family unity; and the
expectation that the greatest happiness is to be found in
the family.
In a country like Canada the words "There is no place like
home" should not sound quaint or amusing.
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