The Traditional Family - Should it be Obsolete?
For thousands of years, higher authorities are given to the lineage elders in the traditional family in China. This is a unique authority to dictate matters, maintain order, and to inspire respect, so that the members of the family will all be obedient. It is believed that this will help parents to discipline unruly or disobedient children since they are still young so that proper observance of the correct form of behavior can be built.
In the Chinese society, the dignity of the family is far more important than anything else. Therefore, the parents have the responsibility to ensure that the members of the family will not degrade the family reputation. The Chinese thus have to observe all kinds of rituals and proprieties as well as exercise some restraints. Only in this way can the family hope to last for generations and have harmony in the family.
In other words, this means that the Chinese are born to follow the rules set by the elder, with no rights to protest and their future totally depends on their parents. They cannot even utter a word of protest. Why should they? They never can have their own dreams. Everything that analogous to what the elder decides is a command. No alteration or discussion is given. It is a potter does to the pottery. The potter is the only person who decides how the pottery will look like.
Being filial to parents is said to be the most important tenets of the Chinese. However, is this really filial or a kind of compulsory job for the Chinese? Is the Chinese really sincerely obeying all the unofficial laws from their heart or do they just have no choice?
Some people may think this is an indirect way of abuse, both physically and mentally, and they are questioning the human rights in China. However, for many years the Chinese have kept their silence on this matter. Why are they keeping their silence?
It is because they are not only trying to be filial and follow rules set by their elders, but they also have love in their heart. They love their parents; that is why they are able to keep silent and obey their parents. A loving heart brings willingness and the ability to sacrifice. The fullest sense of the word filial is accompanied by love. In the history of China, there are a great number of people who love their family and country so much that they are willing to sacrifice their own lives to protect their family and country. One of them is Mulan. Mulan loved her family and country so much that she was willing to do anything for them.
Everybody has his or her own dreams. However, who is going to pay the price for the Chinese who cannot fulfill their dreams? Do they blame their parents for that?
The traditional Western family tends to have different concepts toward their family. They have definite ways of maintaining order to discipline unruly and disobedient children. However, they will never limit their children from reasonable decisions made by their children. This gives them the chance to expand their creativity and potentiality to reach their dreams. They have liberty in speech, discussion and are able to be friends with the elder.
For the Chinese, the dignity of the parents is everything. The Children must respect and show deference to them. There will never be "friendship" among the old and the young. No discussion among them will be made. The decision of the elder is a decree. It is believed that if the parents are liberal and indulgent, they will create many troubles that in turn will give rise to even more troubles. Therefore, who is to be blamed for all this? The elders of the family are just trying to discipline themselves, following all the rules and regulations to the letter, so that the younger member emulate their good behavior and exhort each other to abide by the teachings of the ancient sages.
It is good to have all these rules to prevent crimes from happening thoroughly. But this causes them to lose their freedom to choose and to develop their ideas creatively. Is it worthy to pay all of these with their rights?
The traditional Western family system has long given their children to live in an environment without pressure from the old; in fact proper supports and guidance are given to them. This can really helps them to find the true value of life. But too much freedom and lack of care these days have brought to the collapse and downfall of the society.
The powerful lure of materialism and personal comfort has easily brought to the fatal corruption of the Western family system value compared to the Chinese family system nowadays. This is because the strictness and the constraint exercised by the Chinese have adjusted and equipped the children of the dragon to have better characteristics towards the worldly matters. This doesn't mean that the Chinese society does not have any problem. Even though they seem like losing what they are dreaming for, the Chinese society had been successful in building up a strong unison and harmony community structure compared to the Western society today.
The human cost, brought about the downfall of the traditional family, is horrific. As U.S. News & World Report explained, "an epidemic of violence is killing America's inner cities one child at a time. The number of killings by kids younger than 18 has increased by 125 percent from 1984 to 1994, and in 1994, the nation's juvenile-justice system spent $20 billion to arrest and jail children, only to see 70 percent commit new crimes. In Chicago alone, 231 children under the age of 17 were arrested on murder charges."1
Despite the fact that the Chinese nowadays no longer exercise all of the rituals and constraints and that the elders are more open-minded, some of the important proprieties and family values are still inherited among the Chinese.
Only a stable, loving home becomes the place where instruction and discipline can direct a child's energy into constructive outlets. Both traditional Western and Chinese have their very precious examples that we can learn from. However, the most important thing to keep family in harmony is the way the father shows responsibility, and provides good examples, such as, loyalty and love to his family, and the way a mother nurtures and comforts the children. Has the traditional family with Dad as the provider and Mom as the homemaker become an anachronism? Will society in general, and our children in particular, be better off if the state replaces the family in the rearing and training of children? No government programs or educational professional can ever take the place of a healthy, functional family whose approach to life derives from the timeless values of the Creator.
Psychologist Christopher Bacorn, writing in Newsweek, gives this analysis. "I have come to believe that most adolescent boys can't make use of professional counseling. What a boy can use, and all too often doesn't have, is the fellowship of men - at least one man who pays attention to him, who spends time with him, who admires him. A boy needs a man he can look up to. As a nation, we are racked by youth violence, overrun by gangs, guns and drugs. The great majority of youthful offenders are male, most without fathers involved in their lives in any useful way. Many have never even met their fathers"2
Realizing the tremendous responsibility that children and a family entail, a right-thinking man is not going to be prowling the streets looking for "conquests." The last thing he would want is to father children he won't be there to raise. By cherishing and honoring their mother, Dad sets the proper family example for his children. This plays a crucial role in preparing them to relate to their own mates in the future.
"He has a face that only a mother could love," the old saying goes. The point is that mothers are special. Designed by the Creator to provide the environment where a tiny, fertilized cell can grow into a fully functioning human being, mothers are intimately connected with their offspring. They provide nourishment and comfort to this miniature person. But most of all, they provide love. Love and respect should be the underlying values by which people relate to one another in society. A child first learns to love by being loved.
Of course, a mother is there not merely to comfort her infant, but also to encourage and teach the baby as he or she grows, making sure that her child has proper clothing to wear and nourishing food to eat. However, a wise mother is not only concerned that her child is fed with good food to build a healthy body, she is also concerned that his or her mind is to be fed with the things that lead to moral and spiritual health.
There is no adequate substitute for the family - neither professionals nor the latest government program which can replace loving parents. Despite the ideas of utopian dreamers from the past and to the present, family is here to stay. But right now it seems that many of our families in the Western world, particularly in America, are, if not already broken, at least seriously bent. And make no mistake, the farther our society drifts away from the traditional family, the deeper it sinks into the mire of devastating social consequences. Who is going to pay the price for the lost of the family this time?
The children of dragon have long being able to stand more firmly compare to the west. Traditional family in China has all the good rituals and proprieties that the people in this era should learn from, but not the absolute authorities. Love plays a very important role in creating a healthier and harmony family.
Is the traditional family obsolete? It should not be so! Its role in shaping the next generation has been shown, time and again, to be irreplaceable. It is not only about learning to exercise restraints and enforcing strictness through rules and regulations, but also to building a better and stronger family with love. Every person either the Western or the Chinese, should learn to develop strong family values early on. Then mankind will not only reap benefits in this age, but can also be part of pioneering a new age to come.
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