The Family Compact Doomed?

Statistics Canada has brought out some intriguing new figures illustrating the decline of the nuclear family, the little family grouping of parents and siblings living together in harmony and for the distinct purpose of peopling the nation ad infinitum. This little family compact has been dwindling in numbers. Alarmingly so, in the opinion of many.

What is now in evidence is growing numbers of new and variant ways of living together as a family. Childless couples. Same-sex couples. With and without offspring. Singles. And the steadily-inflating numbers of quasi-committed couples without benefit of clergy and custom. The incidence of common-law pairings is increasing, while that of neat little nuclear families decreases.

Single-head households is on a steady rise, with female heads of household predominating, while male heads of households is also a growing phenomenon. Young adults returning to live at home with their tired old parents. While among the singles can be counted previously marrieds, but now divorced or widowed, a growing number of singles have never been partnered, either through marriage or common-law practise.

Yet everyone aspires to coupledom. Most people appear to harbour a vision of a committed relationship, a partner in life. Yet increasingly, although the desire is present, the actuality eludes. Why might this conceivably be? Well, to hazard a guess, lack of commitment. Lack of understanding that to commit means that something will have to alter to ensure that two disparate individuals can live together in harmony.

Pleasure treasure their individuality, their capability to make their own choices about every conceivable life experience more than they do the potential to have a partner in life if it means they'll have to compromise and give up something seemingly vital yet perhaps trivial. On the balance sheet personal satisfaction appears to rate higher than commitment to making a relationship work.

And that's truly a pity. For many reasons. Not the least of which is that children brought up without the presence of a mother or a father are missing a tangible and highly emotional building block in their early upbringing and experience of love and attachment. Their early childhood has not been well rounded and fully supported as it would be with two parents.

Single mothers bringing up children on their own face an ongoing struggle to accomplish all that life offers to them and their children. There are severely limiting economic disparities between single parents and traditional families. There is the possibility of a childhood fraught with the dangers of school drop-out, drug and alcohol abuse resulting in a lack of opportunity, of the realization of potential.

And people who are willing to give a little to gain a lot, to work toward establishing a rewarding relationship with another person have the reward of sharing life's pains and pleasures with someone close to them, emotionally, supportively. There can be no doubt that there are plenty of individuals around who are willing to sacrifice complete freedom for the opportunity to find a mate.

The unfortunate thing is that the opportunities for diverse personalities to find one another diminishes as people age. The truly unfortunate thing is that people who search desperately for the opportunity to find a life-mate may find themselves exposed unremittingly to others who don't share that intensity of need.

This can be a sad, lonely and disappointing life for far too many people.