Less than 100 years ago, 90 percent of the U.S. population lived on farms. Most of those farms were subsistence farms, with the family needing to work together to fulfill the physical necessities of life. The family was also the center for education and learning. Family values were what you learned in the day-to-day working out of life: understanding the changing seasons and the best time to plant crops or a garden, being able to recognize a good horse, and how to get along with your neighbor. These were the necessities for survival but they also connected us to a deeper rhythm of life with the environment and our community. The Bible was a popular tool for teaching reading and for community guidance ( ie. "Do unto others as you would want them to do unto you") but the majority of Americans were not orthodox in their spiritual practices. The value of teamwork and collaboration in both the family and community was the central value for survival and living a civilized life. The rural home was the center of American life and culture; it was the productive center of our society. The farm provided everything needed to live. Survival and success were vitally linked to our relationships with others. It could be said that the value of cooperation within the family, the community and with the land was the principal "family value" in America at the turn of the century.

Today less than 3 percent of our population live on farms. Almost all farms today are part of "agribusiness." There are few subsistence farms. The home today is not a place of production but the center of consumption. Industrial development, beginning in the 1920's, jettisoned the father out of the house and into the factory or office. Fifty years later, in the 1970's, just to "maintain" in our society of labor saving devices and conveniences, the mothers joined dads in the work force. The values of a consumer society, based mainly on materialism, slowly became the dominant value for American families.

The satisfaction once experienced in relationships with family members, friends and communities has been replaced by the illusion of satisfaction through owning things. Having a new car, the fastest computer, the latest CD, the most fashionable clothes have becomeso desirable that people believe they will find satisfaction in life by possessing them. Commercial advertising, through the use of sophisticated psychological techniques, attempts to sell us products that will make us believe we are part of the "good life." The price the American family has paid for the good life has led us to be a nation suffering from depression.

We are lonely for each other and for a sense of being part of a greater community.

Many people today long for a sense of community and personal attachment. We live in isolation from friends and family, where the need or desire for cooperation and teamwork as a family value has been replaced by the value of independence and self-sufficiency, (especially emotionally) from others. This profound change in the function of the home, from a center of productivity and connection to one of consumerism, has taken its toll on all of us as parents and partners (husbands and wives) but has affected our children most profoundly. Frustrated children, either in school or day care, long hours of T.V. watching, parents exhausted by trying to make ends meet --- all of these have led us to our current discussion of "family values" in America.

Unfortunately, much of the family values movement in America offers an oversimplified response to helping our families. There is the mistaken notion that if the fathers are out there making a "good living" and mothers are in the home caring for children, we will regain a sense of balance in our society. Some of the leaders in this new movement in America try to use the Bible as the ultimate authority on how we need to organize our families. I wish the solution was so easy, that we could just look up what we need to do in a book!

The family has been and is a dynamic living organism. It has changed and adapted over the course of history to many different configurations. It exists today in many different paradigms throughout the world. In America we need to look at our own unique cultural and social conditions and ask ourselves what do our families need now?

What I propose is on the personal level, on the simplest level, is that we revitalize the "family farm" value of cooperation. Like the couples who ran the family farms, we as parents can begin to work together as partners, looking at the demands and chores of life, much like the farm families did. We need to ask, how can we equitably share the tasks of sustaining a family? From earning our living to doing the laundry, we as parents can figure out how to navigate these tasks together. We can again learn how to reach out to our neighbors and friends to help each other through the vicissitudes of modern life. We as families can learn to provide anenvironment in our daily lives that values cooperation and caring. We have to find the time, as families, to enjoying being together and sharing the events that shape our days. We want our children to be able to look to us, their parents, to have the skills and creativity to create a nurturing atmosphere.

The days of the father being out at work and the mother staying home with the kids is no longer a realistic model to emulate for parenting. As a family therapist, I often question whether it was ever the best model for raising children. We have moved into new territory for parenting, where for both the satisfaction of the couple and survival of many families, men and women need to move toward learning how cooperation and teamwork can lead to enjoyment and satisfaction in life.

For Further self-reflection and discussion:
1. What is your response to the idea that "family values" are rooted in the cooperation between husband and wife?
2. What are three of the "values" that you and your partner convey to your children?
3. What will your child or children learn about "family values" by watching the relationship between you and your partner?