Family unit important

WHAT happens in a family unit should be setting the foundation of how children will move and interact in the community.
Everywhere there are talks about breakdown in law and order, increase in alcohol and drug abuse, increase in domestic violence, police brutality, and sorcery-related deaths and generally a breakdown in services.
All fingers point to the Government of the day, blaming it for diverting its focus elsewhere and not on matters where we claim supposed to be addressed.
Realistically, given the current situation the country is in, the Government can only do what it can do and the rest of it now falls back more specifically on families.
Changes may not happen overnight but it can be achieved if all effort is put into empowering a family unit especially the father and mother with the help of the church.
Empowering them with the skill to impact the message of love, sharing and forgiveness through their actions.
Family is a place where children can be raised in a safe and stable environment.
Both fathers and mothers have an important contribution to play as each have a different perspective and can uniquely help children of both genders to learn important skills relating to marriage, education, work, morality, ethics, and social interaction and so on.
Families are a place where three or four generations can care for each other from cradle to grave.
These include the sick, the vulnerable, the disabled and the aged. It gives family members a sense of purpose and meaning that paid jobs cannot.
Family is the basic unit of society.
But do we, as a society, really think about what that means?
Ask any child to draw his or her family and you get the traditional picture of father, mother, brother and sister, with perhaps the family cat and dog thrown in for good measure.
One day that went by which should have been celebrated in the country was the UN’s International Day of Families on May 15.
The day provides an opportunity to promote awareness of issues relating to families and to increase knowledge of the social, economic and demographic processes affecting them.
The theme this year is “Families in Development: Copenhagen & Beijing + 25”.
The Covid-19 pandemic brings into sharp focus the importance of investing in social policies protecting the most vulnerable individuals and families.
It is the families who bear the brunt of the crisis, sheltering their members from harm, caring for out of school children and at the same time continuing their work responsibilities.
Although families all over the world have transformed greatly over the past decades in terms of their structure and as a result of global trends and demographic changes, the United Nations still recognises family as the basic unit of society.
Every time a family breaks up, the society is affected in some way.
When long-lost families get together, the society benefits.
In fact, the parents are the epicentre of any household.
We would not be alive today if not for our parents.
So when families bond together as friends and then as relatives because of inter-marriages, they tend to share everything with each other.
If constructive beliefs and moral values are built and passed to next generations by each families, a good nation is developed.