IS HOME LIFE DYING?

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXX, Issue 5393, 27 February 1929, Page 3

IS HOME LIFE DYING?

“THIS FREEDOM” AND OUB YOUTH

the problem to-day.

I see from a paper* that a bishop has been propounding the question “Are family ties weakening?” and answering it a little doubtfully. It is a queston which we all now and then anxiously put to ourselves, for none could be more important (writes John Buchan, in the “Sunday Chronicle”). The family is the true unit of society. Its sacrosanctity is the first sign of emergence from barbarism, and it remains the foundation of civiliecd life.

No nation has ever maintained itself for long which; did not emphasise t.he importance of a family. The culture of ancient Rome, on which the modern world is built, gave the family an almost mystical cultivity. It made it it.-, ethical creed. The supreme virtue pictas (which is much more than piety) has its origin in the family. OUR FAMILY TRADITION. As it happened, the barbarisms of the North, who the Roman Empire, and were our o.wn ancestor,s, had the same tradition. The sanctity of the family, as we know from the Sagan, was as strong an article of faith with the Norse race as with the Roman. So from both ancestral streams the modern European world draws the same inspiration. It is an article of faith independent of political creed. The Socialist holds it as strongly as the Conservative. There have been half-witted theorists who have attempted to do away with the family, but. they have struggled in vain against that most ancient of human instincts. Nat the least, of Russia’s misfortunes under the present regime is the blow struck against family life. For the family provides the strongest, of the subordinate loyalties on which national loyalty is built up. To put it at its lowest, it is the nursing, ground of the civic virtues. trait of kinship. Our own people have always been jealous fo/r the security of the family. The English common law, indeed, does not make such elaborate provision for ife continuance as the Romans did in the forms which it has taken in France and Scotland. England h>as no ; t produced l , perhaps, the fierce family solidarity which has been a tradition in these two countries, where kinship was, the supreme trait. In the old days a Scotsman might show a vigorous independence towards the rest of the world, but he was a will-, ing bondsman to his kin. Yet the Engjish family ma.ll is, vain of English law and custom, and the world has never seen a family life which, for all its freedtom, was more close and enduring. Is there a danger of these ties weakening ? The old days, when children called their parents “Sir” or “M’am” till they were themselves parents, when a authority was more binding than statute law —these have, indeed, gone. Such devotion was partly derived through a Puritan tradition frojni a Mosaic law, and could, not survive a weakening, of that tradition. Family life to-day must be a freer thing. Cap it keep the tie close and preserve a certain amount of reasonable discipline? the NEW LODGER.

The danger, I think, is at the two ends of a social scale—among the working poor, and the workless rich. To-flay in a working family there can be no doubt that the bonds are .loose. Free education, hast removed, one paramount duty from the par-, ents. The higher wages which young people receive liberate .them earlier from economic dtependeuqe. Greater facilities for movement are apt to scatter a family sooner.

In many working-class households a son and daughter are merely lodgers, paying for their board, and completely independent in their teens of anything like parental c'ontrol. ,If any characteristic is left In such households the ties must be only those of affection- The material ties have gone.

It is the same at. the other end with the fortunately small class the workless and rootless rich. 1 say “rootless?’ advisedly, for long. de-, scent and hereditary responsibilities tend to keep a family together, however ample its means; Take a’ rich man. who has inherited money, and has net profession; except td amuse himself. The c,hildlren as soon as the boys, leave school or college and the girls “cbme out” have their own incomes and S° their own way, just like their parents. There is nothing of that, close intimacy which makes family life. There are no ties, economic or intellectual, and in such a selfish environment there is not much chance for affection. The second class, does not perhaps matter greatly. But it would be a disaster, for the nation if family life were to weaken among the working classes, i am in hopes; that that loyalty to kinship which has always ( been strongest in the poor man’s household will surmount the loss of material interdependence. REVOLT OF YOUTH. There is another problem of a <iiffer.ent character which concerns us all. Family life is, like marriage, something of an art Success does not come automatically. It presents a constant problem. There is a period, say between fifteen, ajid twenty-five, when the relation of children to their parents must always be difficult. It is an old topic with the novelist this of “father and son” and “mother and daughter/' A classical passage is that in which, in Stevemspih’s “Weir of Hermiston,” Archie Weir discusses the subject with his father’s bld friend and colleague. There must always be a certain revolt in the most decorous youth. It looks at the world with dfifferent eyes from its elders. It is. interested in different questions. It talks a different language. It is apt to think its parents narrow, stupid, and unsympa.thetic,. Only after it has been tumbled abount a bit by the world' does it begin to wonder whether the- parents had not after all. a good; deal to say for themselves.

There is a story of a Scotsman who once complained: “When I was young 1 used to think that my father wasna very clever; but I’ve been terribly punished, for I can see that my laddie thinks me a perfect eediot.”

THE PROBLEM OF TO-DAY.

The thing repeats, itself in each generation. Youth will take nothing on trust. It will not accept the wisdom of its elders till it has proved by hard experience that there is something in it. The great problem ip family life is how to tide ovei' this difficult period; how to prevent .the perfectly right, and natural revolt frpim leading, to rupture or estrangement.

The old way .was by a stiff family discipline, stiff enough to cover a time of danger. A young man did not think of questioning what seemed as unquestionable as the law of gravity. If it was a devout, household he remembered the Fifth Commandment. If it was nc>t, he was bound by the convention of gpod manners. He kept his doubts or; rebellion to l himself till the time came when he looked at thisgs with a juster perspective. That iron code has gone. It has been replaced by a large measure of freedom and intimacy. The child is n a longer regarded as a small fragment of original sin to be dragooned, but as a human being with rights of its own. There is an almost morbid desire to understand the psychology of youth. The aim is to rule by understanding. HOME PARTNERSHIPS. It is undoubtedly a better fashion. The best way to keep the tie of family strong is for children to grow up in a close and intelligent partnership with their parents. In such a case therp is no critical period to be passed ,for the parents are always in the children’s confidence. In .such a family there never comes the tragic moment when a son lookfj back with remoirse upon a ’father whom he is conscious, of having under,valued and misunderstood; or a father laments the career of a child marred by his own carelessness. But if it is a better way it is also .a more difficult, way. If we have freedom in any sphere we must .work hard at it to make it a success. In all family life there must be discipline. Easy-going indulgence is a certain road to catastrophe. Family life to-day has greater responsibilities just because it has; great possibilities. It is a harder, task to bring up children so that, in the words of the Bible, they may arise and call, you blessed. The old mechanical discipline was a clumsy thing, but it more or; less achieved its purpose. The new disci-, pline, based upon affection, and) understanding, is a finer thing, but more delicate and difficult.