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BUILD
STRONG FAMILY TIES
Here's How!
by
Ronald O. Kelly
Important principies often ignored can help you establish
and maintain st rong family ties.
S
ELDOM
do
families get
together any–
more. We live in
such a hectic soci–
ety.
We have little
time for dinner with
the grandparents or
for a family reunion.
A nd beca use we
h a ven 't taken the
time, the glue that
holds families to–
gether doesn 't hold
firm.
It's time to revive
sorne old-fashioned val–
ues and build more
permanent family ties.
lt
might just save your
family.
Dlnner at Grandma's
Let's take for example
an old American cus–
tom to gather the
whole family every
Sunday afternoon for
fried chicken, mashed
potatoes and g r avy,
fr esh cooked garden
peas and , best of aH,
three different kinds of homemade
pie. l f you ever had such wonderful
dinners in your fami ly, you can
almost taste the delicious meals
s till. And who could ever forget the
fun of sorne games afterward with
all the chi ldren in the neighbor–
hood joining in?
April 1983
And remember those lazy Sun–
day afternoons in the summer when
you sat in the shade of the old oak
t ree watching cloud formations
noat by? Or do you remember
playing outside with your cousins
while your parents sat and talked
for hours?
l f that had been part
of your life you cannot
forget it. But why is it
gone today? Doesn't
anyone care anymore?
And why can't you
star t or reinstale such
fami l y get-together
customs now?
Well , you can.
Of course, if the
grandparents live
hundreds or thousands
of miles away, you
can't have Sunday din–
ner together frequent–
ly. But if they are near–
by, you can certainly
make ita fairly regular
practice. Even if they
are a great distance
away, all is not lost.
Those Wonderful
Family Reunions
Another great old–
fasbioned tradition
used to be getting the
family together once a
year or every other
year- 1 mean the
whole family: brothers
and sisters and all the
cousins. There is noth–
ing like it.
We, in the Western democracies,
live in very mobile societies. In the
United States a famil y now moves
on the average of once every five
years. Often these moves are
hundreds or sometimes thousands
of miles. When such moves happen
the children may grow up without
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