The breakdown of the traditional family structure is one of the most difficult and important problems society faces. If families do not take responsibility for themselves, society must step in. Although that may sound okay in theory—and is in fact what socialism/communism is ostensibly about—it does not work in practice. Society is nothing more than a gigantic family and if people cannot shoulder the responsibility for smaller families in specific, they certainly won't be able to take care of the bigger society family in general. Trying to make a healthy society family while ignoring the responsibilities of individual family units is like trying to eat soup with a fork.
 
Way back when humans were few and far between on this planet, family was about the only society there was. Family created a labor pool that helped with hunting, gathering, defense, and shelter. The utility of the family continued with the advent of the agricultural age. Farming was just not very workable as a solo enterprise. Retirement was a figment of the imagination without kids to take over. The more progeny, the more productive the farm was and the easier life became. The family farm and the family trade (later in the pre-industrial era) were often the default occupations for children. Social roles were neat and defined. People knew what they had to do to survive and they knew what the future held. The family gave life continuity.
 
Not today. A brave new landscape of options and freedoms split families apart. Schooling for myriad occupations, easy travel, instant communication with the world, the prospect of limitless success, the advance of socialism, and the popularity of 'me' pop psychology seems to make the family increasingly obsolete. But our basic biological and psychological design is still matched to our genetic roots in a prehistory in which family was necessary for survival.
 
Children are the most tragic victims of the modern flip attitude toward the family. There is just no substitute for loving, caring parents. The damage to abandoned children is enormous. The brain will not even develop normally if the child does not experience touch and love. The 'blood is thicker than water' bond within families creates a 'cushions on a couch' feeling of security, and a sense of belonging, love, comfort, and hope. People are healthier physically and psychologically in the secure family nest. If this is not provided, then that is a hole the person spends life trying to fill—manifesting in all sorts of aberrant insecurities and endless chats with therapists.

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The extended family of the past may end up being the most workable model for the future. In the extended family all generations are either in the same home or nearby. The sense of belonging in that arrangement must be wonderful. Think of the support, the shared responsibilities, and the potential leisure. There would be ready-made babysitting. Varied talents would be right there to take care of most eventualities. Parents and grandparents would provide a pool of wisdom to draw from. The strength and energy of the young could help the elderly; the experience of the elderly could help the young. When someone became ill there would be a fleet of caregivers. When dying, one would have loved ones alongside. When birthing, all would experience the joy. Shared use of materials would decrease the tax on resources—fewer garages to fill with stuff. Everyone would not need to go cut down more woods to have their own home. Young children would have older ones to play with. Practical education from the family community would be of immense value. Shared children would decrease the urge to have one's own, or at least so many of them.
 
There would be problems, of course, since no two people can ever agree on everything. But the blood/love bond would help soften the differences and be a motivator for peaceful resolution. Even conflict within the group that is resolved with justice and love would become an invaluable learning experience for all and deepen the sense of family community.
 
As the world continues to fill and crowd, extended families may become a necessity. Our family, the whole thing, might become our family's responsibility rather than society's. Why not? Family is the reason we exist and is an inherent responsibility. As world resources dwindle and governments learn that social programs must be funded by something other than political idealism, what is the other viable alternative to people taking care of themselves and their own? As people are crammed into tighter and tighter spaces, would we rather be pooled with those we do not know, or with our family?
 
Discounting the value of family and its inherent responsibility to itself as resulted in society being overrun with tens of thousands of abandoned children. Failed family structures require replacement with loving surrogates such as properly monitored adoption programs, mentoring, and foster care. For the very young, at least through early grade school, a parent or loving surrogate at home should be a mandatory thing, not an option. Young children require love and security to help them develop into loving, well adjusted, and secure adults. Children are the foundation of the future. Like the foundation to any significant structure, they must be constructed and tended with the utmost intelligence and care.
 
Unfortunately, people insist on freedom to have children, rear them as they choose, couple, disconnect, and behave as if consequences from their actions belong to somebody else. Freedom can only exist in tandem with responsibility. Spewing out children who are not properly cared for and who then become burdens or menaces is the blowback from thinking of freedom only, not responsibility and consequences. Disassembling the family creates a yawning vacuum of authority not adequately replaced by society. Like modern medicine that does nothing to prevent disease or build health, but rather attempts to just pick up the pieces, the new socialistic landscape does little to cultivate good people; it just punishes them when they go bad.
 
Sooner or later government will have to take the bold move of enforcing the ethical obligation parents have to their children. The only other option is to regulate copulation (a virtual impossibility) or shift responsibility to the rest of society (the present solution that does not work). Once people have children, they lose certain freedoms. Parents can never walk away from the responsibility of the proper rearing of their children. If they do, then they must foot the bill for others to do the parenting for them. A thinking society should not shift the burden to others as if 'others' were some bottomless vat of resources to repair all the damage people create from exerting their freedoms.

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