Is it possible to have a society without community, without some kind of family? Will the traditional family disappear and be replaced by some other form of community? To find the answer, we first need to reexamine what family is and whether it has always meant what we understand by that term today.
With the development of the first permanent settlements (transitioning from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to an agricultural and pastoral lifestyle), groups began to connect and form the first tribes, consisting of twenty to forty groups. What differentiated these original communities from modern families is the fact that they didn’t need to be biologically related to be part of the group (family). Anyone could become part of it if they contributed to it. In other words, for a large part of human history, people lived in extended families that consisted not only of individuals they were biologically related to but also of people they chose to collaborate with.
Based on this assumption, interdependence and cooperation were crucial for the functioning of these communities, which were more inclusive and flexible compared to the nuclear family structure that is predominant today. As society evolves, the concept of family may also change, but the need for a sense of belonging and support from a community will likely remain. A research team in 2017 conducted a genetic analysis of human remains that were buried together (and potentially lived together) 34,000 years ago in present-day Russia. The results showed that the individuals buried were not biologically related to each other. Another study aimed at studying the lives and habits of thirty-two tribes that have survived to this day showed that the primary kin – parents, siblings, and children – usually make up less than ten percent of the members of a tribe.
Why is all of this important?
Throughout history, humans have formed groups and lived in communities in order to survive and progress together. One of the fundamental human needs is the need to belong to a community. Therefore, today’s crisis of alienation is nothing more than a result of the impoverishment or complete disappearance of family life and the lack of physical and emotional connections that we used to share in communities.
Why is it like this?
During the past century, our way of life has drastically changed. We have made life freer and better for the individual, but harder and more unstable for the group (family). We have replaced large and interconnected extended families with smaller and separate nuclear families. Life has become “better” for adults, but worse for children for one very simple reason – life in extended families provided great material and moral support to everyone. Children spent a lot of time with their extended family and were not left to roam the streets or glued to smartphone screens.
In the case of a child’s illness, job loss, financial problems, personal issues… the extended family was there to help.
Family connections were stronger, but individual choice was limited. As a member of the group, the individual often could not choose their own path, but it was determined by the leader of the group – usually the father or grandfather (since most extended families were patriarchal). Furthermore, the extended family allowed very little privacy, forcing individuals to lose their independence and conform to the group’s expectations. The individual is no longer in contact with people they did not choose (grandparents, uncles, aunts, relatives…).
Due to these shortcomings, which proved fatal in light of the major social and technological changes at the beginning of the 20th century (accelerated industrialization, increased purchasing power of individuals, loss of traditional values, emergence of new movements – individualism, consumerism, feminism… and others), the extended family ceases to be trendy and more and more couples decide to lead separate lives with their children.
Until the mid-20th century, the nuclear family replaced the dominant pre-industrial social community (extended family) and became the new version of the family. However, the golden age of the new family was short-lived. Problems have been plaguing the new family since the mid-1970s.
Children raised in new nuclear families lose the sense of togetherness, sacrifice, and care for the group that their parents had in the multi-generational extended family. increasingly self-oriented. They grow up as individuals who are not willing to sacrifice themselves for their families, and as a result, there is a growing number of family disturbances (divorces).
Children who grew up in divorced families had more and more problems with physical and mental health, lower academic achievement, issues with self-confidence and self-esteem, and were generally more inclined towards vices and rejecting monogamous relationships. As adults, they had significant difficulties in building stable families. Children in these families became even more isolated and traumatized. Each subsequent generation created more and more “broken people” who then created even more “broken people” and so on. All of this led to the last two generations spending less time in marriage, i.e. getting married later and divorcing more frequently.
Along with this alarming trend, there is also another present today, which is reflected in a significant decrease in newly formed marriages, leading to the The key conclusion is that the number of divorces is decreasing. However, we can see that the number of divorces is still increasing, while the number of newly formed marriages is constantly decreasing, to the point where it has halved since 1965 up until today.
The situation across the ocean, in the USA, is no better:
What are the consequences of the breakdown of the traditional family?
In the EU, the number of newborns has almost halved from 1961 to 2017, and the situation is no better in the USA (there are more American households with pets than with children). According to data from 2017, the average family in the EU had 1.59 children (while the rate of 2.1 is minimum for natural population regeneration). The consequence of this negative trend is that the population is becoming older and more lonely. In other words, we are slowly dying out!
Meanwhile, many politicians, professors, and celebrities are saying that “people should be free to choose any form of family that suits them” or that the “traditional family is a social construct and does not have to be a community” but “scissors and women”. Such (gender) ideology has contributed to the creation of various forms of free relationships that have emerged from the understanding of the family as an outdated institution that restricts individual freedom. And that is partly true. As we have seen, the structure of the family has changed throughout history.
But what do the available research and data on newly formed communities show us?
Unfortunately, many of the new forms of family (single parents, domestic partnerships, blended families, families with grandparents, same-sex partnerships…) do not really function well.
We all know about stable and loving single-parent families, but on average, children of single parents or unmarried parents living in partnerships usually have poorer physical and mental health, lower academic achievement, and more behavioral problems than children living with two married biological parents.
According to the work of Richard V. Reeves, Director of the Center on Children and Families at Brookings, those born into poverty have
Children who are raised in poverty by an unmarried mother have a 50 percent chance of remaining poor and unsuccessful, while those who are nurtured in an environment of imagination by both parents have an 80 percent chance of personal growth. Moreover, blended marriages resulting from the remarriage of divorced parents are not ideal for children. The merging of two families often leads to trauma as children are still attached to their biological mother or father and struggle to accept their new step-parents, step-siblings, and the newly formed dynamics within the new family. Furthermore, children in such marriages have a higher likelihood of experiencing abuse, divorce, and are more prone to substance abuse due to various mental issues caused by family disruptions. Data on children raised by grandparents also indicate a higher prevalence of behavioral and emotional disorders compared to children from traditional families. One reason for this is the Children are usually placed under the care of grandparents due to parents who abuse drugs, alcohol, abuse or neglect their child, etc. Another issue is that grandparents often cannot provide the sufficient support, love, and care that a child would receive in a traditional family.
As for life in same-sex communities, there are not enough studies yet to show the influence that such a type of community has on a child’s development.
Family life and family communities have drastically changed in just the last hundred years. The increasing number of divorces and decreasing number of marriages, along with declining birth rates in Western countries and the growing number of non-marital and same-sex communities, single households, and single-parent families in various combinations, indicate significant changes and a crisis in the institution of the family.
The consequences include: increased opioid addiction, depression, suicide rates, inequality – and an increasingly older population that feels lonely, isolated, Disconnected and distrustful, devoid of a sense of belonging. In such conditions, family members unfortunately spend less and less time together, so the family becomes less and less the center of its members’ lives. Parents, due to a series of objective reasons (struggles for existence, unresolved traumas and childhood issues), as well as subjective reasons (insufficient sensitivity to their children’s needs, not finding time for quality leisure time and communication with their household members), often are unable to provide their children with a stimulating environment and give them guidelines for optimal development of their potential.
At the same time, educational institutions, i.e. the state, are expected to take on more parental engagement and assume an increasing number of family functions. On the other hand, educational practitioners complain about the growing increase in deviations in children’s behavior, attributing them to (mis)education by parents, while others emphasize that schools do not place enough importance on teaching basic life skills. The blame lies with the education system which focuses solely on academic achievement and neglects values and character development. Another group that is blamed are the media (websites, social networks, movie studios, etc.) who prioritize profit and expanding their reach over any educational impact they might have.
Unfortunately, this blame game falls on the shoulders of children, perpetuating a vicious cycle.
So, what is a possible solution? In recent years, there has been an increase in new living arrangements that bring non-biological relatives into family relationships. Cohesive communities attract diverse populations: young professionals and retirees, single parents, entrepreneurs, and artists. Some communities are multigenerational, while others cater to specific populations such as seniors, singles, or families. These communities can be found in rural and urban environments and may include small family homes with shared spaces or apartment buildings with smaller private areas connected to communal spaces. It is a movement that started in Denmark in the 1960s: families began to connect in order to share responsibility for child care. Today, it is an international trend that aims to fill the void left by the breakdown of the traditional family. There are many differences among such communities, but they all share the common goal of providing a balance between private and communal space, designed specifically to encourage community interaction. Community members make decisions together and respect the needs of all members. Homes are usually designed to be environmentally friendly, and residents often share certain community resources.
Sound familiar?
It seems that we are returning to our roots – the coexistence we had in primitive communities.
For example, on the CoAbode website, single mothers can find other single mothers interested in house sharing, and the company Common, which was launched in 2015 and manages over twenty-five communities in [expand text] seven cities, also offer to young singles.
These and similar experiments suggest that people still want the flexibility and privacy they gained from the breakup of extended families, but also long to be part of a group with which they can connect and collaborate. These new groups, called “built families” by Daniel Burns, a political scientist at the University of Dallas, may or may not replace traditional families, remains an open question.
Regardless of all social and technological changes, the nuclear family continues to prove itself as one of the best ways of life and child-rearing in the 21st century.
1 A nuclear family (or core family) is a term used in sociology and anthropology to refer to a community composed of a mother, father, and children. The nuclear family is considered the smallest and basic unit of society and the place where human reproduction occurs – both biological and social.