Have you ever heard the expression a "Leave It To Beaver family?" I have, but it's always been in a disparaging way. The idea of a nuclear family (father, mother, children) sitting down to have dinner every night or having an otherwise conventional dynamic will often be regarded as an anomaly or alien to how things are today.
Case in point: I didn't have to search far for this little ditty from the bastion of liberal social commentary, Slate ("Non-Traditional Families Are The New Tradition"):
"Christmas is a time of nostalgia for Victorian imagery, ‘40s-style crooner songs, and the idealized 1950s family image of two parents, two kids, and a dog. But if watching the inexplicably famous Holderness family celebrating the corny joys of the nuclear family Christmas is the sort of thing that makes you want to pour a little more bourbon in your eggnog, take comfort in the fact that history is on your side. A new study by the Pew Research Center shows that the majority of American kids under 18 are not being raised in a “traditional” family, defined as two parents in their first marriage. Only 46 percent of kids have the Leave It To Beaver lifestyle; the rest are being raised by single parents, cohabitating parents, stepparents, or even grandparents. That's down from 73 percent in 1960."
The thing is, there is something attractive about a non-dysfunctional, healthy, joyful, and traditional family. True, I think millennial kids do seem to regard it as a kind of artifact or alien to what they know family to be. Many of their friend's parents are divorced, or divorced and remarried. Some have same-sex parents. Others are being raised by single moms or single dads, or moms with boyfriends or dads with girlfriends.
But I maintain while it might be a "corny joy," there really is something attractive about an in-tact family. And by attractive, I mean it really does tend to attract people. One of Debbie and my favorite things to do still is just spend time at the house of our friends Dan and Missy, who are friends in Christ who homeschool their four kids and are very easy to be around. Some time it is to join them for dinner, sometime it is just to lounge around and be around their company. It's edifying for us and our kids because in our circle, this is 'normal,' though we realize our families are in the minority. It's where we recharge and drink from the well.
That's an example of us as a family spending time with a healthy, joyful Christian family for our own sake. But I think even more importantly is making our own family a place of invitation for that same kind of refreshment for people (especially young people and children) on the outside who may not experience it as commonplace.
Large, vibrant families are a true witness in today's society. Just a few weeks ago we spent an afternoon with such a family of 10(ish) on an invitation just talking and having tea as the kids came and went throughout the house--playing with our kids in the backyard, shooting hoops in the driveway, reading, snuggling up to their mom. In the same way as with our friends Dan and Missy, it was edifying for us to see what a large and faith-filled family looked like up close and personal. Being an example of such a family--what people see--can be a powerful way of ministering just by presence alone, and can open the door to conversations about life, joy, and sacrifice that may not have otherwise been asked.
For Deb and I, marriage is a vocation, our vocation, and family is the expression of how we live that vocation out. Thankfully we have had good models in our own families of parents who have stayed true to their vows and sacrificed for the good of their children, while recognizing that generational sin is a real thing. (If you haven't listened to Fr. Ripperger's conference on Generational Spirits, I would recommend it, very eye opening.) We have a more-or-less "traditional" setup in our home and respect and honor the authority and proper roles of God, husband, and wife, and it seems to work. There is a reason for it.
Marriage builds a family, and family builds a society. Healthy families = healthy society. If you come from a broken home, abuse, dysfunction, etc, it can be hard to know what is 'normal.' But spending time with people of faith, with healthy families who invite you in to their hearth and home, can help heal that. We should not accept that abuse, dysfunction, divorce, adultery, same-sex partnerships, should be the litmus of the "new normal." In a wounded society, we will need the witness of healthy families, families of faith, joy, hope, and love, to stand out and help provide a marker in the fog for those wandering through the battlefield of family carnage. So, whether you've come from a broken home and are now raising your own family in the unconscious wake of that brokenness, or have been blessed with a lineage of strong and faith-filled generations, we all have an important role to play: modeling our families on the Holy Family, the model for love, obedience, right order, fruitfulness, and devotion.