The family: March 08, 1999 issue of New Thinking

March 08, 1999 New Thinking:
The family

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March 08, 1999

The family

By Gerry McGovern

How will the family fare in the digital age? Will the family be brought closer together or further divided? And what, specifically, will be the role of the Internet in this change?

The ordinary rarely gets an editorial. We never see a front page stating: “Mother collects child from school today;” “Father takes son to game;” “Family celebrates birthday of three year old;” “Parents feel lonely after final child leaves home.”

All around this world, from America to Ireland, from China to Africa, families are living, loving and working together. Parents are making sacrifices and thinking of their children’s future, children are working hard at school and thinking of their parents.

The world is a mess in some ways. Some children are abused, some are exploited. But walk into a schoolyard in practically any country in the world as the school day finishes and you will see happy children and proud, happy parents. There will be smiles and there will be energy and excitement.

By and large, children are being well looked after today. Parents care very much about their future and work to secure it.

It wasn’t always that way. In more ancient times, because so many children died young, the bonds of affection and love were not strong between parent and child. The parents could not afford the emotional expenditure when the return was so unpredictable.

Through the ages, children were sent into servitude or apprenticeship as soon as they were able to work. There was no real concept of childhood.

It was not until the late 19th Century that the ‘traditional family,’ as we know it evolved. Around then, the father, mother and children as an relatively enclosed unit began to replace the more communal rearing patterns.

Of course, the traditional family, with the dominant male who had most rights, could be a very cruel place. Gradually, rights are spreading, firstly to the mother more lately to the children.

Today, the traditional family is well in decline. Ireland is an interesting case study here. Ireland has moved from the Fifties to the Nineties in a little over ten years. What was a very traditional, conservative society, has moved towards a liberal model at an incredible pace.

The Catholic Church had in some ways been the de facto government of Ireland. Now, it is assailed. Last week, a Catholic bishop made a speech where he claimed that “planned children” were a type of “technological produce.” He was denounced on all sides.

What the bishop missed is that most of our modern society is a product of technology. Humanity is like a passenger on the way to a destiny dictated by technology. Change is something that happens to us, not something we make happen.

How will the Internet change the family? On one side, we could see it separating parents and children, with children living in the future and parents struggling to understand a technological world that is largely alien to them.

On the other, we could see the Internet, and email in particular, as a connector. Old people can start communicating more with children, passing on knowledge and experience. Children who have moved long distances can keep in touch more regularly with their parents.

I’m just scratching the surface here, but maybe instead of all these conferences on ecommerce and technology, we should have more conferences on society, and how, for example, the family can become a driver, rather than a passenger, in this age of change.

Gerry McGovern

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Today, the traditional family is well in decline.