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Importance of Family Relationships

• Categories: Family Relationships Parent-Child Relationship

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Words: 515 |

Published: Aug 31, 2023

Words: 515 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

Table of contents

Emotional support and security, healthy development and identity formation, nurturing communication skills, shared traditions and cultural heritage, crisis support and resilience, socialization and moral development, interpersonal skills and conflict resolution, elderly care and generational exchange, building strong communities and societal cohesion, conclusion: the enduring significance of family bonds.

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• Family Bonding Essay

Comprehensive Family Bonding Essay Writing Guide with Examples

By: Angelina Grin

Since family bonds are perceived to be an important part of human connections, essays about family are common. The problem of family ties has been intensified by the challenging economic conditions and the dramatic changes that have taken place in people's lives in recent times.

Family Bonding Essay Sample

No facts and statistics, absence of sections, personal opinion usage, essay's inclination is negative, a solution section is missing, sources you can use in this essay, family bonding essay example in 500 words.

• 1. What is the best way to bond with your family?
• 2. How should you describe family bonding?
• 3. Transformation of family values and the evolution of marriage
• 4. Writing an essay about the effect of technology on family relationships

Important Tips to Keep in Mind When You Write Family Relationship Essay

It's no surprise that a study paper on "family bonding" is so common. Of course, different people have different ideas about what a family means and what constitutes family values, and the formation of these values is dependent on the individual's context. This article will provide you with valuable knowledge about families and some pointers about how to write a family relationship essay. You'll also learn some interesting facts and figures about the subject.

Here is a sample essay on the subject of our discussion, written by Noor, a high school student from Chicago:

A good family provides a sense of belonging. Our origins take root in our families, and we rise from there. We are formed by a support system that trains us for what and how we will encounter in the future, including both good and hard times.

A real-life family system differs from the typical families shown in novels and televisions. This is why they come with a disclaimer. A real-life family unit comes with advantages/disadvantages and ups/downs.

It is the family that serves as a support for each person in it, and it is this group of people that can also serve as a major obstacle in the development of a member of the family. This is because the ties of love are too strong to be broken, and love, as we all know, is blind. I can say that this undying devotion to one's family can also be a major obstacle to progress. For example, a child wants to become a scientist, but his family makes him practice cricket, wanting him to become like Sachin Tendulkar.

Aside from being a pillar for the whole family, it's been said that any good partner has a supporting partner behind them. For instance, the male is considered the head of the family in a nuclear family. A joint or extended family has many heads of the family. This demonstrates how well a supportive and cooperative spouse can help a person advance in their career.

Family relations, like anything else, have their positives and drawbacks. The drawbacks, though, are so minor that the significant benefits outweigh them, and the nature of family life and its ties prove to be well worth it.

Essay Analysis: Why the F amily Relationships Essay Will Not Get 100/100?

Noor's essay is a neatly written essay with a good introduction and conclusion. It lays down the importance of family ties. However, it is incomplete in several aspects. This is why:

• The addition of statistics is considered essential for a high-quality essay because a research paper will back up your theory.
• In the above essay, Noor can include statistics at several points related to bonding time, for example,
• According to studies , as families participate in activities collectively, young people gain vital interpersonal and communication skills and have higher self-esteem.
• Or another statistic like the following to hold the reader's attention:
• Did you know that it is easier for families to get through difficult times when they feel supported?

The essay does not contain a proper flow to it. There are no headings or sections to indicate which sub-topic is being discussed. Noor could have sectioned the essay as follows:

• Introduction
• Importance of family bonds
• Drawbacks of family bonds

In the third paragraph, Noor uses the sentence: "I can say that this undying devotion for one's family can also be a major obstacle to progress."

It would be best such personal statements are not included. Noor could have used the following sentence instead: This very same undying emotion for one's family can also be a major obstacle to progress.

The above essay is supposed to write down the advantages and disadvantages of family bonding. Noor's essay content and the essay conclusion contradict each other. The essay's inclination is more towards the drawbacks. However, in conclusion, it is stated that "The drawbacks, though, are so minor that the significant benefits outweigh them".

To correct this, Noor could have included more advantages of a family in the essay's content.

Noor could have listed down some ways to increase the quality of family relationships, such as:

• Family should encourage and support each other.
• Family members can take out some time alone to recharge.
• Family members can go on volunteering trips.
• Parents should take time to understand and support their kid's hobbies and passions.
• Families should reach out to their neighbors and other families to improve social skills and activities. At this point, some precautions can also be noted down. For example, parents should be with their children while interacting with strangers.

As stated above, the inclusion of research and statistics backed up by evidence improves the quality of essays , ensuring higher grades. Here are a few pieces of research and studies you can use in an essay on family time:

• Family Relationships and Well-Being
• Parent-Child Shared-Time From Middle Childhood to Late Adolescence: Developmental Course and Adjustment Correlates
• Associations Between Early Family Meal Environment Quality and Later Well-Being in School-Age Children
• Volunteering and health benefits in general adults: cumulative effects and forms

Blessed with a loving family an essay written by A. Grin

Especially after the struggles of the COVID-19 pandemic, I consider myself very lucky to have been blessed with a loving family. Throughout lockdown, I was surrounded by supportive relations who I knew were there for me, even at my lowest. As I struggled through quarantine, riddled with anxieties and loneliness, missing school friends, hangouts, and house parties, they were there for me at every turn. After all, as that famous Burmese quote goes, “In time of test, family is best.”

But things haven't always been this easy for us. Our family history is a bumpy one, filled with many of the same family issues that a lot of other people face. Over the past few years, however, we've all made a special effort to grow closer.

So many families drift apart once the children have grown up and left home for university. We didn't want this for us. My experiences have shown me how big a part of my life my siblings and parents are; I hope that this essay on my family relationships can do some justice to them.

I think the thing that saved our family was our dedication to spending more time together. This seems like an obvious statement, but many people don't realize just how important quality time is. There are studies that show that spending time with your family can improve your mental well-being and self-confidence, reduce the risk of behavioral problems in children, and even lengthen your life expectancy.

My siblings and I attend the same school, so I see them often—but this on its own wasn't enough. We felt it was important that we dedicate a portion of each day to spending quality time together. So, in the evenings, we'd often help each other with school work. Afterward, we'd play video games ( Tekken or Mario) together or go outside for a walk while the sun was still up. This gave us the chance to have a laugh and mess around, but also check in with each other to see how our lives were going.

We also all made a greater effort to draw closer to our parents. On the weekends, we'd go on outings. Sometimes we'd go hiking, other times we'd go explore a museum or gallery and grab some lunch. This allowed us to catch up with each other and find out more about what was going on in all our lives.

By making these efforts to draw closer, we were able to strengthen our bonds. This meant that when the coronavirus pandemic hit, we were all in a better place to deal with the challenges I brought. I believe this is the perfect example of how important our relationships are to us, and demonstrates how crucial it is that we take an active role in cultivating them.

What Topics Should I Consider when Writing My Family Bonding Essay?

As is the case with any written piece of work, the clearer and stronger the theme of your essay the more compelling it will be. So, when you're outlining your short essay about family bonding, consider what topic you are going to choose to write on. This section covers a few ideas as well as some example paragraphs on family bonding.

1. What is the best way to bond with your family👨‍👩‍👧‍👦?

In your essay, you might choose to write an essay on family bonding time and its importance to relationships. At a time when so many families have had their strength tested by the COVID-19 pandemic, economic struggles, and political upheaval, some may feel they have drifted apart. Many are looking for ways to bond with their family and form stronger relationship ties.

You might recommend your reader spend quality time with their family: taking part in activities, connecting with relations one-on-one, and showing real interest and compassion for each other. These are just a few examples of different approaches you could take, but there are many more avenues for you to explore when writing your essay on the importance of family bonding.

Example: Many families find that taking the time out of the day to share a meal can help strengthen bonds in the family unit. Research has shown that having a meal as a family at least three times a week reduces the risk of depression, encourages healthy eating habits in children, and is a large factor in helping kids maintain good nutritional health. Furthermore, eating together allows you to catch up on each other's lives and lets you get to know one another much better.

2. How should you describe family bonding? ✍️

But how should you describe bonding in your short essay about family bonds? The answer to this question depends in part on the audience for your paper and why you've decided to write it. If you're writing a narrative essay about family bonding for a literary magazine, you're likely to use a more literary, emotive kind of language than if you're writing an academic paper for social studies. You're also more likely to include descriptions of personal life experiences in that type of paper.

Generally speaking, however, if you are describing your own family and ways you've tried to bond as a unit, you should describe what exactly it is you all did and what observable impact it's had on your relationships.

Example: A few months ago, my family decided we'd all make a more concentrated effort to bond and develop our relationships with one another. We decided that to do this, we'd take up hiking. Twice a month, we go for weekend outings to nearby nature spots and spend the day traipsing the hills. In the morning before we leave, my siblings and I help our mom put together a packed lunch for us to enjoy together during our walk. Spending this time together, away from technology and other distractions, has helped us draw closer.

3. Transformation of family values and the evolution of marriage 💒

You could also write an essay about family relationships and values, and how these things can evolve. As society shifts, as time passes and cultures merge, as some countries drift further and further towards secularism, it's only natural that family values would change as well.

Not only have these values changed over time but so have the very nature of our relationships. Consider marriage, for example. The Western tradition of marriage began as a transition of ownership, with the father of the bride passing on his daughter to the groom. These days, marriage isn't seen through this archaic lens. This is because, over time, our values and sense of political correctness have shifted.

Example: It was not all that long ago that marriage was legally considered a matter of ownership. We may believe that these ideas belong to the distant past, but the trust is that, in the UK, men legally owned their wives' bodies up until 2003. Some cultures still take this archaic viewpoint, even denying the existence of sexual assault within marriage due to the wife “belonging” to her husband.

4. Writing an essay about the effect of technology on family relationships🧑‍💻

If you're thinking of writing something a bit more current and topical, then you could perhaps choose to write about the impact of technology on the family unit. Topics like these are interesting as they offer the potential for debate. After all, technology is neither all good nor all bad; nor is its impact.

On the one hand, consider the role technology played in keeping families together during the COVID-19 pandemic. Whether it was through Zoom calls, online quiz nights over Skype, or Netflix watch parties with distant relatives, technology provided a way to keep in touch with loved ones over lockdown.

Then again, on a day-to-day basis, technology can be a hindrance as much as a help. Technology can lead to reduced socialization and in-person interaction, and a decrease in the quantity and quality of time spent together.

Example: The impact of technology on modern civilization is undeniable, but its impact on the family unit specifically must be emphasized. As is so often the case, it isn’t a case of technology having either a positive or negative impact. The truth is that it comes with both pros and cons—pros and cons that must be carefully weighed. For example, technology can make it easier for families to keep in touch over long distances. It can also help make our lives more convenient, freeing up time to spend with our loved ones. On the other hand, the more time we spend staring at a screen, the less time we spend forging connections with our family, meaning that our family bonds often suffer as a result of technology, too.

If none of these suggestions has taken your fancy, check out some of the below pages for even more ideas for short essays:

• Childhood Years in Calamba
• The Power Of My Mother Tongue
• Describe Your Personality
• Essay about my family
• Become better human being

Below are a few crucial steps to follow after you complete your essay:

In this section, we'll cover a few crucial tips for you to remember when composing your essay about family bonding. Make sure you've checked off all these pointers before submitting your paper:

• Make sure you've included headings and subheadings. These help to improve the structure of your piece and ensure that it's easy for readers to follow.
• Ensure that you only include information that's relevant to your essay. It can be tempting to bulk up your word count with pointless fluff, but your markers will notice if you do!
• Carefully check your paper for spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. If you can, take a break after writing first. Taking a break will make it easier for you to catch mistakes in your work.
• Diligently run your paper through plagiarism detection software. Plagiarizing, even accidentally, can get you into serious trouble. At university, an accidental or first-time offense can result in you losing marks or even getting zero marks. After repeat offenses, you may be suspended or expelled.
• Make sure you pay attention to deadlines. Plan well in advance of your final deadline. Make sure that you give yourself plenty of time to write your essay, with additional time for proofreading and editing.

You can also contact Studybay for assistance in professional writing services .

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Add Your Comment

We are very interested to know your opinion

Writing a family bonding essays are such a powerful way to celebrate the unique and special connection we have with our families. Thank you for highlighting its importance!

It's wonderful to see the power of family bonding celebrated in this piece, reinforcing the value of the relationships we build with those around us.

The examples here really drove home the message of how crucial it is to have strong bonds with our loved ones. I can't wait to apply these insights to my own paper.

This article really highlights the importance of having close ties with our loved ones. The tips for writing a bonding essay are super helpful too!

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The New York Times

Well | when friends are ‘like family’.

When Friends Are ‘Like Family’

A weekly essay exploring the complex connections of modern families.

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“My friends are the sisters I was meant to have,” a woman told me. Another said that her friends are more precious than her sisters because they remember things from her past that her sisters don’t and can’t, since they weren’t there. And a man commented that he didn’t enjoy a particular friend’s company all that much, but it was beside the point: “He’s family.”

I interviewed over 80 people for a book I’m writing about friendship, and was struck by how many said that one or another friend is “like family.”

These comments, and how people explained them, shed light on the nature of friendship, the nature of family, and something that lies at the heart of both: what it means to be close.

For friends, as for family, “close” is the holy grail of relationships. (In both contexts I often heard, “I wish we were closer” but never “I wish we weren’t so close.”)

What people meant by “close” could be very different, but their comments all helped me understand how friends could be like family – and why I often say of my friend Karl, “He’s like my brother.” First is longevity. We met at summer camp when I’d just turned 15, and the seeds of closeness were planted during one of those wondrous extended self-revealing teenage conversations, when we sat side by side behind the dining hall. Our friendship continued and deepened as we exchanged long letters that traversed the distance between our homes in Brooklyn and the Bronx.

After college, Karl was the one I called at 2 a.m. when I made a last-minute decision not to join the Peace Corps. Two decades later, we were traveling together when I showed him the photograph of a man I’d just met, saying, “It’s crazy but I keep thinking I’m going to marry him” – and I did.

I was there when Karl left Brown for Julliard, and, years later, when he came out as gay. Karl knew my parents, my cousins, my first husband and the other friends who have been important in my life, as I knew and know his. I visit his mother in a nursing home just as I’d visit my own, were she still alive. We can refer to anything and anyone in our pasts without having to explain.

If I’m upset about something, I call him; I trust his judgment, though I might not always follow his advice. And finally, maybe most of all, there’s comfort. I feel completely comfortable in his home, and when I’m around him, I can be completely and unselfconsciously myself.

It’s not that we don’t get on each other’s nerves. It’s that we do. A cartoon about a married couple could have been about us: A woman standing in the kitchen is saying to the man before her, “Is there anything else I can do wrong for you?” I sometimes feel that whatever I do within Karl’s view, he’ll suggest I do a different way.

All the elements making our friendship so close that Karl is like a brother were threaded through the accounts of people I interviewed. “We’re close” could mean they talk about anything; or that they see each other often; or that, though they don’t see each other often, when they do, it’s as though no time has passed: They just pick up where they left off. And sometimes “close” meant none of the above, but that they have a special connection, a connection of the heart.

There were also differences in what “anything” meant, in the phrase “We can talk about anything.” Paradoxically, it could be either very important, very personal topics, or insignificant details. A woman said of a friend, “We’re not that close; we wouldn’t talk about problems in our kids’ lives,” but, of another, “We’re not that close; we wouldn’t talk about what we’re having for dinner.”

“Like family” can mean dropping in and making plans without planning: You might call up and say, “I just made lasagna. Why don’t you come over for dinner?” Or you can invite yourself: “I’m feeling kind of low. Can I come over for dinner?”

Many grown children continue to wish that their parents or siblings could see them for who they really are, not who they wish them to be. This goal can be realized in friendship. “She gets me,” a woman said of a friend. “When I’m with her I can be myself.”

It would be easy to idealize family-like friendship as all satisfaction and cheer. And maybe for some lucky people it is. But friends can also resemble family by driving you crazy in similar ways. Why does she insist on washing dishes by hand when dishwashers do a better job of killing germs? Why does he always come exactly five minutes late?

Just as with literal families, friends who are like family can bring not only happiness but also pain, because the comfort of a close bond can sometimes morph into the restraints of bondage. The closer the bond, the greater the power to hurt – by disappointing, letting you down or, the ultimate betrayal, by dying. When a friend dies, a part of you dies, too, as you lose forever the experiences, the jokes, the references that you shared. A woman in her 70s who was mourning her lifelong best friend said the worst part was not being able to call her up and tell her how terrible she felt about her dying.

Sometimes we come to see friends as family because members of the family we grew up with live far away or feel too different, or are just too difficult to deal with. A woman who ended all contact with a sister explained that the option of cutting off a family member who brings you grief is a modern liberation, like the freedom to choose a spouse or divorce one. Holes left by rejected (or rejecting) relatives — or left by relatives lost to distance, death or circumstance — can be filled by friends who are like family. But family-like friends don’t have to be filling holes at all. Like my friend Karl, they can simply add richness, joy and, yes, at times, aggravation, that a literal family – in my case, two sisters I’m very close to — also provides.

Deborah Tannen is a professor of linguistics at Georgetown University and the author of “You Just Don’t Understand!” and “You’re Wearing THAT?”.

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10 Ways To Encourage Family Bonding and Strengthen Family Bonds

Explore the different ways you can build a foundation that brings your family closer together and strengthens family bonds.

Schedule Family Time

Eat meals together, do chores as a family, create a mission statement, have family meetings, encourage support, schedule downtime, volunteer together.

• Support Your Child's Interests

Join Other Families

Spending quality time together is one of the greatest gifts families can give one another. Not only does sharing quality time strengthen and build family bonds, but taking the time to connect face-to-face also provides a sense of belonging and security for everyone in the family.

Research has shown that when families have strong family bonds, kids are more likely to score high on well-being scales like self-acceptance, personal growth, life purpose, and positive relationships with others.

Strong family bonds also encourage better behavior in children, improve academic performance, strengthen parent-child communication, and teach your child how to be a good friend. Quality family relationships are a measure of a child's overall well-being, and studies have found a correlation between the time parents spend with children and children's overall happiness .

As a parent, you play a key role in cultivating and protecting these family bonds. But building strong family connections doesn't always happen naturally. In our hectic day-to-day lives, it can take a concerted effort to carve out time for your family. If you want a build foundation for your family in which quality time is a priority, try incorporating some of these 10 essential practices for family bonding into your daily routine.

Erin Drago / Stocksy United

Whether you have school-aged children or teens, it takes planning to make sure you're getting enough quality together time.

Set aside time for each other

Look at everyone’s schedule to see if there are any blocks of time that can be designated family time, In between sports practice, appointments, and other extracurricular activities it might seem tricky, but it's worth the effort. Try to select a regular night, maybe once a week, when the entire family gets together for a fun activity, like a game night—or try eat dinner together every night as a family if your schedules permit. By keeping this night on a regular schedule, everyone will know that they need to keep that night clear for family time.

Plan outings

Another way to incorporate family time into your schedule is to plan regular day trips. If this is something that sounds fun for your family, try to plan the trip at least one month in advance. Post it on the family calendar and make sure that everyone is aware of the plan.

Make new traditions

Use your together time to  create family traditions , like carving pumpkins every Halloween or picking the first strawberries of the summer season together. Some families enjoy attending the same local festival every year or entering a 5K walk or run together.

Choose a few nights during the week when you expect everyone to gather around the dinner table. Don't allow the distraction of phones or other electronics. Just eat a meal (don't worry about cooking something elaborate) and have a conversation together.

Studies have shown that eating meals as a family has positive effects on children's physical and mental well-being. It can also reinforce communication and strengthen family bonds.

Feel free to keep the food itself simple. Dinners like grilled cheese sandwiches, tacos, or even cereal are fine, and are all foods are your kids probably love. If you're unable to get together for dinner as a family because of busy schedules, try doing a family breakfast or lunch on the weekends. The key is to come together and enjoy a meal together free of distractions.

Make cleaning your home or caring for your yard a responsibility the whole family shares. Create a  list of chores  and have everyone sign up. Then set a time during the week or on the weekend when everyone can tackle their chores at the same time. 

If your teens have a demanding schedule and need a little more flexibility, give them a deadline to complete their chores. But remind them that doing chores together makes the job go much faster than doing them alone.

What's more, doing chores together also can foster a sense of teamwork, especially if someone gets done early and is willing to help another family member complete their tasks. To make doing chores more rewarding, plan a small reward for when the work is done, like getting ice cream together, watching a movie , or playing a board game .

When most people think about mission statements, they think of nonprofit organizations and businesses. But these documents work well for families, too. Though it may seem a little too business-like, putting together a family mission statement can help you establish your family's priorities in an official way.

A family mission statement can remind everyone about your family's core values or what you love most about each other. The whole family can collaborate on the document, making it a simple and fun to develop as a family. This is a great project for family night. Your statement doesn't have to be long or complicated. Something like "In our family, we love each other and we help each other" is enough (but if your kids want to brainstorm a longer list, let them).

Once completed, display your mission statement in a prominent place in your home. Read it, refer to it, and talk about it often. It helps solidify what is important to your family. If you feel like your family's priorities are off, creating a mission statement is also a good way to get back on track.

Family meetings are a good time for everyone to check in with each other, air grievances, or discuss future plans. For instance, a family meeting is a good time to talk about an upcoming family vacation. how you to plan to complete chores next weekend, or your child's plans post-graduation.

These meetings can be scheduled events on your family calendar, or you can make them impromptu and allow any member of the family to call a meeting if they feel the need. Family meetings also can be used to set family goals.

You may need to establish some guidelines for the meeting, like setting a time limit for speaking and implementing a no talking rule when someone else has the floor. Emphasize, too, the need to be kind, considerate, and respectful. The goal for these meetings is to solve family issues in a productive way.

Feeling supported by your family is one of the most important elements of building strong family bonds. To create a sense of support, encourage everyone to learn what is important to their family members, whether that's career aspirations or hobbies, and to do their best to support each others' interests.

Everyone in the family should feel empowered to share both good and bas news and receive a loving response. The goal is for everyone in the family to rejoice together when things go well, and commiserate when things don't go as planned. When families feel supported, getting through hard times becomes much easier.

While family time is an important part of everyday life, everyone needs downtime, too. Not only should you encourage your kids to spend some quiet time alone to recharge, but you also need to carve out time for yourself .

Parenting is a huge responsibility that can take a toll on you. So be sure you are taking a little time to rest yourself. It's harder than it seems, but you will be a better parent when you do.

Research has shown the more we give, by volunteering or helping others , the happier and more grateful we feel in our own lives. Volunteering has also been linked to several improved health outcomes, including better physical and mental health, increased life satisfaction, higher self-esteem, and decreased depressive symptoms. And when your family shares these experiences together, it will strengthen your relationship.

What's more, volunteering can expose kids to lots of different people and increase their appreciation for those who are different from them. It also teaches children to be more empathetic and less self-centered.

Support Your Child's Interests

Strong families support their family members' passions. Whether that means attending their soccer games, reading a book series they love, or learning a new skill along with them, supporting your child's interests makes them feel loved and proves that are truly invested in their well-being.

If your child is in sports, band, or another school activity, provide support in some way. You don't have to take on a leadership role if that's not your style. Find a way to show your kids that you support what they are doing and want to cheer them on or assist them with their pursuits, whatever those may be.

If you are unsure of where you can help, ask your kids for their thoughts. Asking demonstrates that you care about the things they are interested in.

No one lives in a bubble. We are all part of a community, so be sure your family is building relationships with other families. Whether this is within your neighborhood, your school system, your place of faith, or some other avenue, it is important that you spend time with other families as well.

Doing things together, with other families, will strengthen your own family bonds and help you see how your family members interact with others—you never know what you might learn from them about how to solidify and strengthen family bonds in totally new-to-you ways.

Remember that children of all ages learn by example. The best way to set a positive example for them is by placing high value on family and family bonding. When you set aside special time for family fun and activities, you are demonstrating not only that you value the family, but that you value your children individually as well.

Parent-Child Shared Time from Middle Childhood to Late Adolescence . Society for Research in Child Development . 2012.

The Effect of the Time Parents Spend with Children on Children's Well-Being . Frontiers in Psycholog y. 2023.

Eating Family Meals Together at Home . JAMA Pediatrics . 2024.

Household Chores for Teens . American Academy of Pediatrics . 2024.

Family Relationships and Well-Being . Innovation in Aging . 2017.

Volunteering and Health Benefits in General Adults . BMC Public Health . 2017.

Related Articles

101 Family Relationships Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🏆 best family relationships topic ideas & essay examples, 🥇 most interesting family relationships topics to write about, 📌 simple & easy family relationships essay titles, ❓ research questions about family relationships.

• Effects of Internet Addiction on Family Relationships Among Teenagers In the modern society, cyber bullying refers to the instances where the individual uses the internet to interfere with the rights and freedoms of others.
• Conflict Communication in Family Relationships People in conflict have to be ready to analyze their situations and problems to achieve the goals and come to a certain conclusion.
• Modern Families: Intimate and Personal Relationships Since Queen’s family lived in the United States and my family resided in England, this paper presents an integrated comparison of household aspects in the two countries.
• Counseling Interview in Family and Relationship Therapy My choice of questions for the interviewees on matters related to life, relationship and family will be designed as linear and systematic questions to aid in formulating an assessment.
• Managing Interpersonal Relationships in Family Since there has been limited communication with my family, no person was aware of the project and the sensitivity of the compromised information.
• Family Types, Relationships and Dynamics In the case of a consanguine family, the relationship with the family is more absolute in that expenses, food, and other aspects related to living within the same “roof” are shared.
• Family Relationship Analysis with Use of Genogram When we look at John and Mary’s relationship, we see that they have a close and stable relationship, which may have influenced their children’s and grandchildren’s communication patterns.
• Family Relationships: Psychological Inquiry When parents exert excessive control on the lives their children, the ties that should exist in the family break and the victims develop hatred and aggression.
• Relationship: Communication Between Family Members Undoubtedly, family is one of the essential elements in a society where the individual is considered in their “full measure,” and accordingly, in each family, there are unique and individual ways and methods of interaction.
• Home, Work, and Relationships in Modern Families The study found that parents were in one room without their children for less than 10% of the observed time. Another finding from the article was that 77% of families ate dinner together at least […]
• Platonic and Familial Relationships in Emerging Adulthood One of the main factors that can and should be used to resolve problems in platonic relationships is boundaries. The advice that can be given to young adults is that emotional connection and mutual support […]
• “Twisted” by Laurie Halse Anderson: Family Relationships As a result, Tyler wants to commit suicide he takes his father’s gun, and it may be regarded as a symbol of the boy’s wish to leave his father guilty for his death. However, in […]
• Family Relationship: Life-Span Development The majority of middle-aged individuals try to preserve a good connection with their families because they realize their parents are old and all they want is quality time.
• “Family Relationships in What It Means to Say Phoenix Arizona” by S. Alexie Victor’s father had died of a heart attack, and the journey to his funeral is at the center of the tale.
• Sociology of the Family: Love and Relationships Romantically entangled pair dates continuously, and the primary objective of this type of relationship, especially in college, is to provide company, and it is more of a necessity in high school.
• Family Relationship, Childhood Delinquency, Criminality In regard to the relationship between the effect of various factors involved in a child’s upbringing and the likelihood of becoming a criminal during adulthood, varied findings were made.
• Modality of Family Faith and Meanings and Relationships in Family Life The theme of this study is to investigate two broad categories of modalities of faith in family life: first, what they value or seek, and how they relate to God or to others and the […]
• Family Relationships in Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper Being the brain and the intellectual reason of the family, the husband wisely guides the ship of his matrimonial unit through all the possible mishaps and traps and takes the necessary precautions in order to […]
• Family Relationship: Lawrence and Joyce The revolt of Stephen Dedalus begins in Joyce’s The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man with his rejection of the blind religious attitude found existing in his family.
• Family Relationships of an Anorexic Person The rest of the poem confused and inspired me as a reader because Smith, as well as millions of people around the globe, proved the impossibility to have one particular definition of anorexia in modern […]
• Stepfamily Relationships: The Blended Family Interview The third question concerned such appearances and the overall degree of the man’s attachment to the child. The sixth question was about the introduction itself and the child’s reception of it.
• Sociology of Family: Control and Violence in Relationships In the last type of intimate violence, situational couple violence, the individual might be violent, but the partner is not, even though the aspect of control is not present.
• Family Systems and Relationship Development With the advent of the concept of family systems, the importance of the family unit can now be approached from a different perspective.
• Family and Relationships: New Tendencies For instance, one of the apparent advantages of online dating is the lack of awkwardness peculiar to face-to-face communication, especially during first meetings. That is why more research is needed to conduct the in-depth investigation […]
• Family Relationships Role in the Business It seems that Barry Jr, as well as the other shareholders, failed to implement family talents and skills in an effective way.
• Family Relationships in Media and Theories Understanding the way in which relationships are built between family members, as well as learning about the nature of the connection between family members, is crucial to the identification of the existing issues and their […]
• Literature Review and Research Methodology Draft: Effects of Internet Addiction on Family Relationships Among Teenagers The focus of the literature review will be to find information on effects of the internet on family members and also to determine the current state of research as regards to the effects of the […]
• Staff & Family Relationship and Communication Information sharing amid families and staff is crucial in the daily updates of occurrences in the school; furthermore, there are several ways of attaining this concept. The family fraternity should be invited at the start […]
• Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in Veterans and How Family Relationships Are Affected Both qualitative and quantitative data shall be used with numbers being used to provide evidence of the occurrence and magnitude of the effects of the condition on the population.
• Aggression and the Role of Family Relationships in Aggression
• Conflicts That Appear Within the Sphere of Family Relationships
• Destructive and Productive Family Relationships: A Stewardship Theory Perspective
• Family Relationships and Support Systems in Emerging Adulthood
• The Impact of Family Relationships on School Bullies and Their Victims
• Social and Family Relationships of Ex‐Institutional Adolescents
• Patterns of Interaction in Family Relationships and the Development of Identity Exploration in Adolescence
• Theories of Family Relationships and a Family Relationships Theoretical Model
• Can Addressing Family Relationships Improve Outcomes in Chronic Disease?
• Communication, Conflict, and the Quality of Family Relationships
• Family Relationships and Adolescent Pregnancy Risk
• Current Concepts About Schizophrenics and Family Relationships
• The Family and Family Relationships, 1500-1900: England, France, and the United States of America
• The Role of Social Support and Family Relationships in Women’s Responses to Battering
• Family Relationships and Their Correlations With Transsexual Well-Being
• Impact of Family Relationships on Attitudes of the Second Generation in Family Business
• Post‐Divorce Family Relationships as Mediating Factors in the Consequences of Divorce for Children
• From Contract to Status: Collaboration and the Evolution of Novel Family Relationships
• Family Caregiver Role and Burden Related to Gender and Family Relationships
• Influence of Family Relationships on Succession Planning and Training: The Importance of Mediating Factors
• Family Contexts as Cognitive Networks: A Structural Approach of Family Relationships
• Perceived Family Relationships of Bullies, Victims, and Bully/Victims in Middle Childhood
• Examining the Effect of Incarceration and In-Prison Family Contact on Prisoners’ Family Relationships
• Extended Family Relationships, Social Support, and Mental Health in a Southern Black Community
• Religion’s Role in Organizing Family Relationships: Family Process in Rural, Two-Parent African American Families
• Educational Inequality and Family Relationships: Influences on Contact and Proximity
• Enacting Family Relationships in Joint Storytelling About Difficult Family Experiences
• Dysfunctional Family Relationships Among Canadians
• Financial Stress, Family Relationships, and Australian Youths’ Transitions From Home and School
• Intergenerational Family Relationships: An Evaluation of Theory and Measurement
• Children’s Internet Use in a Family Context: Influence on Family Relationships and Parental Mediation
• Family Involvement in the Nursing Home: Family‐Oriented Practices and Staff-Family Relationships
• Conflict Resolution: Links With Adolescents’ Family Relationships and Individual Well-Being
• Interdependence and the Interpersonal Sense of Control: An Analysis of Family Relationships
• Conversational Remembering and Family Relationships: How Children Learn to Remember?
• Implications of Overwork and Overload for the Quality of Men’s Family Relationships
• Feminist Theory and Research on Family Relationships: Pluralism and Complexity
• Some Things Are Better Left Unsaid: Topic Avoidance in Family Relationships
• Authority, Autonomy, and Family Relationships Among Adolescents in Urban and Rural China
• Changing the Ties That Bind: How Incarceration Impacts Family Relationships?
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• What Are the Five Characteristics of Healthy Family Relationships?
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• What Role Does Love Play in Family Relationships?
• How Does Family Size Directly Affect Family Relationships?
• Has Technology Had a Positive or Negative Effect on Family Relationships?
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• What Are Considered Family Relationships?
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• What Are the Three Common Problems of Teenagers in Family Relationships?
• How Does Alcohol Affect Family Relationships?
• What Are Men’s Roles in the Family Relationships?
• What Is a Man’s Responsibility in Family Relationships?
• Why Do a Man and a Woman Need to Create Good Family Relationships?
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Essay on Importance of Family for Students and Children

500 words essay on importance of family.

In today’s world when everything is losing its meaning, we need to realize the importance of family more than ever. While the world is becoming more modern and advanced, the meaning of family and what stands for remains the same.

A family is a group of people who are related by blood or heritage. These people are linked not only by blood but also by compassion, love, and support. A person’s character and personality are shaped by his or her family. There are various forms of families in today’s society. It is further subdivided into a tight and extended family (nuclear family, single parent, step-family, grandparent, cousins, etc.)

Family – A synonym for trust, comfort, love, care, happiness and belonging. Family is the relationship that we share from the moment we are born into this world. People that take care of us and help us grow are what we call family, and they become lifelines for us to live. Family members have an important role in deciding an individual’s success or failure in life since they provide a support system and source of encouragement.

It does not matter what kind of family one belongs to. It is all equal as long as there are caring and acceptance. You may be from a joint family, same-sex partner family, nuclear family, it is all the same. The relationships we have with our members make our family strong. We all have unique relations with each family member. In addition to other things, a family is the strongest unit in one’s life.

Things That Strengthens The Family

A family is made strong through a number of factors. The most important one is of course love. You instantly think of unconditional love when you think of family. It is the first source of love you receive in your life It teaches you the meaning of love which you carry on forever in your heart.

Secondly, we see that loyalty strengthens a family. When you have a family, you are devoted to them. You stick by them through the hard times and celebrate in their happy times. A family always supports and backs each other. They stand up for each other in front of a third party trying to harm them proving their loyalty.

Most importantly, the things one learns from their family brings them closer. For instance, we learn how to deal with the world through our family first. They are our first school and this teaching strengthens the bond. It gives us reason to stand by each other as we share the same values.

No matter what the situation arises, your family will never leave you alone. They will always stand alongside you to overcome the hardships in life. If anyone is dealing with any kind of trouble, even a small talk about it to the family will make ones’ mind lighter and will give them a sense of hope, an inner sense of strength to fight those problems.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Importance of Family

One cannot emphasize enough on the importance of family. They play a great role in our lives and make us better human beings. The one lucky enough to have a family often do not realize the value of a family.

However, those who do not have families know their worth. A family is our source of strength. It teaches us what relationships mean. They help us create meaningful relationships in the outside world. The love we inherit from our families, we pass on to our independent relationships.

Moreover, families teach us better communication . When we spend time with our families and love each other and communicate openly, we create a better future for ourselves. When we stay connected with our families, we learn to connect better with the world.

Similarly, families teach us patience. It gets tough sometimes to be patient with our family members. Yet we remain so out of love and respect. Thus, it teaches us patience to deal better with the world. Families boost our confidence and make us feel loved. They are the pillars of our strength who never fall instead keep us strong so we become better people.

We learn the values of love, respect, faith, hope, caring, cultures, ethics, traditions, and everything else that concerns us through our families. Being raised in a loving household provides a solid foundation for anyone.

People develop a value system inside their family structure in addition to life lessons. They learn what their family considers to be proper and wrong, as well as what the community considers to be significant.

Families are the epicentres of tradition. Many families keep on traditions by sharing stories from the past over the years. This allows you to reconnect with family relatives who are no longer alive. A child raised in this type of household feels as if they are a part of something bigger than themselves. They’ll be proud to be a part of a community that has had ups and downs. Communities thrive when families are strong. This, in turn, contributes to a robust society.

Q.1 What strengthens a family?

A.1 A family’s strength is made up of many factors. It is made of love that teaches us to love others unconditionally. Loyalty strengthens a family which makes the members be loyal to other people as well. Most importantly, acceptance and understanding strengthen a family.

Q.2 Why is family important?

A.2 Families are very important components of society and people’s lives. They teach us a lot about life and relationships. They love us and treat us valuably. They boost our self-confidence and make us feel valued. In addition, they teach us patience to deal with others in a graceful and accepting manner.

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The Value and Meaning of the Korean Family

We American parents do not want to cling to our children. We fear we will cripple them emotionally, and they will not "make it" on their own. Most of us do not assume our children will support us when we are old, and most dare not expect to live with them when we can no longer care for ourselves. We require no specific obligations from our children beyond a vaguely defined respect that includes burying us. In our old age we often try to ask as little as possible from them,preferring independence to "being a burden."

Most Koreans find this bewildering and inhuman. Most would not agree that they, as individuals, should think of themselves as separate from their parents and families. The close family ties and dependencies valued so highly in Korea might seem unhealthy to us; we think a child's sense of autonomy necessary to mental health. To Koreans such autonomy is not a virtue. "A life in which egos are all autonomous,separate, discrete and self-sufficient [is] too cold, impersonal,lonely and inhuman." *

Children incur a debt to their parents who gave birth to them and raised them. This debt lies behind the idea of filial duty: treating parents respectfully at all times, taking care of them in their old age, mourning them well at proper funerals, and performing ceremonies for them after their deaths. Even fulfilling these duties, however, is not enough to repay the debt to one's parents. The full repayment also entails having children and maintaining the continuity of the family line. The continuity of the family is thus a biological fact which human society, in accordance with natural law, should reflect.

Man's existence does not begin with a cut-off point called birth. Nor does it end with death as a terminus. A part of him has been in continuous biological existence from his very first progenitor. A part of him has been living, in existence, with every one of the intervening ancestors. Now he exists as part of that continuum. After his death, apart of him continues to exist as long as his biological descendants continue to live.*

Koreans incorporate the fact of biological continuity into their family life according to ancient ideas of birth and conception. Mothers traditionally were thought to produce the flesh of their children, and fathers to provide the bones. As bone endures longer than flesh,kinship through males was thought more binding than through females.Even today men pass on membership in their clan to their children,while women do not. Thus, although maternal second cousins may marry,no one with any degree of kinship through males, no matter how remote,can. More than Japanese and Chinese, Koreans adhere to traditionalConfucian principles of family organization. Confucius (6th centuryB.C.) and his followers taught that only a country where family life was harmonious could be peaceful and prosperous. The state, indeed the universe, was the family writ large—with the Chinese emperor, the patriarchal link to cosmic forces (through rituals he performed), and the Korean king his younger brother. This conception of the universities the warm feelings of attachment and dependence generated within the family to all human relationships. Confucians celebrated this link with a symbol of smaller circles within larger, the ever widening sphere of human relationships from the self, to the family, to society, to the universe.

Blood-ties make affection spontaneous among kin. Even beasts and fowl share this faculty with human beings. Kinship provides the primary interpersonal context in which a child learns to give and receive affection with other human beings. With this preparation, a child extends his network of human interaction with non-kin. A person who is capable of strong emotional involvement with others is regarded as possessing ample humanity. Intense emotion denotes powerful interpersonal commitment. Affection warms even the heart of the dead.It alleviates the numbing cold of a burial chamber. *

The Traditional Family

Though Koreans thought blood relationships natural and ideal starting points for good relationships outside the family, they never assumed that happy family life emerged spontaneously. Harmony and smooth flow of affection were seen as the result of proper patriarchal regulation of women and children. The family should be run as a "benevolent monarchy," the eldest male as household head. Sons remained home after they married, while daughters went to live with their husbands'families.

Although historically younger sons and their wives eventually split from their extended families after a few years of marriage, they lived nearby, socially dependent on their grandfathers, fathers and elder brothers. Eldest sons succeeded to the family leadership and inherited the bulk of the wealth. They did not leave their extended families because they were responsible for their aged parents. When their parents died, eldest sons adhered to complex mourning restrictions for one to three years, and conducted annual memorial ceremonies for their parents and other members of their family line. As long as there were sons to take over family leadership when their fathers died, families were maintained indefinitely.

Young children in Korea were (and are) indulged; toilet training was relaxed, and discipline began much later than in American families.Koreans felt there was no point disciplining children before they were old enough to reason. By the time a child reached six or seven,however, training began in earnest: parents began the strict separation of girls and boys, in accordance with Confucian ethics, and they trained children to use the respectful voice to those older or more socially prominent.

By the time he reached seven a boy knew that he must use the respectful mode of speech to his older brother, and he knew that failure to do so would result in swift and certain punishment. Boys from most families were taught to read and write the native Korean alphabet (Han'gul), and in many families, to read and write classical Chinese as well. Girls,however, were considered "outsiders who will leave the family," and the majority were not taught to read or write even the Korean alphabet. A girl by seven usually knew her position in the family was inferior to her brothers' because when she married she left the family.

Under the old family system parents arranged marriages without the consent of their children, either female or male. Since daughters left their parents to live with their husbands' families, marriage was often traumatic for them. New wives, of course, tried to please their husbands, but more important, they had to please their mothers-in-law.The mother-in-law directed the new wife in her housework and had the power to send the bride back home in disgrace if the bride seriously displeased her. Sometimes this adjustment was hard for the bride. A humorous Korean proverb says that a new bride must be "three years deaf, three years dumb, and three years blind." The bride should not be upset by scolding, better not to hear at all. She should not lose her temper and say things she might regret later, better not to talk at all. Since she should not criticize anything in her new house, she would be better off blind. Most daughters-in-law adjusted to their new lives because most mothers-in-law were glad to have a good daughter-in-law to help with the housework. Once the daughter-in-law had a son, her place in the family was secure.

The Confucian ideal of strict separation of males and females led to division of labor into inside and outside work. Men labored outside,taking care of major field crops, while women worked inside doing housework, spinning, weaving and cooking. Poor women had no choice but to work in the fields, at least occasionally, but the more elite a family, the more unlikely its women would be seen outside the house compound. Traditional Koreans glorified the modest gentry woman who died in a burning house rather than leave her seclusion.** Queen Inhyon, a model of feminine modesty for two centuries, sequestered herself to her private rooms after being wrongfully dethroned.

Although this division of labor was a matter of principle for the elite, ordinary people found it a matter of practical survival. For farming households, the inside-outside division worked well; women could stay home with their children while working. But where this division of labor undermined economic survival, other divisions were adopted—despite the loss of family status in deviating from theConfucian ideal. For example, in fishing villages on islands off the south coast of Korea, male and female roles were regularly reversed. In these nonagricultural areas, women provided family income by diving for seaweed, shellfish and other edibles. In other parts of Korea women sometimes earned a living as shamans, religious specialists who tended to the spiritual welfare of their clients by performing ceremonies for them.*** In either case, when females provided most of the family income, male and female roles could be reversed with men at home and women running the family.

Changes In The Family Structure Since 1960

After liberation from the Japanese in 1945, Korean scholars and lawyers revised Korea's legal structure. They revised family, as well as commercial, law to accommodate relationships more suited to the industrial society they hoped to build. Now most Koreans live in cities and work in factories or large companies and no longer farm. Large extended families, which cannot fit into crowded city apartments, are difficult to maintain. Since people often move to find work, eldest sons often cannot live with their parents. The New Civil Code of 1958legalized changes favoring these new conditions. Essentially, the new code weakened the power of the house head and strengthened the husband-wife relationship.

Today the house head cannot determine where family members live. The eldest son can now leave home against his father's will. Husbands and wives share the power to determine the education and punishment of the children. Children can decide on their own marriages, and parental permission is not required if they are of age. Younger sons leave their parents to form their own families when they marry, and the house head no longer has the legal right to manage all family property. Since implementation of the New Civil Code, all children have equal claim to their parents' property.

The marriage system had already changed by World War II. Some families allowed children to meet and approve prospective spouses. The experience of the politician Kim Yongsam during the 1950s is typical of marriages among non-traditionalists, even before the revision of the legal code.

Kim recalls that his family sent him a deceptive telegram informing him that his beloved grandfather was dying. Rushing home Kim found he had been lured into a trap. His family pressed him to do his duty as eldest son and marry immediately. Reluctantly he agreed to go with a friend of the family who had arranged visits to the homes of prospective brides-- three in the morning, three more in the afternoon. The woman he eventually married impressed him with her ability to discuss Dostoevsky and Hugo. Kim's parents were liberal but in the past 30 years children have gained even more control over who they marry.

Love matches are no longer frowned upon, but arranged marriages are still more common. Couples and their parents have formal meetings infancy tearooms to size each other up, and some go through dozens of these meetings before finding a partner. Even couples who marry for love often ask their parents to arrange the marriage to observe traditional good form.

Arranged marriages continue to be popular because young men and women in Korea find casual socializing awkward and often feel they lack the experience to choose their own partners. Although casual dating is now more common, most interaction between young men and women occurs in groups. Elaborate games like lotteries are sometimes used to match people; young Koreans find the potential rejection involved in asking for a date overwhelming. Arranged marriages also seem safe because the go-between clearly appraises the social backgrounds of the bride and groom. After their engagement, a couple will date so they know each other well by the time they marry. This pattern is so common thatKoreans assume that a young couple who date regularly will be married.

A study of the large city of Taegu done in the 1970s found that 83% of young married couples had arranged marriages. The husbands in arranged marriages and in love matches were about equally satisfied. Wives in love matches were only slightly more satisfied than those in arranged marriages.

In spite of the recent changes, fundamental characteristics of the traditional Korean family remain. Each person in the family still has a clearly defined role, each dependent on others within the family unit.Koreans adapt their traditional ideas of spiritual and biological interdependence within the family to new conditions. The modern short story, "Sufferings for Father and Son," by Han Keun-chan illustrates a specific case. A father picks up his son returning from the Korean War.At the railway station the father sees that his son has had one of his legs amputated. The father himself lost an arm during forced labor under the Japanese. Walking home they come to a stream. The father loads his son on his back and with one remaining arm, holds his son'sone remaining leg, and whispers, "you do what you can do by sitting,and I will do what I can by running about."****

The family still retains a male house head. Inheritance of family leadership still continues through the father's line, and sons still inherit more wealth than daughters. Children, especially eldest sons,are still legally responsible for the care of their aged parents. The division of labor within the family remains basically the same as before 1958. Men earn the living, and women take care of the house and children. Even when wives work outside the home, husbands usually think it embarrassing to help with housework, and sociologists have found that it is rare for husbands to do so, although some younger ones do help. However, even as we go to press, the situation in Korea changes rapidly, more and more women graduating from college and working outside the home. This change cannot fail to affect divisions of labor dramatically, especially in urban areas.

The structure or the family remains with only peripheral changes, more significant changes in potentia, because the core Confucian values that shaped it are still a great force in Korean life.

* See Hahm Pyong-choon, "The Challenge of Westernization," Korean Culture , Vol. 3, No. 1, March 1982. ** See Laurel Kendall, "Suspect Saviors of Korean Hearths and Homes," Asia , Vol. 3, No. 1, May/June 1980. *** See Youngsook Kim Harvey, Six Korean Women: The Socialization of Shamans . St. Paul: West Publishing Company, 1979. **** See Hwang Soon-won, "A Glimpse of Humour in Korean Literature", in Humour in Literature East and West , Seoul: P.E.N. InternationalCongress, 1970.

Author: Clark W. Sorenson.

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The World's Most Incredible Alphabet

What Americans Don't Know About the World

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Teacher Appreciation, Asian Style

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US and China VPs Get Schooled

Education in a Post-9/11 America

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How Do Close Relationships Lead to Longer Life?

• Parenting, Families, Relationships

Special issue of APA journal outlines science on social ties and health, calls for public health priority

WASHINGTON — While recent research has shown that loneliness can play a role in early death, psychologists are also concerned with the mechanisms by which social relationships and close personal ties affect health. A special issue of American Psychologist ® , the flagship journal of the American Psychological Association, offers an overview of the science and makes the case for psychological scientists to work together to make close relationships a public health priority.

“The articles in this special issue represent state-of-the-art work on the central issues in the study of close relationships and health. They draw from relationship science and health psychology, two areas of scientific inquiry with independent histories and distinct domains,” special issue editor Christine Dunkel Schetter, PhD, wrote in the introduction  (PDF, 64KB). “The goal of this special issue is to bridge the gap between these two specialties to improve the quality and usefulness of future research and practice.”

Articles focus on topics including how healthy relationships early in life affect physical and mental health in childhood and beyond; the role of intimate relationships in coronary heart disease; the need to focus on partners when treating someone with chronic disease; and the increasingly complex biological pathways involved linking relationships to health.

“The challenge remains to translate existing and future knowledge into interventions to improve social relationships for the benefit of physical and mental health,” wrote Dunkel Schetter, of the University of California, Los Angeles.

Among the articles:

• “ Advancing Social Connection as a Public Health Priority in the United States ” (PDF, 750KB) by Julianne Holt-Lunstad, PhD, Brigham Young University; Theodore Robles, PhD, University of California Los Angeles; and David Sbarra, PhD, University of Arizona. This article outlines the potential and promise of elevating social connection as a public health priority. A robust body of scientific evidence suggests that being in high quality close relationships and feeling socially connected are associated with decreased risk of mortality. Social isolation, loneliness and relationship discord are well-established risk factors for poor health. Despite the importance of social connection for good health, government agencies, health care providers and health care funders have been slow to recognize social connection as a public health priority, according to the authors. They give an overview of the extent of the problem (as many as 43 percent of U.S. adults older than 60 experience frequent or intense loneliness) and provide suggestions on how to integrate social relationships into public health priorities by researching and developing interventions to improve social connection. Contact: Julianne Holt-Lunstad or Theodore Robles
• “ Interpersonal Mechanisms Linking Close Relationships to Health ” (PDF, 172KB) by Paula Pietromonaco, PhD, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and Nancy Collins, PhD, University of California, Santa Barbara. Close relationships can protect and promote health in various ways. This article provides an overview for understanding how interpersonal processes influence health and disease. For example, in times of stress, relationships can help protect against its negative effects, while in more peaceful times, relationships can foster positive emotions, personal growth and health-promoting behaviors. The authors also examine the negative health effects of social disconnection through hostile relationships or social rejection, as well as what is known about factors that influence these effects, such as emotion and biological factors. Contact: Paula Pietromonaco or Nancy Collins
• “ Incorporating the Cultural Diversity of Family and Close Relationships into the Study of Health ” (PDF, 170KB) by Belinda Campos, PhD, University of California, Irvine, and Heejung Kim, PhD, University of California, Santa Barbara. Culture — whether ethnic, regional, social class or religion — influences close relationships in important ways. A nuanced understanding of cultural variation in psychological processes can inform how individuals perceive their relationships, what they expect from them and how relationships affect health. This article explores two distinct cultures (East Asian and Latino) to highlight how relationships, and the link of relationships with health, can vary by culture. The development of strategies to increase social connections requires that cultural variation be considered to arrive at future research and practices that can maximally benefit all people. Contact: Belinda Campos
• “ Childhood Close Family Relationships and Health ” (PDF, 588KB) by Edith Chen, PhD, and Gregory Miller, PhD, Northwestern University, and Gene Brody, PhD, University of Georgia. The relationships that children and adolescents have early in life can have important ramifications for health across the life span. Emotionally significant, comforting relationships during childhood are linked to better physical health from infancy to adulthood. Close family relationships can mitigate the impact of adversity on physical health across the life span. The authors propose a model to examine how aspects of family relationships — such as support, conflict, obligations and parenting behaviors — evolve over time and how these characteristics play a role in protecting against the health effects of childhood adversity. Contact: Edith Chen
• “ Close Social Ties and Health in Later Life: Strengths and Vulnerabilities ” (PDF, 109KB) by Karen Rook, PhD, and Susan Charles, PhD, University of California, Irvine. The world is aging at an unprecedented rate, with older adults representing the fastest growing segment of the population in most economically developed and developing countries. This article provides an overview of the research on strengths and weaknesses of social ties later in life. For instance, older adults generally report emotionally satisfying and supportive social ties, and they take steps to minimize negative social interactions. Yet, older adults can also experience hostile or ambivalent relationships or the loss of close relationships through death. The authors also discuss changing demographic trends, such as the increased reliance on non-family members for social support, and suggest future directions for research. Contact: Karen Rook
• “ Intimate Relationships, Individual Adjustment, and Coronary Heart Disease: Implications of Overlapping Associations in Psychosocial Risk ” (PDF, 171KB) by Timothy Smith, PhD, and Brian Baucom, PhD, University of Utah. Being married or in a similar intimate relationship generally reduces the risk of coronary heart disease. However, the quality of these relationships matter, as strained or disrupted relationships are associated with an increased risk. Relationship quality as a risk factor is often studied separately from individual personality and emotional risk factors for heart disease, such as anger or depression, but these factors can also affect the quality of the relationship. In this article, the authors suggest an alternative, integrated approach to research that combines relationship and individual factors to better understand their influence on the risk and course of coronary heart disease. Contact: Timothy Smith
• “ Integrative Pathways Linking Close Family Ties to Health: A Neurochemical Perspective ” (PDF, 145KB) by Bert Uchino, PhD, University of Utah, and Baldwin Way, PhD, Ohio State University. The quality of one’s family life, for better or for worse, has been linked to physical health. As research increasingly documents these links, an important next step is to refine theoretical models and understand the biological mechanisms involved. This article uses the oxytocin system as an example of how complex biological pathways can link positive and negative family relationships to physical health. Oxytocin is a powerful hormone that is released in response to close relationships and helps facilitate bonding. But oxytocin can have other effects on health. It inhibits release of the hormone cortisol, reducing the negative effects of stress. There is also evidence, in animal models, that it can protect against heart attacks, high blood pressure and even obesity. Contact: Bert Uchino  or Baldwin Way

Jim Sliwa (202) 336-5707

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Family Relationships and Well-Being

Patricia a thomas.

1 Department of Sociology and Center on Aging and the Life Course, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana

2 Department of Sociology, Michigan State University, East Lansing

Debra Umberson

3 Department of Sociology and Population Research Center, University of Texas at Austin

Family relationships are enduring and consequential for well-being across the life course. We discuss several types of family relationships—marital, intergenerational, and sibling ties—that have an important influence on well-being. We highlight the quality of family relationships as well as diversity of family relationships in explaining their impact on well-being across the adult life course. We discuss directions for future research, such as better understanding the complexities of these relationships with greater attention to diverse family structures, unexpected benefits of relationship strain, and unique intersections of social statuses.

Translational Significance

It is important for future research and health promotion policies to take into account complexities in family relationships, paying attention to family context, diversity of family structures, relationship quality, and intersections of social statuses in an aging society to provide resources to families to reduce caregiving burdens and benefit health and well-being.

For better and for worse, family relationships play a central role in shaping an individual’s well-being across the life course ( Merz, Consedine, Schulze, & Schuengel, 2009 ). An aging population and concomitant age-related disease underlies an emergent need to better understand factors that contribute to health and well-being among the increasing numbers of older adults in the United States. Family relationships may become even more important to well-being as individuals age, needs for caregiving increase, and social ties in other domains such as the workplace become less central in their lives ( Milkie, Bierman, & Schieman, 2008 ). In this review, we consider key family relationships in adulthood—marital, parent–child, grandparent, and sibling relationships—and their impact on well-being across the adult life course.

We begin with an overview of theoretical explanations that point to the primary pathways and mechanisms through which family relationships influence well-being, and then we describe how each type of family relationship is associated with well-being, and how these patterns unfold over the adult life course. In this article, we use a broad definition of well-being, including multiple dimensions such as general happiness, life satisfaction, and good mental and physical health, to reflect the breadth of this concept’s use in the literature. We explore important directions for future research, emphasizing the need for research that takes into account the complexity of relationships, diverse family structures, and intersections of structural locations.

Pathways Linking Family Relationships to Well-Being

A life course perspective draws attention to the importance of linked lives, or interdependence within relationships, across the life course ( Elder, Johnson, & Crosnoe, 2003 ). Family members are linked in important ways through each stage of life, and these relationships are an important source of social connection and social influence for individuals throughout their lives ( Umberson, Crosnoe, & Reczek, 2010 ). Substantial evidence consistently shows that social relationships can profoundly influence well-being across the life course ( Umberson & Montez, 2010 ). Family connections can provide a greater sense of meaning and purpose as well as social and tangible resources that benefit well-being ( Hartwell & Benson, 2007 ; Kawachi & Berkman, 2001 ).

The quality of family relationships, including social support (e.g., providing love, advice, and care) and strain (e.g., arguments, being critical, making too many demands), can influence well-being through psychosocial, behavioral, and physiological pathways. Stressors and social support are core components of stress process theory ( Pearlin, 1999 ), which argues that stress can undermine mental health while social support may serve as a protective resource. Prior studies clearly show that stress undermines health and well-being ( Thoits, 2010 ), and strains in relationships with family members are an especially salient type of stress. Social support may provide a resource for coping that dulls the detrimental impact of stressors on well-being ( Thoits, 2010 ), and support may also promote well-being through increased self-esteem, which involves more positive views of oneself ( Fukukawa et al., 2000 ). Those receiving support from their family members may feel a greater sense of self-worth, and this enhanced self-esteem may be a psychological resource, encouraging optimism, positive affect, and better mental health ( Symister & Friend, 2003 ). Family members may also regulate each other’s behaviors (i.e., social control) and provide information and encouragement to behave in healthier ways and to more effectively utilize health care services ( Cohen, 2004 ; Reczek, Thomeer, Lodge, Umberson, & Underhill, 2014 ), but stress in relationships may also lead to health-compromising behaviors as coping mechanisms to deal with stress ( Ng & Jeffery, 2003 ). The stress of relationship strain can result in physiological processes that impair immune function, affect the cardiovascular system, and increase risk for depression ( Graham, Christian, & Kiecolt-Glaser, 2006 ; Kiecolt-Glaser & Newton, 2001 ), whereas positive relationships are associated with lower allostatic load (i.e., “wear and tear” on the body accumulating from stress) ( Seeman, Singer, Ryff, Love, & Levy-Storms, 2002 ). Clearly, the quality of family relationships can have considerable consequences for well-being.

Marital Relationships

A life course perspective has posited marital relationships as one of the most important relationships that define life context and in turn affect individuals’ well-being throughout adulthood ( Umberson & Montez, 2010 ). Being married, especially happily married, is associated with better mental and physical health ( Carr & Springer, 2010 ; Umberson, Williams, & Thomeer, 2013 ), and the strength of the marital effect on health is comparable to that of other traditional risk factors such as smoking and obesity ( Sbarra, 2009 ). Although some studies emphasize the possibility of selection effects, suggesting that individuals in better health are more likely to be married ( Lipowicz, 2014 ), most researchers emphasize two theoretical models to explain why marital relationships shape well-being: the marital resource model and the stress model ( Waite & Gallager, 2000 ; Williams & Umberson, 2004 ). The marital resource model suggests that marriage promotes well-being through increased access to economic, social, and health-promoting resources ( Rendall, Weden, Favreault, & Waldron, 2011 ; Umberson et al., 2013 ). The stress model suggests that negative aspects of marital relationships such as marital strain and marital dissolutions create stress and undermine well-being ( Williams & Umberson, 2004 ), whereas positive aspects of marital relationships may prompt social support, enhance self-esteem, and promote healthier behaviors in general and in coping with stress ( Reczek, Thomeer, et al., 2014 ; Symister & Friend, 2003 ; Waite & Gallager, 2000 ). Marital relationships also tend to become more salient with advancing age, as other social relationships such as those with family members, friends, and neighbors are often lost due to geographic relocation and death in the later part of the life course ( Liu & Waite, 2014 ).

Married people, on average, enjoy better mental health, physical health, and longer life expectancy than divorced/separated, widowed, and never-married people ( Hughes & Waite, 2009 ; Simon, 2002 ), although the health gap between the married and never married has decreased in the past few decades ( Liu & Umberson, 2008 ). Moreover, marital links to well-being depend on the quality of the relationship; those in distressed marriages are more likely to report depressive symptoms and poorer health than those in happy marriages ( Donoho, Crimmins, & Seeman, 2013 ; Liu & Waite, 2014 ; Umberson, Williams, Powers, Liu, & Needham, 2006 ), whereas a happy marriage may buffer the effects of stress via greater access to emotional support ( Williams, 2003 ). A number of studies suggest that the negative aspects of close relationships have a stronger impact on well-being than the positive aspects of relationships (e.g., Rook, 2014 ), and past research shows that the impact of marital strain on health increases with advancing age ( Liu & Waite, 2014 ; Umberson et al., 2006 ).

Prior studies suggest that marital transitions, either into or out of marriage, shape life context and affect well-being ( Williams & Umberson, 2004 ). National longitudinal studies provide evidence that past experiences of divorce and widowhood are associated with increased risk of heart disease in later life especially among women, irrespective of current marital status ( Zhang & Hayward, 2006 ), and longer duration of divorce or widowhood is associated with a greater number of chronic conditions and mobility limitations ( Hughes & Waite, 2009 ; Lorenz, Wickrama, Conger, & Elder, 2006 ) but only short-term declines in mental health ( Lee & Demaris, 2007 ). On the other hand, entry into marriages, especially first marriages, improves psychological well-being and decreases depression ( Frech & Williams, 2007 ; Musick & Bumpass, 2012 ), although the benefits of remarriage may not be as large as those that accompany a first marriage ( Hughes & Waite, 2009 ). Taken together, these studies show the importance of understanding the lifelong cumulative impact of marital status and marital transitions.

Gender Differences

Gender is a central focus of research on marital relationships and well-being and an important determinant of life course experiences ( Bernard, 1972 ; Liu & Waite, 2014 ; Zhang & Hayward, 2006 ). A long-observed pattern is that men receive more physical health benefits from marriage than women, and women are more psychologically and physiologically vulnerable to marital stress than men ( Kiecolt-Glaser & Newton, 2001 ; Revenson et al., 2016 ; Simon, 2002 ; Williams, 2004 ). Women tend to receive more financial benefits from their typically higher-earning male spouse than do men, but men generally receive more health promotion benefits such as emotional support and regulation of health behaviors from marriage than do women ( Liu & Umberson, 2008 ; Liu & Waite, 2014 ). This is because within a traditional marriage, women tend to take more responsibility for maintaining social connections to family and friends, and are more likely to provide emotional support to their husband, whereas men are more likely to receive emotional support and enjoy the benefit of expanded social networks—all factors that may promote husbands’ health and well-being ( Revenson et al., 2016 ).

However, there is mixed evidence regarding whether men’s or women’s well-being is more affected by marriage. On the one hand, a number of studies have documented that marital status differences in both mental and physical health are greater for men than women ( Liu & Umberson, 2008 ; Sbarra, 2009 ). For example, Williams and Umberson (2004) found that men’s health improves more than women’s from entering marriage. On the other hand, a number of studies reveal stronger effects of marital strain on women’s health than men’s including more depressive symptoms, increases in cardiovascular health risk, and changes in hormones ( Kiecolt-Glaser & Newton, 2001 ; Liu & Waite, 2014 ; Liu, Waite, & Shen, 2016 ). Yet, other studies found no gender differences in marriage and health links (e.g., Umberson et al., 2006 ). The mixed evidence regarding gender differences in the impact of marital relationships on well-being may be attributed to different study samples (e.g., with different age groups) and variations in measurements and methodologies. More research based on representative longitudinal samples is clearly warranted to contribute to this line of investigation.

Race-Ethnicity and SES Heterogeneity

Family scholars argue that marriage has different meanings and dynamics across socioeconomic status (SES) and racial-ethnic groups due to varying social, economic, historical, and cultural contexts. Therefore, marriage may be associated with well-being in different ways across these groups. For example, women who are black or lower SES may be less likely than their white, higher SES counterparts to increase their financial capital from relationship unions because eligible men in their social networks are more socioeconomically challenged ( Edin & Kefalas, 2005 ). Some studies also find that marital quality is lower among low SES and black couples than white couples with higher SES ( Broman, 2005 ). This may occur because the former groups face more stress in their daily lives throughout the life course and these higher levels of stress undermine marital quality ( Umberson, Williams, Thomas, Liu, & Thomeer, 2014 ). Other studies, however, suggest stronger effects of marriage on the well-being of black adults than white adults. For example, black older adults seem to benefit more from marriage than older whites in terms of chronic conditions and disability ( Pienta, Hayward, & Jenkins, 2000 ).

Directions for Future Research

The rapid aging of the U.S. population along with significant changes in marriage and families indicate that a growing number of older adults enter late life with both complex marital histories and great heterogeneity in their relationships. While most research to date focuses on different-sex marriages, a growing body of research has started to examine whether the marital advantage in health and well-being is extended to same-sex couples, which represents a growing segment of relationship types among older couples ( Denney, Gorman, & Barrera, 2013 ; Goldsen et al., 2017 ; Liu, Reczek, & Brown, 2013 ; Reczek, Liu, & Spiker, 2014 ). Evidence shows that same-sex cohabiting couples report worse health than different-sex married couples ( Denney et al., 2013 ; Liu et al., 2013 ), but same-sex married couples are often not significantly different from or are even better off than different-sex married couples in other outcomes such as alcohol use ( Reczek, Liu, et al., 2014 ) and care from their partner during periods of illness ( Umberson, Thomeer, Reczek, & Donnelly, 2016 ). These results suggest that marriage may promote the well-being of same-sex couples, perhaps even more so than for different-sex couples ( Umberson et al., 2016 ). Including same-sex couples in future work on marriage and well-being will garner unique insights into gender differences in marital dynamics that have long been taken for granted based on studies of different-sex couples ( Umberson, Thomeer, Kroeger, Lodge, & Xu, 2015 ). Moreover, future work on same-sex and different-sex couples should take into account the intersection of other statuses such as race-ethnicity and SES to better understand the impact of marital relationships on well-being.

Another avenue for future research involves investigating complexities of marital strain effects on well-being. Some recent studies among older adults suggest that relationship strain may actually benefit certain dimensions of well-being. These studies suggest that strain with a spouse may be protective for certain health outcomes including cognitive decline ( Xu, Thomas, & Umberson, 2016 ) and diabetes control ( Liu et al., 2016 ), while support may not be, especially for men ( Carr, Cornman, & Freedman, 2016 ). Explanations for these unexpected findings among older adults are not fully understood. Family and health scholars suggest that spouses may prod their significant others to engage in more health-promoting behaviors ( Umberson, Crosnoe, et al., 2010 ). These attempts may be a source of friction, creating strain in the relationship; however, this dynamic may still contribute to better health outcomes for older adults. Future research should explore the processes by which strain may have a positive influence on health and well-being, perhaps differently by gender.

Intergenerational Relationships

Children and parents tend to remain closely connected to each other across the life course, and it is well-established that the quality of intergenerational relationships is central to the well-being of both generations ( Merz, Schuengel, & Schulze, 2009 ; Polenick, DePasquale, Eggebeen, Zarit, & Fingerman, 2016 ). Recent research also points to the importance of relationships with grandchildren for aging adults ( Mahne & Huxhold, 2015 ). We focus here on the well-being of parents, adult children, and grandparents. Parents, grandparents, and children often provide care for each other at different points in the life course, which can contribute to social support, stress, and social control mechanisms that influence the health and well-being of each in important ways over the life course ( Nomaguchi & Milkie, 2003 ; Pinquart & Soerensen, 2007 ; Reczek, Thomeer, et al., 2014 ).

Family scholarship highlights the complexities of parent–child relationships, finding that parenthood generates both rewards and stressors, with important implications for well-being ( Nomaguchi & Milkie, 2003 ; Umberson, Pudrovska, & Reczek, 2010 ). Parenthood increases time constraints, producing stress and diminishing well-being, especially when children are younger ( Nomaguchi, Milkie, & Bianchi, 2005 ), but parenthood can also increase social integration, leading to greater emotional support and a sense of belonging and meaning ( Berkman, Glass, Brissette, & Seeman, 2000 ), with positive consequences for well-being. Studies show that adult children play a pivotal role in the social networks of their parents across the life course ( Umberson, Pudrovska, et al., 2010 ), and the effects of parenthood on health and well-being become increasingly important at older ages as adult children provide one of the major sources of care for aging adults ( Seltzer & Bianchi, 2013 ). Norms of filial obligation of adult children to care for parents may be a form of social capital to be accessed by parents when their needs arise ( Silverstein, Gans, & Yang, 2006 ).

Although the general pattern is that receiving support from adult children is beneficial for parents’ well-being ( Merz, Schulze, & Schuengel, 2010 ), there is also evidence showing that receiving social support from adult children is related to lower well-being among older adults, suggesting that challenges to an identity of independence and usefulness may offset some of the benefits of receiving support ( Merz et al., 2010 ; Thomas, 2010 ). Contrary to popular thought, older parents are also very likely to provide instrumental/financial support to their adult children, typically contributing more than they receive ( Grundy, 2005 ), and providing emotional support to their adult children is related to higher well-being for older adults ( Thomas, 2010 ). In addition, consistent with the tenets of stress process theory, most evidence points to poor quality relationships with adult children as detrimental to parents’ well-being ( Koropeckyj-Cox, 2002 ; Polenick et al., 2016 ); however, a recent study found that strain with adult children is related to better cognitive health among older parents, especially fathers ( Thomas & Umberson, 2017 ).

Adult Children

As children and parents age, the nature of the parent–child relationship often changes such that adult children may take on a caregiving role for their older parents ( Pinquart & Soerensen, 2007 ). Adult children often experience competing pressures of employment, taking care of their own children, and providing care for older parents ( Evans et al., 2016 ). Support and strain from intergenerational ties during this stressful time of balancing family roles and work obligations may be particularly important for the mental health of adults in midlife ( Thomas, 2016 ). Most evidence suggests that caregiving for parents is related to lower well-being for adult children, including more negative affect and greater stress response in terms of overall output of daily cortisol ( Bangerter et al., 2017 ); however, some studies suggest that caregiving may be beneficial or neutral for well-being ( Merz et al., 2010 ). Family scholars suggest that this discrepancy may be due to varying types of caregiving and relationship quality. For example, providing emotional support to parents can increase well-being, but providing instrumental support does not unless the caregiver is emotionally engaged ( Morelli, Lee, Arnn, & Zaki, 2015 ). Moreover, the quality of the adult child-parent relationship may matter more for the well-being of adult children than does the caregiving they provide ( Merz, Schuengel, et al., 2009 ).

Although caregiving is a critical issue, adult children generally experience many years with parents in good health ( Settersten, 2007 ), and relationship quality and support exchanges have important implications for well-being beyond caregiving roles. The preponderance of research suggests that most adults feel emotionally close to their parents, and emotional support such as encouragement, companionship, and serving as a confidant is commonly exchanged in both directions ( Swartz, 2009 ). Intergenerational support exchanges often flow across generations or towards adult children rather than towards parents. For example, adult children are more likely to receive financial support from parents than vice versa until parents are very old ( Grundy, 2005 ). Intergenerational support exchanges are integral to the lives of both parents and adult children, both in times of need and in daily life.

Grandparents

Over 65 million Americans are grandparents ( Ellis & Simmons, 2014 ), 10% of children lived with at least one grandparent in 2012 ( Dunifon, Ziol-Guest, & Kopko, 2014 ), and a growing number of American families rely on grandparents as a source of support ( Settersten, 2007 ), suggesting the importance of studying grandparenting. Grandparents’ relationships with their grandchildren are generally related to higher well-being for both grandparents and grandchildren, with some important exceptions such as when they involve more extensive childcare responsibilities ( Kim, Kang, & Johnson-Motoyama, 2017 ; Lee, Clarkson-Hendrix, & Lee, 2016 ). Most grandparents engage in activities with their grandchildren that they find meaningful, feel close to their grandchildren, consider the grandparent role important ( Swartz, 2009 ), and experience lower well-being if they lose contact with their grandchildren ( Drew & Silverstein, 2007 ). However, a growing proportion of children live in households maintained by grandparents ( Settersten, 2007 ), and grandparents who care for their grandchildren without the support of the children’s parents usually experience greater stress ( Lee et al., 2016 ) and more depressive symptoms ( Blustein, Chan, & Guanais, 2004 ), sometimes juggling grandparenting responsibilities with their own employment ( Harrington Meyer, 2014 ). Using professional help and community services reduced the detrimental effects of grandparent caregiving on well-being ( Gerard, Landry-Meyer, & Roe, 2006 ), suggesting that future policy could help mitigate the stress of grandparent parenting and enhance the rewarding aspects of grandparenting instead.

Substantial evidence suggests that the experience of intergenerational relationships varies for men and women. Women tend to be more involved with and affected by intergenerational relationships, with adult children feeling closer to mothers than fathers ( Swartz, 2009 ). Moreover, relationship quality with children is more strongly associated with mothers’ well-being than with fathers’ well-being ( Milkie et al., 2008 ). Motherhood may be particularly salient to women ( McQuillan, Greil, Shreffler, & Tichenor, 2008 ), and women carry a disproportionate share of the burden of parenting, including greater caregiving for young children and aging parents as well as time deficits from these obligations that lead to lower well-being ( Nomaguchi et al., 2005 ; Pinquart & Sorensen, 2006 ). Mothers often report greater parental pressures than fathers, such as more obligation to be there for their children ( Reczek, Thomeer, et al., 2014 ; Stone, 2007 ), and to actively work on family relationships ( Erickson, 2005 ). Mothers are also more likely to blame themselves for poor parent–child relationship quality ( Elliott, Powell, & Brenton, 2015 ), contributing to greater distress for women. It is important to take into account the different pressures and meanings surrounding intergenerational relationships for men and for women in future research.

Family scholars have noted important variations in family dynamics and constraints by race-ethnicity and socioeconomic status. Lower SES can produce and exacerbate family strains ( Conger, Conger, & Martin, 2010 ). Socioeconomically disadvantaged adult children may need more assistance from parents and grandparents who in turn have fewer resources to provide ( Seltzer & Bianchi, 2013 ). Higher SES and white families tend to provide more financial and emotional support, whereas lower SES, black, and Latino families are more likely to coreside and provide practical help, and these differences in support exchanges contribute to the intergenerational transmission of inequality through families ( Swartz, 2009 ). Moreover, scholars have found that a happiness penalty exists such that parents of young children have lower levels of well-being than nonparents; however, policies such as childcare subsidies and paid time off that help parents negotiate work and family responsibilities explain this disparity ( Glass, Simon, & Andersson, 2016 ). Fewer resources can also place strain on grandparent–grandchild relationships. For example, well-being derived from these relationships may be unequally distributed across grandparents’ education level such that those with less education bear the brunt of more stressful grandparenting experiences and lower well-being ( Mahne & Huxhold, 2015 ). Both the burden of parenting grandchildren and its effects on depressive symptoms disproportionately fall upon single grandmothers of color ( Blustein et al., 2004 ). These studies demonstrate the importance of understanding structural constraints that produce greater stress for less advantaged groups and their impact on family relationships and well-being.

Research on intergenerational relationships suggests the importance of understanding greater complexity in these relationships in future work. For example, future research should pay greater attention to diverse family structures and perspectives of multiple family members. There is an increasing trend of individuals delaying childbearing or choosing not to bear children ( Umberson, Pudrovska, et al., 2010 ). How might this influence marital quality and general well-being over the life course and across different social groups? Greater attention to the quality and context of intergenerational relationships from each family member’s perspective over time may prove fruitful by gaining both parents’ and each child’s perceptions. This work has already yielded important insights, such as the ways in which intergenerational ambivalence (simultaneous positive and negative feelings about intergenerational relationships) from the perspectives of parents and adult children may be detrimental to well-being for both parties ( Fingerman, Pitzer, Lefkowitz, Birditt, & Mroczek, 2008 ; Gilligan, Suitor, Feld, & Pillemer, 2015 ). Future work understanding the perspectives of each family member could also provide leverage in understanding the mixed findings regarding whether living in blended families with stepchildren influences well-being ( Gennetian, 2005 ; Harcourt, Adler-Baeder, Erath, & Pettit, 2013 ) and the long-term implications of these family structures when older adults need care ( Seltzer & Bianchi, 2013 ). Longitudinal data linking generations, paying greater attention to the context of these relationships, and collected from multiple family members can help untangle the ways in which family members influence each other across the life course and how multiple family members’ well-being may be intertwined in important ways.

Future studies should also consider the impact of intersecting structural locations that place unique constraints on family relationships, producing greater stress at some intersections while providing greater resources at other intersections. For example, same-sex couples are less likely to have children ( Carpenter & Gates, 2008 ) and are more likely to provide parental caregiving regardless of gender ( Reczek & Umberson, 2016 ), suggesting important implications for stress and burden in intergenerational caregiving for this group. Much of the work on gender, sexuality, race, and socioeconomic status differences in intergenerational relationships and well-being examine one or two of these statuses, but there may be unique effects at the intersection of these and other statuses such as disability, age, and nativity. Moreover, these effects may vary at different stages of the life course.

Sibling Relationships

Sibling relationships are understudied, and the research on adult siblings is more limited than for other family relationships. Yet, sibling relationships are often the longest lasting family relationship in an individual’s life due to concurrent life spans, and indeed, around 75% of 70-year olds have a living sibling ( Settersten, 2007 ). Some suggest that sibling relationships play a more meaningful role in well-being than is often recognized ( Cicirelli, 2004 ). The available evidence suggests that high quality relationships characterized by closeness with siblings are related to higher levels of well-being ( Bedford & Avioli, 2001 ), whereas sibling relationships characterized by conflict and lack of closeness have been linked to lower well-being in terms of major depression and greater drug use in adulthood ( Waldinger, Vaillant, & Orav, 2007 ). Parental favoritism and disfavoritism of children affects the closeness of siblings ( Gilligan, Suitor, & Nam, 2015 ) and depression ( Jensen, Whiteman, Fingerman, & Birditt, 2013 ). Similar to other family relationships, sibling relationships can be characterized by both positive and negative aspects that may affect elements of the stress process, providing both resources and stressors that influence well-being.

Siblings play important roles in support exchanges and caregiving, especially if their sibling experiences physical impairment and other close ties, such as a spouse or adult children, are not available ( Degeneffe & Burcham, 2008 ; Namkung, Greenberg, & Mailick, 2017 ). Although sibling caregivers report lower well-being than noncaregivers, sibling caregivers experience this lower well-being to a lesser extent than spousal caregivers ( Namkung et al., 2017 ). Most people believe that their siblings would be available to help them in a crisis ( Connidis, 1994 ; Van Volkom, 2006 ), and in general support exchanges, receiving emotional support from a sibling is related to higher levels of well-being among older adults ( Thomas, 2010 ). Relationship quality affects the experience of caregiving, with higher quality sibling relationships linked to greater provision of care ( Eriksen & Gerstel, 2002 ) and a lower likelihood of emotional strain from caregiving ( Mui & Morrow-Howell, 1993 ; Quinn, Clare, & Woods, 2009 ). Taken together, these studies suggest the importance of sibling relationships for well-being across the adult life course.

The gender of the sibling dyad may play a role in the relationship’s effect on well-being, with relationships with sisters perceived as higher quality and linked to higher well-being ( Van Volkom, 2006 ), though some argue that brothers do not show their affection in the same way but nevertheless have similar sentiments towards their siblings ( Bedford & Avioli, 2001 ). General social support exchanges with siblings may be influenced by gender and larger family context; sisters exchanged more support with their siblings when they had higher quality relationships with their parents, but brothers exhibited a more compensatory role, exchanging more emotional support with siblings when they had lower quality relationships with their parents ( Voorpostel & Blieszner, 2008 ). Caregiving for aging parents is also distributed differently by gender, falling disproportionately on female siblings ( Pinquart & Sorensen, 2006 ), and sons provide less care to their parents if they have a sister ( Grigoryeva, 2017 ). However, men in same-sex marriages were more likely than men in different-sex marriages to provide caregiving to parents and parents-in-law ( Reczek & Umberson, 2016 ), which may ease the stress and burden on their female siblings.

Although there is less research in this area, family scholars have noted variations in sibling relationships and their effects by race-ethnicity and socioeconomic status. Lower socioeconomic status has been associated with reports of feeling less attached to siblings and this influences several outcomes such as obesity, depression, and substance use ( Van Gundy et al., 2015 ). Fewer socioeconomic resources can also limit the amount of care siblings provide ( Eriksen & Gerstel, 2002 ). These studies suggest sibling relationship quality as an axis of further disadvantage for already disadvantaged individuals. Sibling relationships may influence caregiving experiences by race as well, with black caregivers more likely to have siblings who also provide care to their parents than white caregivers ( White-Means & Rubin, 2008 ) and sibling caregiving leading to lower well-being among white caregivers than minority caregivers ( Namkung et al., 2017 ).

Research on within-family differences has made great strides in our understanding of family relationships and remains a fruitful area of growth for future research (e.g., Suitor et al., 2017 ). Data gathered on multiple members within the same family can help researchers better investigate how families influence well-being in complex ways, including reciprocal influences between siblings. Siblings may have different perceptions of their relationships with each other, and this may vary by gender and other social statuses. This type of data might be especially useful in understanding family effects in diverse family structures, such as differences in treatment and outcomes of biological versus stepchildren, how characteristics of their relationships such as age differences may play a role, and the implications for caregiving for aging parents and for each other. Moreover, it is important to use longitudinal data to understand the consequences of these within-family differences over time as the life course unfolds. In addition, a greater focus on heterogeneity in sibling relationships and their consequences at the intersection of gender, race-ethnicity, SES, and other social statuses merit further investigation.

Relationships with family members are significant for well-being across the life course ( Merz, Consedine, et al., 2009 ; Umberson, Pudrovska, et al., 2010 ). As individuals age, family relationships often become more complex, with sometimes complicated marital histories, varying relationships with children, competing time pressures, and obligations for care. At the same time, family relationships become more important for well-being as individuals age and social networks diminish even as family caregiving needs increase. Stress process theory suggests that the positive and negative aspects of relationships can have a large impact on the well-being of individuals. Family relationships provide resources that can help an individual cope with stress, engage in healthier behaviors, and enhance self-esteem, leading to higher well-being. However, poor relationship quality, intense caregiving for family members, and marital dissolution are all stressors that can take a toll on an individual’s well-being. Moreover, family relationships also change over the life course, with the potential to share different levels of emotional support and closeness, to take care of us when needed, to add varying levels of stress to our lives, and to need caregiving at different points in the life course. The potential risks and rewards of these relationships have a cumulative impact on health and well-being over the life course. Additionally, structural constraints and disadvantage place greater pressures on some families than others based on structural location such as gender, race, and SES, producing further disadvantage and intergenerational transmission of inequality.

Future research should take into account greater complexity in family relationships, diverse family structures, and intersections of social statuses. The rapid aging of the U.S. population along with significant changes in marriage and families suggest more complex marital and family histories as adults enter late life, which will have a large impact on family dynamics and caregiving. Growing segments of family relationships among older adults include same-sex couples, those without children, and those experiencing marital transitions leading to diverse family structures, which all merit greater attention in future research. Moreover, there is some evidence that strain in relationships can be beneficial for certain health outcomes, and the processes by which this occurs merit further investigation. A greater use of longitudinal data that link generations and obtain information from multiple family members will help researchers better understand the ways in which these complex family relationships unfold across the life course and shape well-being. We also highlighted gender, race-ethnicity, and socioeconomic status differences in each of these family relationships and their impact on well-being; however, many studies only consider one status at a time. Future research should consider the impact of intersecting structural locations that place unique constraints on family relationships, producing greater stress or providing greater resources at the intersections of different statuses.

The changing landscape of families combined with population aging present unique challenges and pressures for families and health care systems. With more experiences of age-related disease in a growing population of older adults as well as more complex family histories as these adults enter late life, such as a growing proportion of diverse family structures without children or with stepchildren, caregiving obligations and availability may be less clear. It is important to address ways to ease caregiving or shift the burden away from families through a variety of policies, such as greater resources for in-home aid, creation of older adult residential communities that facilitate social interactions and social support structures, and patient advocates to help older adults navigate health care systems. Adults in midlife may experience competing family pressures from their young children and aging parents, and policies such as childcare subsidies and paid leave to care for family members could reduce burden during this often stressful time ( Glass et al., 2016 ). Professional help and community services can also reduce the burden for grandparents involved in childcare, enabling grandparents to focus on the more positive aspects of grandparent–grandchild relationships. It is important for future research and health promotion policies to take into account the contexts and complexities of family relationships as part of a multipronged approach to benefit health and well-being, especially as a growing proportion of older adults reach late life.

This work was supported in part by grant, 5 R24 HD042849, Population Research Center, awarded to the Population Research Center at The University of Texas at Austin by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

Conflict of Interest

None reported.

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Here's To Grown-Up Siblings And The Ties That Bind

Robin Marantz Henig

We're tethered to our brothers and sisters as adults far longer than we are as children; our sibling relationships, in fact, are the longest-lasting family ties we have. Katherine Streeter for NPR hide caption

We're tethered to our brothers and sisters as adults far longer than we are as children; our sibling relationships, in fact, are the longest-lasting family ties we have.

We didn't expect to need the card table for spillover seating at this year's Thanksgiving dinner. We would be fewer than usual, just nine altogether, and the littlest one's high chair needs no place setting.

As we got things ready, I felt deep gratitude for the family members who would be here — my husband, our two daughters, their husbands, my sister-in-law's 90-year-old mother and our two delightful granddaughters. But I also knew I would deeply miss the ones who couldn't make it.

This would be our third holiday without my mother, who died in March 2017. My niece and nephews had other plans, and so did my younger brother, Paul, who was traveling in Spain with his wife.

I was glad they had a chance to see a part of the world they'd never been to, but I was sad to hear they would break the 18-year-old tradition of crowding into our overheated apartment for turkey and cranberry nut bread. I knew I would miss Paul, and not just because he's a thoughtful, entertaining guy (who also, conveniently, usually brings the appetizers).

I would miss him because glancing across the Thanksgiving table into his blue eyes, which look exactly like mine, always makes me feel grounded. Though we're very different, he's the one, in a way, I know best.

Paul and I irritated each other when we were kids. I would take bites out of his precisely made sandwiches in just the spot I knew he didn't want me to, and he would hang around the living room telling jokes when he knew I wanted to be alone with the boy on the couch.

But as adults, my brother and I have always had each other's backs, especially when it came to dealing with our mother's health crises, which became more frequent in her final years. Paul was the first person I wanted to talk to when something worried me about Mom; I knew he'd be worried too. He was the one I called when Mom, then 92, didn't answer her phone one chilly Saturday morning; he was the one who made some further calls and learned she had died in her sleep.

There's probably a biological explanation for the intensity of the sibling bond. Siblings share half their genes, which evolutionary biologists say should be motivation enough for mutual devotion. "I would lay down my life," British biologist J.B.S. Haldane once said, applying the arithmetic of kin selection , "for two brothers or eight cousins." Siblings are a crucial part of a child's development too, teaching one another socialization skills and the rules of dominance and hierarchy, all part of the eternal struggle for parental resources.

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Big sibling's big influence: some behaviors run in the family.

When psychologists study siblings, they usually study children, emphasizing sibling rivalry and the fact that brothers and sisters refine their social maneuvering skills on one another. The adult sibling relationship has only sporadically been the subject of attention. Yet we're tethered to our brothers and sisters as adults far longer than we are as children; our sibling relationships, in fact, are the longest-lasting family ties we have.

Most such relationships are close — two-thirds of people in one large study said a brother or sister was one of their best friends. One thing that can scuttle closeness in adulthood is a parent who played favorites in childhood; this sense of resentment can last a lifetime.

A study by Jill Suitor , a sociologist at Purdue University, and her colleagues polled 274 families with 708 adult children (ages 23 to 68) in 2009 and found that the majority had good feelings toward their siblings. Most didn't remember much favoritism from when they were kids, but those who did reported feeling less loved and cared for by their siblings. It didn't matter whether they felt themselves to be the favored or the unfavored child. The simple perception of parental favoritism was enough to undermine their relationship.

That's one thing Paul and I have going for us: Our parents treated us pretty much the same when we were growing up, despite our different skills and personalities. Paul is gregarious while I'm shy, funny while I'm not, a terrific amateur saxophonist while I can't read music or carry a tune. This isn't unusual. In families with more than one child, every sibling seems to get a label in contrast to every other sibling.

So if your kid sister is the queen bee in any social gathering, you might get labeled "the quiet one" even if you're not especially quiet, just quiet in comparison. And if you're a bright child who always gets good grades, you might not get much credit for that if your big brother is a brilliant child with straight A's. There's room for only one "smart one" per family — you'll have to come up with something else. (I was smart, but Paul was smarter; I ended up being "the good one.")

The very presence of siblings in the household can be an education. When a new baby is born, wrote Purdue psychologist Victor Cicirelli in the 1995 book Sibling Relationships Across the Life Span , "the older sibling gains in social skills in interacting with the younger," and "the younger sibling gains cognitively by imitating the older."

They learn from the friction between them too, as they fight for their parents' attention. Mild conflict between brothers and sisters teaches them how to interact with peers, co-workers and friends for the rest of their lives.

The benefits can carry into old age. The literature on sibling relationships shows that during middle age and old age, indicators of well-being — mood, health, morale, stress, depression, loneliness, life satisfaction — are tied to how you feel about your brothers and sisters.

In one Swedish study , satisfaction with sibling contact in one's 80s was closely correlated with health and positive mood — more so than was satisfaction with friendships or relationships with adult children. And loneliness was eased for older people in a supportive relationship with their siblings, no matter whether they gave or got support.

That's why it's so sad when things between siblings fall apart. This often happens when aging parents need care or die — old feelings of rivalry, jealousy and grief erupt all over again, masked as petty fights ostensibly over who takes Mom to the doctor or who calls the nursing home about Dad.

Many families get through parents' illnesses just fine, establishing networks where the workload is divided pretty much equally. Paul and I did fine, too, throughout our mother's progressive frailty and forgetfulness, and we also had no problem splitting the chores that arose in the aftermath of her death. But about 40% of the time, according to one study , there is a single primary caregiver who feels like she (and it's almost always a she) is not getting any help from her brothers and sisters, which can lead to serious conflict.

And because of the particular intensity of sibling relationships, such conflict cuts to the bone. People grieve for the frayed ties to their siblings as though they've lost a piece of themselves.

Throughout adulthood, the sibling relationship "is powerful and never static," said Jane Mersky Leder, author of The Sibling Connection . Whether we are close to our siblings or distant, she writes, they remain our brothers and sisters — for better or for worse.

So let this all percolate as you sit down to turkey with your sometimes-complicated family. And remember the immortal words of folk singer Loudon Wainwright III in a song called "Thanksgiving . " It's about spending the holiday with a brother and a sister whom he rarely sees but still has intense feelings about:

On this auspicious occasion, this special family dinner If I argue with a loved one, Lord, please make me the winner.

Maybe my brother sensed my anticipatory sadness from across the Atlantic; maybe he was feeling sad at his end, too, about missing the festivities. At the last minute, Paul and his wife caught an early flight home — they will be with us for Thanksgiving after all. And as I get ready to pull out the card table that we suddenly need, I find myself feeling incredibly lucky.

Science writer Robin Marantz Henig is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine and the author of nine books. This is an updated version of an article that we originally published on Nov. 27, 2014.

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Family Conflict Is Normal; It’s the Repair That Matters

Three months into the pandemic, I had the urge to see my 28-year-old daughter and her husband, 2,000 miles away. She had weathered an acute health crisis, followed by community protests that propelled them both onto the streets to serve food and clean up neighborhoods. They were coping, but the accumulation of challenges made the mom in me want to connect with and support them. So, together with my husband, my other daughter, and her husband, our family of six adults and two dogs formed a new pod inside my daughter’s home in the steamy heat of the Minneapolis summer.

As I packed, a wisp of doubt crept in. We six hadn’t lived together under the same roof, ever . Would I blow it? Would I “flap my lips,” as a friend calls it, and accidentally say something hurtful? Some time back, in a careless moment of exhaustion, I had insulted my brand-new son-in-law with a thoughtless remark. He was rightfully hurt, and it took a long letter and a phone call to get us back on track.

My own siblings and I were raised inside the intractable rupture that was my parents’ marriage. Their lifelong conflict sowed discord and division in everyone around them. I worked hard to create a different, positive family climate with my husband and our children. My old ghosts were haunting me, though, and I didn’t want to ruin a good thing. 

Yet research shows that it’s not realistic, or possible, or even healthy to expect that our relationships will be harmonious all the time. Everything we know from developmental science and research on families suggests that rifts will happen—and what matters more is how you respond to them. With many families spending more time together than ever now, there are ample opportunities for tension and hurt feelings. These moments also offer ample invitations to reconnect.

Disconnections are a fact of life

Researcher Ed Tronick, together with colleague Andrew Gianino, calculated how often infants and caregivers are attuned to each other. (Attunement is a back-and-forth rhythm of interaction where partners share positive emotions.) They found that it’s surprisingly little. Even in healthy, securely attached relationships, caregivers and babies are in sync only 30% of the time. The other 70%, they’re mismatched, out of synch, or making repairs and coming back together. Cheeringly, even babies work toward repairs with their gazes, smiles, gestures, protests, and calls.

These mismatches and repairs are critical, Tronick explains. They’re important for growing children’s self-regulation, coping, and resilience. It is through these mismatches—in small, manageable doses—that babies, and later children, learn that the world does not track them perfectly. These small exposures to the micro-stress of unpleasant feelings, followed by the pleasant feelings that accompany repair, or coming back together, are what give them manageable practice in keeping their boat afloat when the waters are choppy. Put another way, if a caregiver met all of their child’s needs perfectly, it would actually get in the way of the child’s development. 
 “Repairing ruptures is the most essential thing in parenting,” says UCLA neuropsychiatrist Dan Siegel , director of the Mindsight Institute and author of several books on interpersonal neurobiology.

Life is a series of mismatches, miscommunications, and misattunements that are quickly repaired, says Tronick , and then again become miscoordinated and stressful, and again are repaired. This occurs thousands of times in a day, and millions of times over a year.

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Other research shows that children have more conflicts and repairs with friends than non-friends. Sibling conflict is legendary; and adults’ conflicts escalate when they become parents. If interpersonal conflict is unavoidable—and even necessary—then the only way we can maintain important relationships is to get better at re-synchronizing them, and especially at tending to repairs when they rupture.

“Relationships shrink to the size of the field of repair,” says Rick Hanson , psychologist and author of several books on the neuroscience of well-being. “But a bid for a repair is one of the sweetest and most vulnerable and important kinds of communication that humans offer to each other,” he adds. “It says you value the relationship.”

Strengthening the family fabric

In a small Canadian study , researchers examined how parents of four- to seven-year-old children strengthened, harmed, or repaired their relationships with their children. Parents said their relationships with their children were strengthened by “horizontal” or egalitarian exchanges like playing together, negotiating, taking turns, compromising, having fun, or sharing psychological intimacy—in other words, respecting and enjoying one another. Their relationships were harmed by an over-reliance on power and authority, and especially by stonewalling tactics like the “silent treatment.” When missteps happened, parents repaired and restored intimacy by expressing warmth and affection, talking about what happened, and apologizing.

This model of strengthening, harming, and repairing can help you think about your own interactions. When a family relationship is already positive, there is a foundation of trust and a belief in the other’s good intentions, which helps everyone restore more easily from minor ruptures. For this reason, it helps to proactively tend the fabric of family relationships. 
 That can begin with simply building up an investment of positive interactions:

• Spend “special time” with each child individually to create more space to deepen your one-to-one relationship. Let them control the agenda and decide how long you spend together.
• Appreciate out loud, share gratitude reflections, and notice the good in your children intermittently throughout the day or week.

You also want to watch out for ways you might harm the relationship. If you’re ever unsure about a child’s motives, check their intentions behind their behaviors and don’t assume they were ill-intentioned. Language like, “I noticed that…” or “Tell me what happened…” or “And then what happened?” can help you begin to understand an experience from the child’s point of view.

A Loving Space for Kids’ Emotions

Show love to your children by helping them process emotions

When speaking to a child, consider how they might receive what you’re saying. Remember that words and silence have weight; children are “ emotional Geiger counters ” and read your feelings much more than they process your words. If you are working through feelings or traumas that have nothing to do with them, take care to be responsible for your own feelings and take a moment to calm yourself before speaking.

In this context of connection and understanding, you can then create a family culture where rifts are expected and repairs are welcomed:

• Watch for tiny bids for repairs . Sometimes we have so much on our minds that we miss the look, gesture, or expression in a child that shows that what they really want is to reconnect.
• Normalize requests like “I need a repair” or “Can we have a redo?” We need to be able to let others know when the relationship has been harmed.
• Likewise, if you think you might have stepped on someone’s toes, circle back to check. Catching a misstep early can help.

When you’re annoyed by a family member’s behavior, try to frame your request for change in positive language; that is, say what you want them to do rather than what you don’t. Language like, “I have a request…” or “Would you be willing to…?” keeps the exchange more neutral and helps the recipient stay engaged rather than getting defensive.

You can also model healthy repairs with people around you, so they are normalized and children see their usefulness in real time. Children benefit when they watch adults resolve conflict constructively.


Four steps to an authentic repair

There are infinite varieties of repairs, and they can vary in a number of ways, depending on your child’s age and temperament, and how serious the rift was.

Infants need physical contact and the restoration of love and security. Older children need affection and more words. Teenagers may need more complex conversations. Individual children vary in their styles—some need more words than others, and what is hurtful to one child may not faze another child. Also, your style might not match the child’s, requiring you to stretch further.

Some glitches are little and may just need a check-in, but deeper wounds need more attention. Keep the apology in proportion to the hurt. What’s important is not your judgment of how hurt someone should be, but the actual felt experience of the child’s hurt. A one-time apology may suffice, but some repairs need to be acknowledged frequently over time to really stitch that fabric back together. It’s often helpful to check in later to see if the amends are working.

While each repair is unique, authentic repairs typically involve the same steps.

1. Acknowledge the offense. First, try to understand the hurt you caused. It doesn’t matter if it was unintentional or what your reasons were. This is the time to turn off your own defense system and focus on understanding and naming the other person’s pain or anger.

Sometimes you need to check your understanding. Begin slowly: “Did I hurt you? Help me understand how.” This can be humbling and requires that we listen with an open heart as we take in the other person’s perspective.

Try not to undermine the apology by adding on any caveats, like blaming the child for being sensitive or ill-behaved or deserving of what happened. Any attempt to gloss over, minimize, or dilute the wound is not an authentic repair. Children have a keen sense for authenticity. Faking it or overwhelming them will not work.

A spiritual teacher reminded me of an old saying, “It is acknowledging the wound that gets the thorn out.” It’s what reconnects our humanity.

Making an Effective Apology

A good apology involves more than saying "sorry"

2. Express remorse. Here, a sincere “I’m sorry” is sufficient.

Don’t add anything to it. One of the mistakes adults often make, according to therapist and author Harriet Lerner , is to tack on a discipline component: “Don’t let it happen again,” or “Next time, you’re really going to get it.” This, says Lerner, is what prevents children from learning to use apologies themselves. 
 Apologizing can be tricky for adults. It might feel beneath us, or we may fear that we’re giving away our power. We shouldn’t have to apologize to a child, because as adults we are always right, right? Of course not. But it’s easy to get stuck in a vertical power relationship to our child that makes backtracking hard.

On the other hand, some adults—especially women, says Rick Hanson —can go overboard and be too effusive, too obsequious, or even too quick in their efforts to apologize. This can make the apology more about yourself than the person who was hurt. Or it could be a symptom of a need for one’s own boundary work.   

There is no perfect formula for an apology except that it be delivered in a way that acknowledges the wound and makes amends. And there can be different paths to that. Our family sometimes uses a jokey, “You were right, I was wrong, you were right, I was wrong, you were right, I was wrong,” to playfully acknowledge light transgressions. Some apologies are nonverbal: My father atoned for missing all of my childhood birthdays when he traveled 2,000 miles to surprise me at my doorstep for an adult birthday. Words are not his strong suit, but his planning, effort, and showing up was the repair. Apologies can take on all kinds of tones and qualities.

3. Consider offering a brief explanation. If you sense that the other person is open to listening, you can provide a brief explanation of your point of view, but use caution, as this can be a slippery slope. Feel into how much is enough. The focus of the apology is on the wounded person’s experience. If an explanation helps, fine, but it shouldn’t derail the intent. This is not the time to add in your own grievances—that’s a conversation for a different time.

4. Express your sincere intention to fix the situation and to prevent it from happening again. With a child, especially, try to be concrete and actionable about how the same mistake can be prevented in the future. “I’m going to try really hard to…” and “Let’s check back in to see how it’s feeling…” can be a start.

Remember to forgive yourself, too. This is a tender process, we are all works in progress, and adults are still developing. I know I am.

Prior to our visit, my daughter and I had a phone conversation. We shared our excitement about the rare chance to spend so much time together. Then we gingerly expressed our concerns.

 “I’m afraid we’ll get on each other’s nerves,” I said.

“I’m afraid I’ll be cooking and cleaning the whole time,” she replied.

So we strategized about preventing these foibles. She made a spreadsheet of chores where everyone signed up for a turn cooking and cleaning, and we discussed the space needs that people would have for working and making phone calls.

Then I drew a breath and took a page from the science. “I think we have to expect that conflicts are going to happen,” I said. “It’s how we work through them that will matter. The love is in the repair.”

This article is excerpted from a longer article on Diana Divecha’s blog, developmentalscience.com.

About the Author

Diana Divecha

Diana Divecha, Ph.D. , is a developmental psychologist, an assistant clinical professor at the Yale Child Study Center and Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, and on the advisory board of the Greater Good Science Center. Her blog is developmentalscience.com .

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Pros and cons of having a too-close family, *cue "full house" theme song*.

We all know someone who has close family ties. Most of my friends in high school and their mothers had the Lorelai/Rory relationship we all envy. I've dated the total mama's boy, and I'm guilty of calling my parents and their parents with exciting news 24 hours before it sets in.

The fact of the matter is, we all know too-close families. These are the pros and cons associated with them.

Pro: Family vacation is the greatest time of the year.

There's nothing you look forward to more than swimming and playing putt-putt with your cousins (who might as well be your siblings). There's also nothing funnier than seeing how wound-up your parents get when they stay under the same roof as their parents and siblings for three days.

Con: Everyone is momma.

You might think you won't get your butt whooped for stealing the last cookie, but you'd better to believe your aunt's around the corner with a switch twice the size of your mom's belt.

Pro: You always have a listening ear and shoulder to cry on. And a " baby of the family" to prank.

"Everywhere you look, everywhere you go, there's a heart , a hand to hold onto. Everywhere you look, everywhere you go, There's a place, of somebody who needs you." But seriously. Every. Where. You. Turn. You're either getting an ear-full of the latest drama or spilling the beans about your job promotion everyone just knew you were going to get.

Con: Dating someone new? You'd better have the approval of 12 people.

Lord help the mister who tries to propose to my sister, and Lord help the sister who tries to marry this man. It's a three-year process, at least.

Pro: Family traditions are your favorite part of your family.

Traditions range from football on Thanksgiving to annual mountain trips, complete with a Steak and Shake stop and your usual surplus of car ride contests.

Con: You can hardly cut your hair without a result of 20 questions per family member.

"Was it for a girl?"

"Does she like you?"

"You're not gonna like, get tattoos and pierce your nose, are you?"

"I will pay you to grow it out until October."

Pro: The secret handshakes.

Con: there's no such thing as a "quick outing.".

Walmart trips are blocked off for half a day, and a quiet dinner for two usually winds up involving a gratuity charge somewhere along the way.

Pro: The inside jokes , classic stories, and strong family heritage.

Con: don't you dare cross your husband..

Because you'd better believe his mom, aunts and grandmother will show up at your door with pitchforks at the end of the day.

Pro: At least you know you've got the American Mafia to back you up in hard times.

It doesn't matter if you lost your job, ran into a rude ex or just got cut off in the shopping line, somebody's bound to speak up for you. It's a very comforting system.

Con: OH MY GOSH WITH THE GROUP CHATS

Why was group messaging ever a thing? Stop the madness and thank God for the mute button.

Pro: You're truly rolling in the dough after every birthday and holiday.

I mean really, who doesn't love Taco Bell gift cards and "just a little something to help you get by?"

Con: If you move away, everyone and their mother (literally) expects you to stop by when you're in town.

The fact of the matter is, you've gotta love a too-close family. The drama, the outbursts, and eye-roll inducing conflicts can be overbearing, but it's important to know that any hardship is soon forgotten when replaced by the nostalgia of a life well-lived and a full-hearted family.

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Epic creation myths: norse origins unveiled, what happened in the beginning, and how the heavens were set in motion..

Now, I have the everlasting joy of explaining the Norse creation myth. To be honest, it can be a bit kooky, so talking about it is always fun. The entire cosmos is included in this creation myth, not just the earth but the sun and the moon as well. This will be a short retelling, a summary of the creation myth, somewhat like I did with Hermod's ride to Hel.

The Norse cosmos began with two worlds, Niflheim and Muspellheim. These two worlds, the worlds of primordial cold and fire , were separated by a great fissure called Ginnungagap. The waters from the well Hvergelmir, at the center of Niflheim, by many rivers flowed into Ginnungagap and "when those rivers, which are called Elivagar, came so far from their source, the poisonous flow hardened like a slag of cinders running from a furnace, and became ice. ...Then layer by layer, the ice grew within Ginnungagap" (Byock 13). The northernmost regions of the gap filled with hoar frost and rime, but the southernmost were "the regions bordering on Muspell [and] were warm and bright" (Byock 13). Where the cold of Niflheim's ice and the warmth of Muspellheim's fire met in Ginnungagap the ice thawed, and "there was a quickening in these flowing drops and life sprang up" (Byock 14). From the ice came Ymir, known as Aurgelmir by the giants, the origin of all frost giants. As the wise giant Vafthruthnir says, "'down from Elivagar did venom drop, / And waxed till a giant it was; / And thence arose our giants' race, / And thus so fierce are we found'" (Bellows 76-77).

25 Throwback Songs You Forgot About

But you know you still know every word..

We all scroll through the radio stations in the car every once in a while, whether its because we lost signal to our favorite one or we are just bored with the same ol' songs every day. You know when you're going through and you hear a song where you're just like "I forgot this existed!" and before you know it, you're singing every word? Yeah, me too. Like, 95% of the time. If you're like me and LOVE some good throwback music, here's a list of songs from every genre that have gotten lost in time, but never truly forgotten.

1. "Big Pimpin'" - Jay-Z ft. UGK

Jay-Z gives us a ballad about, you guessed it, pimpin' big in NYC. Jay-Z's rhymes paired with that catchy beat is just bound to get stuck in your head for the rest of the night.

2. "Mr. Brightside" - The Killers

If you say that you don't know any of the words to this song, you're the worst kind of person... a liar. This classic has left stamps of its lyrics on 99% of the population, and has a forever spot in my soul.

3. "Lose Yourself" - Eminem

This song always leaves me feeling like I could sign a record deal and launch my career as a rap/hip-hop legend... and craving spaghetti.

4. "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American) - Toby Keith

A ballad for the ages that brings the overly patriotic American badass out of all of us.

5. "Drop It Like It's Hot" - Snoop Dogg ft. Pharrell Williams

SNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP!

6. "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" - Green Day

This song makes me want to walk down a lonely road, preferably a dark one, and reflect on all of my life choices. Nevertheless, it's still a fantastic song.

7. "I Write Sins Not Tragedies" - Panic! At The Disco

If your friends don't "chime in" by screaming the chorus at the top of their lungs in the car with you, it's time to leave them there and find new friends. Also, did anyone ever tell the groom what his bride has been up to?

8. "Semi-Charmed Life" - Third Eye Blind

A life anthem for all of us. Third Eye Blind has recently released another album. My inner child is tingling.

9. "Baby Got Back" - Sir Mix A Lot

Nicki Minaj sampled this in her song "Anaconda" in 2014. Take a minute to realize that some people have heard that, but not the REAL jam that the sample came from. Now, cry.

10. "Get Low" - Lil Jon ft. Ying Yang Twinz

The real question is which version is better: Lil Jon's or Sandra Bullock's?

11. "Check Yes Or No" - George Strait

You don't have to be a country lover to know this song. My hardcore rocker/screamo friend even knows the chorus. Don't try and tell me you don't. I don't like liars.

12. "Ride Wit Me" - Nelly

"Ayyyyye, must be the monaaayyy!" - frequently screamed lyric

13. "Pony" - Ginuwine

Even though I can't hear this song without seeing Channing Tatum's half naked body in my mind, it's still one of my favorite songs to hear. Instant day brightener when I hear that funky beat at the beginning.

14. "Cleanin' Out My Closet" - Eminem

As sad as these lyrics are, Eminem really hit this one out of the park.

15. "Gangstas Paradise" - Coolio

10/10 would recommend listening to Weird Al's parody of this song.

16. "It Was A Good Day" - Ice Cube

The first time I heard this may have been on Grand Theft Auto, but that doesn't mean that it isn't a great song.

17. "What's Your Fantasy" - Ludacris

Another song that I knew most of the lyrics to that I probably shouldn't have at a young age.

18. "Everybody (Backstreets Back)" - Backstreet Boys

They really were back, and we all wish they had stayed.

19. "Misery Business" - Paramore

I can't tell if I want to be Hayley Williams or be ON Hayley Williams. I'd be okay with either. #girlcrush

20. "Steal My Sunshine" - Len

This feel good song makes me want to rip open a popsicle and ride my bicycle around town.

21. "Fly" - Sugar Ray

As repetitive as this is, this song will never get old.

22. "Song 2" - Blur

23. "buddy holly" - weezer.

Weezer may have hated this song, but we are glad they recorded it.

24. "No Rain" - Blind Melon

Maybe it's just me who is obsessed with this song, but if you haven't heard it, I highly recommend.

25. "99 Problems" - Jay-Z

I have 99 problems, and this playlist solves all of them.

27 Hidden Joys

Appreciation for some of life's most discredited pleasures..

Life is full of many wonderful pleasures that many of us, like myself, often forget about. And it's important to recognize that even on bad days, good things still happen. Focusing on these positive aspects of our day-to-day lives can really change a person's perspective. So in thinking about the little things that make so many of us happy , I've here's a list of some of the best things that often go unrecognized and deserve more appreciation:

1. Sun showers

3. tight hugs, 4. discovering new foods you like., 5. laying in bed after a long day., 6. and being completely relaxed, 7. "this reminded me of you", 8. breakfast foods, 9. over-sized clothes, 10. contagious laughs, 11. car rides with that one person, 12. random (i miss you/ i love you) texts, 13. the city at night, 14. surprises, 15. blanket cocoons, 16. good hair days, 17. really good coffee, 18. days where you're in a good mood naturally and for no particular reason, 19. conquering a fear, 20. when they give you a lot of guac at chipotle, 21. being so comfortable with someone that you can literally talk about anything, 22. home-cooked meals, 23. tattoo stories, 24. leaves changing color in fall, 25. butterflies in your stomach, 26. peanut butter & jelly sandwiches, 27. when you can't stop laughing, cool off with these 8 beers.

Summer is hot and humid, and it's almost like summer was made specifically to drink the refreshing, cold, crisp wonderful, delicious, nutritious nectar of the gods. Which is none other than beer; wonderful cold beer. With summer playing peek-a-boo around the corner while we finish up this semester, it's time to discuss the only important part of summer. And if you haven't already guessed, it's beer. There are few things I take more seriously than my beer, in order are: sports ... and beer. Here are my favorite summer brews:

Coors Light Summer Brew:

This summer shandy begins this list, it's a mix of lemon, lime and orange. While this is by no means a craft beer, it still has it place as a refreshing summer brew to enjoy.

Leinenkugel Summer Shandy

Solid choice for any summer get together, great taste with a hint of citrus.

Leinenkugel Sunset Wheat

Distinctly reminds me of Fruity Pebbles, but nonetheless is a wonderful summer beer.

Want to know more about beer?

Summertime is the perfect time for beer, and that's why International Beer Day is on August 2nd. Our community has you covered with more stories about beer, including:

• The Benefits of Drinking Beer : Let us count the ways. There are more than you might think.
• Delicious Beer Substitutes : Is beer not typically your thing? Try one of these instead.
• Unique Beer Flavors to Try : Whether it's hard apple cider or the tase of wild blueberries, these are great options.
• If College Majors Were Beers : Business, sports medicine, design – there's a beer for every major.

Sam Adams Summer Ale

Sam Adams is known for their traditional Boston Lager, but their Summer Ale is damn good.

Hell or High Watermelon

Made with real watermelon, not much is more summer-esque than juicy watermelon in July.

Blue Moon Summer Honey

I love me some Blue Moon, so the summer brew is a no-brainer on this list.

LandShark Lager

Fun fact: LandShark is owned by Anheuser-Busch, and is more commonly know as the signature drink of Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville.

Obviously Corona had to take the number one spot. To me, there's nothing more refreshing than a cold Corona with lime on a hot summer day.

So whether you're on a sandy beach, a fishing boat, or at a pool, just remember what our dear friend Jack Nicholson said, "Beer, it's the best damn drink in the world."

Drink responsibly and never drink and drive.

7 Reasons SoCal Rocks!

75 degrees and sunny, plus, no humidity. I mean do I really need to say more?

SoCal summers are the best summers by far, and honestly, no argument is needed. But, if you aren't sure why SoCal summers are the best, here are 7 reasons why!

Perfect Weather

You'll get an effortless tan.

Being outside is inevitable when the weather is this nice, so slap on some low SPF and enjoy the perfect weather as you become a bronzed beach babe!

You can exercise with a view

Who said working on your summer bod has to stop when summer starts? In SoCal there are hundreds of gorgeous hiking trails in the mountains or on the cliffs overlooking the beach, so maintaining your summer bod is easy on the eyes and a lot less of a drag!

You don't have to worry about bug bites

The likelihood of you getting bit by a bug is slim, so you don't have to worry about smelling like bug spray whenever you want to go outside.

In n Out all day, every day

No explanation needed.

We have outdoor concerts

At the county fair or on the beach, summertime means outdoor concerts with good music and great friends.

We live where people vacation

We're lucky enough to live in paradise and we don't take that for granted. We take advantage of our sunsets on the beach and backyard staycation without spending a pretty penny on visiting somewhere that isn't nearly as perfect as SoCal. We're pretty spoiled.

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Unboxing filipino culture: close family ties and most loved items in a balikbayan box.

IF there lies a single thing that would ultimately define Filipino identity, one would have to fly around the world and back, and still would not know what it would be. That is how diverse and colorful the Filipino culture is. Packed with various traits, characteristics, upbringing, talents and skills; no wonder you cannot confine the Filipino people in a single category. More often than not, you will find traces of them wherever you go.

One of the factors which certainly sets Filipinos apart from the rest, are their close family ties. In a common household, it is not surprising to see extended families living under the same roof. The concept of family not only applies as to what the law perceives—the smallest unit of society. For Filipinos, it is one flesh, blood, and legacy established at birth. What is valued in a family often corresponds with the values that one possess.

These familial ties gave birth to the idea of the “ pasalubong .” It is a concept in the Philippines that whenever someone leaves home or travels, he has to bring back some sort of token from his destination upon his return.

Thus, the word  pasalubong  can also be translated as ‘something meant for you when you welcome me back.’ It has a few sentimental connotations, as in rejoicing the safe homecoming of someone who was away for a time.

Despite the influx of overseas Filipinos workers (OFWs), this tradition remained in their hearts. Regardless of them being away from their family members, they would still find time to send gifts to their families. It led to the idea of a  balikbayan  box, a care package that OFWs send their loved ones delivered via air or sea.

Whenever there is a  balikbayan  box delivered straight to one’s home, each member of the family would eagerly open it and would in turn, anticipate what the sender wishes for them to have. Goods and gifts, with labels as to who would receive such, is what should be expected once a  balikbayan  box arrives.

According to the latest data from the Philippine Statistics Office (PSA), the number of OFWs who worked abroad at was estimated at 2.4 million. Overseas Contract Workers (OCWs) or those with existing work contract comprised 97.1 percent of the total OFWs.

With that said, it can be observed that each family or household has at least one relative or family member working overseas. As a way to express their love, miles apart, they would in turn send  balikbayan  boxes to their loved ones in the Philippines.

Things loved most in a balikbayan box

Chocolates top the list of favorite  balikbayan  box contents, with four in every five people nonchalantly picking the said item as their personal favorite.

“It’s chocolate. Lots and lots of it,” said Cyril Bunuan.

In a similar survey conducted by  Inquirer , December of last year, chocolates along with candies topped the list in 67 percent.

Asked on why chocolates are considered a common preference, one replied, “Siguro dahil may mentality na dito sa Pilipinas na mas mahal ‘yung presyo ng chocolates  (Maybe because there is a mentality that chocolates are more expensive here in the Philippines).”

Gadgets came second on the list due to the increase in demand as technology continuously progresses. Mobile phones, personal computers, tablets, cameras etc. were the common preferences of Filipinos.

Clothes immediately followed on the list with 63 percent of respondents picking it among their top favorite goodies. Branded apparel in various sizes, colors and designs were also among the favorite items found inside the  balikbayan  boxes. Once the said box lands in the Philippine soil and into the arms of the recipients, rest assured there will be a gathering of some sort where relatives haul whichever garments would fit them.

Shoes were also considered a common favorite. In the Philippines, whenever someone would leave home, even for a short while or even if it’s just a local destination, they would say the common expression, “Size nine ako ah,  (My foot size is nine) ,” as a way of hinting that they want shoes for pasalubong.

Canned goods are the most practical items in a  balikbayan  box. Since it would take long for the goods to expire, families are able to utilize them for emergency purposes.

Distance indeed cannot hinder one’s expression of love and concern. Even with something as simple as a  balikbayan  box, one must still be thankful and appreciative. After all, what matters in the end is not the value of the goods in the box but the amount of love it signifies.

Asian Journal Media Center

The Asian Journal Media Center curates information disseminated from both the public and private sector throughout the World. The media center publishes a collection of the World’s most newsworthy topics set forth by our editorial board. Stories that our team of journalists believes are critical, vital, and entertaining information that aspires to help the Global Filipino community make well-informed decisions, opinions, and actions. Our Media Center believes that a well-informed and well-rounded society is a thriving society.

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Philippine E-Journals

Home ⇛ philosophia: international journal of philosophy ⇛ vol. 21 no. special edition (2020), the filipino family in the formation of values in the light of john paul ii’s familiaris consortio.

Ivan Efreaim A. Gozum

Through time, Filipinos highly value their own respective families. A sense of pride is instilled in them each time they talk about their own families. Filipino family values of close family ties, solidarity, religiosity, respect, and affection for the aged have always been the reasons why the Filipino family is considered exemplary. However, today, modernization has impacted the way people perceive their own families. The different effects which modernization has engendered shaped the minds of different individuals. Due to these effects, society has been affected, involving the family, which is the basic unit of society. Some of the effects of modernization on the family are the increasing number of cases of broken families, cases of divorce, annulment, and the improper formation of children. This paper aims to look at this situation of the Filipino family in the light of John Paul II’s Familiaris Consortio. Moreover, the paper aims to provide a perspective on how one must look into the family in order to preserve its sanctity. It promotes the importance of the family in the formation of an individual to become morally upright citizens. The issues that modernization engendered will be dealt with using the concepts found in the Familiaris Consortio.

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Why Filipinos Are Close Family Ties?

One value that Filipinos are known for is the “close family ties” that results to extended family structure. It is because Filipinos believe that families should be together and help each other out . Family and relatives do as much as they can to support each other even financially.

In this post

Why are Filipinos attached to their families?

Filial piety is an important concept in Filipino culture. It is understood as essential in order to maintain the collective face of the family and to avoid experiencing hiya (see Social Interactions and Hiya in ‘Core Concepts’).

Is strong family ties among Filipinos an advantage?

Filipino family living together in an extended family has a strong bond. Filipino family who has elders can teach them the culture of respect and the importance of superiority over the younger children and the rest of the family. Filipino family ties are very strong because of the extended family they have.

Where did Filipinos close family ties?

the Chinese The close family relations are said to have been inherited from the Chinese . The piousness comes from the Spaniards who introduced Christianity in the 16th century. Hospitality is a common denominator in the Filipino character and this is what distinguishes the Filipino.

Is it true that Filipinos are family oriented?

Filipinos are very family-oriented and there is usually no longer a distinction among extended family, close family friends, or even your parents’ childhood best friends. So yes, once an honorary member of a Filipino family, you can also expect to be invited to all of their fun and food-filled gatherings.

Why close family ties is important?

Children feel secure and loved when they have strong and positive family relationships. Positive family relationships help families resolve conflict, work as a team and enjoy each other’s company . Positive family relationships are built on quality time, communication, teamwork and appreciation of each other.

What is the meaning of close family ties?

close family relationship means either a person within the third degree of relationship, by blood or adoption, or a spouse, stepchild, or fiduciary of a person within the third degree of relationship . (

Does close family ties among Filipinos promote development?

Yes, our close family ties are a boon to society . It is a moral obligation and not a hindrance to progress. Erwin Espinosa, Pangasinan: Of course, close family ties among Filipinos are considered a boon to society because they bring about the spirit of sama-sama, salo-salo, tayo-tayo at bayanihan.

What is the meaning of strong family ties?

Commitment to support and sustain each other . Patterns of clear, open and frequent communication. Helping others in need – relatives, neighbors and friends. Teamwork where all family members express opinions and ideas.

How do you show close family ties?

How to Strengthen Family Bonds

• Schedule Time.
• Share Meals.
• Do Chores Together.
• Create a Mission Statement.
• Have Family Meetings.
• Encourage Support.
• Schedule Downtime.
• Volunteer Together.

What makes the Filipino unique?

The country boasts of rich natural beauty in its many spectacular beaches, sunny weather and rich bio-diversity. More than that, the Philippines’ unique and complex culture, as exemplified by its people, cuisine and lifestyle , attracts many people to visit the country.

Why is it that the family is the basic and most important aspect of Filipino culture?

The family is the basic and most important aspect of Filipino culture. Divorce is prohibited and annulments are rare (2). The family is the safety net for indivuduals, especially older people, during difficult economic times.

What type of family do most of the Filipino have?

In general, Filipino families are bilaterally extended and residentially nuclear . Although Filipinos recognize husbands and fathers to be household heads, the family structure continues to be egalitarian in giving importance to both male and female family members.

What Filipino family culture is dominantly described?

Filipino identity is typically and strongly defined by close-knit family ties (Medina, 2001; Wolf, 1997). As in other collectivist contexts, harmony, respect for elders, fulfilling duties and expectations, and deference to parental authority are valued.

What makes up a Filipino family?

Households in the Philippines are commonly made up of extended family members, which may included grandparents, aunts, uncles, nephews, and nieces . BENNETT DEAN; EYE UBIQUITOUS/CORBIS brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, and men and women in general, are typically filled with dignity, protectiveness, and respect.

What makes you proud of Filipino?

Above all, Filipinos are one in spirit, thanking God for the all blessings they receive. The positive outlook, love for elders, persevering character, and recognizing God in the center of our lives make me say I am proud to be a Filipino.

What is Philippines best known for?

The Philippines is known for having an abundance of beautiful beaches and delicious fruit . The collection of islands is located in Southeast Asia and was named after King Philip II of Spain.

Which Filipino traits have you seen in your family and friends?

Below are some of the common positive traits to be found in Filipino culture!

• Hospitable. This is one of the most popular qualities of Filipinos.
• Respectful and Courteous.
• Strong Family Ties and Religions.
• Generous and Helpful.
• Strong Work Ethic.

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George Santos Is Expected to Plead Guilty, People Close to the Case Say

Mr. Santos could change his mind, but witnesses in his campaign fraud case were told by federal prosecutors that he intends to plead guilty on Monday.

By Grace Ashford Michael Gold Nicholas Fandos and William K. Rashbaum

George Santos, the former Republican congressman from New York undone by a mind-bending array of biographical lies and moneymaking schemes , has told prosecutors that he intends to plead guilty and avoid a federal trial that was expected to begin next month, according to two lawyers involved in the case and two other people with knowledge of the matter.

The plea, which is expected to occur on Monday in Federal District Court in Central Islip, N.Y., would spare Mr. Santos from a trial that almost certainly would have been a colorful spectacle.

Mr. Santos, whose trial on 23 felony charges was scheduled to begin on Sept. 9, could still change his mind. But this week, two lawyers representing multiple witnesses in the case were told by federal prosecutors that Mr. Santos had decided to plead guilty.

Two others with knowledge of the plans confirmed that he intends to plead guilty on Monday; one of the people said Mr. Santos is expected to give a statement in court acknowledging his crimes. The terms of his expected guilty plea and what sentence he might face were not clear.

The Guilty Plea, Lies and Questions Left in the George Santos Scandal

George Santos, who was expelled from Congress in 2023, told so many stories they could be hard to keep straight. We broke them down.

Public court records show that an in-person hearing has been scheduled for Monday afternoon at the request of prosecutors and Mr. Santos’s lawyers. The records did not explain the purpose of the hearing. Mr. Santos and one of his lawyers, Joseph Murray, did not respond to requests for comment.

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‘Jamaica to the world’

A small town on a small island celebrates kamala harris’ meteoric rise.

By Fredreka Schouten, Zoë Todd, Curt Merrill and Byron Manley, CNN

Published August 17, 2024

BROWN’S TOWN, Jamaica — Three and a half years ago, Sherman Harris gathered together a clutch of family and friends at his home on a hilltop here in rural Jamaica to watch his cousin step into history.

As Kamala Harris took the oath of office as vice president of the United States, the room erupted in screams and tears, he recalled.

“Even talking to you now, I feel some sort of tears from my eyes too, you know,” Sherman Harris, 59, said in an interview with CNN. “It's like tears of joy.”

Next week, they will gather again before his widescreen television to watch Harris make history once more, when she formally accepts the Democratic presidential nomination — becoming the first Black woman, the first Jamaican American and the first Asian American to become a major party’s White House standard-bearer.

Although the milestone will be celebrated by her relatives in this town of some 12,000 people on the island’s northern coast, Harris’ Caribbean roots still are coming into focus for the millions of Americans getting acquainted with her after she was suddenly thrust to the top of the Democratic ticket a month ago when President Joe Biden ended his reelection bid and endorsed his vice president.

Already, her Republican rival, Donald Trump, has sought to question her Black identity as the two vie for support among African American voters in states such as Michigan and Georgia who could determine the outcome of this fall’s race. At a gathering of Black journalists last month, Trump falsely claimed that Harris had only recently opted to identify as Black out of political opportunism.

“I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?” Trump asked in widely derided comments.

Harris is both. She’s the daughter of an Indian-born mother, Shyamala Gopalan, a breast cancer researcher who died in 2009, and a Jamaican-born father, Donald Harris, an 85-year-old retired Stanford University economist, who has largely remained in the background of his daughter’s public life.

He hails from a family that stretches back for generations in Brown’s Town, a market town in St. Ann Parish, where vendors clustered along the main drag on a recent Sunday morning to sell glossy green avocados, yams and bundles of fragrant thyme.

It's a place Kamala Harris knows from childhood visits and readily claims.

“Half of my family is from St. Ann Parish in Jamaica,” she told the country’s prime minister, Andrew Holness, during a 2022 visit to the White House. “I know I share that history with millions of Americans.”

And it’s a town that proudly claims her.

“You have to recognize individuals who come from humble abodes and really excel,” said Michael Belnavis, the mayor of St. Ann Parish who is mulling ways to honor Harris should she prevail in November. “Coming from Brown’s Town is as humble as it gets.”

Deep roots and a powerful matriarch

The town was named after Hamilton Brown, a slave owner who came to the island from Ireland and, according to family lore, is believed to have been an ancestor of Kamala Harris’ great-grandmother, Christiana Brown, also a descendant of enslaved Jamaicans.

“Miss Chrishy,” as Christiana Brown was known, helped raise her grandson, Donald Harris, who described her in an essay first published in 2018 in the Jamaica Global Online as “reserved and stern in look, firm with ‘the strap’ but capable of the most endearing and genuine acts of love, affection, and care.”

Harris has said his interest in economics and politics was sparked, in part, by observing Miss Chrishy as she went about her daily routine of operating her dry goods store in Brown’s Town.

Although she died in 1951, Miss Chrishy looms large to this day among her descendants, who still talk of her elegant dresses, proper manners and the high standards she set for her children and grandchildren.

“She was the backbone,” said Latoya Harris-Ghartey, Sherman Harris’ 43-year-old daughter. Harris-Ghartey is executive director of Jamaica’s National Education Trust, a government-aligned organization focused on developing the island’s education infrastructure.

Her great-grandmother “believed in getting your books and having a solid education, those sorts of things,” Harris-Ghartey said. “I think that has passed on throughout the line. Everybody always pushes you to be better, to excel.”

Miss Chrishy had several children with Joseph Harris, who raised cattle and grew pimento berries — allspice in its dried form — on a farm perched high above Brown’s Town. He died in 1939, a year after Donald Harris was born, and is buried on the grounds of St. Mark’s Anglican Church — a sanctuary founded by Hamilton Brown and where Harrises have long worshipped.

Brown’s Town might be a small place, but the family has occupied a prominent position there as landowners and businesspeople.

Today, Sherman Harris — Donald Harris’ first cousin — still lives on and works the Harris land, in an area known as Orange Hill for a citrus grove that once stood there, he said. One of its dominant features is the Harris Quarry, started by Sherman Harris’ late father, Newton. Sherman runs it now, and it still produces crushed limestone and bricks.

It’s one of his ventures. On a tour with CNN journalists, he proudly pointed out the three-story commercial building he owns in the heart of Brown’s Town.

It’s to this landscape that Donald Harris would bring Kamala and her younger sister, Maya, on holidays, according to his 2018 essay — taking them through the town’s bustling marketplace, touring his primary school and other landmarks he found meaningful. He recounted the trio trekking through the cow pastures and overgrown paths on Orange Hill during one memorable visit in 1970, as they retraced his boyhood ramblings over the family property.

“Upon reaching the top of a little hill that opened much of that terrain to our full view, Kamala, ever the adventurous and assertive one, suddenly broke from the pack, leaving behind Maya the more cautious one, and took off like a gazelle in Serengeti, leaping over rocks and shrubs and fallen branches, in utter joy and unleashed curiosity, to explore that same enticing terrain,” he wrote. “I couldn’t help thinking there and then: What a moment of exciting rediscovery being handed over from one generation to another!”

Sherman Harris remembers all the cousins playing together during those jaunts to Jamaica in the 1970s, while the adults feasted and socialized. He and Kamala are the same age, born just days apart in October 1964.

What stands out most from those memories, he said, is how smart the girls were – just like their dad, who rose from a rural boyhood to earn a doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley and become the first Black economics professor granted tenure at Stanford .

“Brilliant girls,” Sherman Harris said of Kamala and Maya. Even as young children, they would quiz him on the island’s current affairs, and “I wasn’t able to answer them,” he recalled. “I had to ask Daddy.”

Sherman Harris views his cousin’s ascension as yet another example of “Jamaica to the world,” a reference to the island’s culture, reggae music and food catching fire across the globe. It’s also a sign to him of the Harris drive.

“We have never ventured in much failure, you know,” he said of the Harris clan, adding that the family members are “always successful in whatever we do.”

Out of the spotlight

Even as his daughter climbs to new heights, Donald Harris has remained largely out of the spotlight.

He and Shyamala Gopalan, who met in the 1960s as graduate students at Berkeley, fell in love fighting for civil rights, Kamala Harris wrote of her parents in her 2019 memoir, “The Truths We Hold: An American Journey.” But by the time she was 5, “they had stopped being kind to one another” and soon separated.

They divorced a few years later, and Gopalan became the parent who had the greatest influence in shaping her daughters’ lives, raising them, Kamala Harris wrote, to be “confident, proud black women” in a country that would see them, first and foremost, as African American. Kamala Harris would go on to attend one of the country’s most storied Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Howard University in Washington, DC, and pledge as an Alpha Kappa Alpha while there, joining the nation’s oldest Black sorority.

In her book, Harris “goes on for page after page about her mom,” said veteran California political reporter Dan Morain, who wrote a 2021 biography, “Kamala’s Way: An American Life,” that charted the Democrat’s rise through Golden State and national politics. “She’s really important in her life, and I believe her mother is still with her on a daily basis,” years after her death, he said.

“But she passes over her father,” Morain said.

Harris wrote that her father “remained a part of our lives” after the divorce, spending time with them on weekends and in the summer.

The senior Harris complained that his relationship with his daughters was subject to “arbitrary limits” after a contentious custody fight. The state of California, he wrote bitterly in the essay, operated on the “false assumption … that fathers cannot handle parenting (especially in the case of this father, ‘a neegroe from da eyelans’ was the Yankee stereotype, who might just end up eating his children for breakfast!)”

“Nevertheless, I persisted, never giving up on my love for my children or reneging on my responsibilities as their father,” he added.

Donald Harris did not respond to several interview requests from CNN and largely has shied away from publicity — even as his daughter stands on the cusp of another history-making milestone in his adopted country.

He did emerge publicly during Harris’ 2020 bid for the Democratic presidential nomination to publicly chastise her for joking that of course she had smoked marijuana , given her Jamaican background.

In a since-deleted statement posted on Jamaica Global Online, Donald Harris said his ancestors were “turning in their grave” to see their “family’s name, reputation and proud Jamaican identity” connected with a “fraudulent stereotype of a pot-smoking joy seeker.”

Damien King, a retired economics professor at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica who now runs a think tank on the island, first met the elder Harris in the mid-1980s and said he was not surprised by the public rebuke. “He is somebody who has always been unafraid to speak his mind,” King said.

And among the economists who know him, Harris is considered a free thinker, willing to challenge his field’s “orthodoxy,” King added.

Former Harris student Steven Fazzari, an economist who teaches at Washington University in St. Louis, described his former professor as someone who thinks “deeply about economic theory.”

“He’s not the kind of economist who’s going to talk to you about what the GDP is going to be and what inflation is going to be in the next quarter,” he said.

Harris, who served at Fazzari’s doctoral thesis adviser at Stanford, encouraged originality and was a friendly and supportive figure to his students, Fazzari added.

Fazzari had not seen Harris for years, until he and several other former students arranged a dinner with him last fall in Washington, where Harris maintains a residence.

“It was wonderful,” he said of the dinner. “Don Harris in his mid-80s is just like the Don Harris I knew at Stanford. He was articulate. He was gracious. He remembered all of us. He remembered all of our dissertation topics.”

‘That’s my cousin running’

Kamala Harris’ ancestry has already been thrust into the center of the presidential campaign, as Trump grapples with how to confront her last-minute candidacy and reaches for a strategy to blunt her momentum.

During a combative interview at the National Association of Black Journalists’ convention late last month, Trump went personal — falsely claiming that Harris had opted to “turn Black.” He later inexplicably called her “Kamabla” in series of posts on his Truth Social site.

Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, meanwhile, has questioned her authenticity — calling her a “phony” who “grew up in Canada,” a reference to the years she spent living in Montreal, where her mother had taken a teaching position at McGill University.

The mischaracterization of Harris’ racial identity “plays into these tropes of the tragic mulatto who’s doomed and sneaky and deceptive” and belongs nowhere, said Danielle Casarez Lemi, who studies race and ethnic politics as a Tower Center fellow at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. She’s also the co-author, alongside Nadia Brown, of “Sister Style: The Politics of Appearance for Black Women Political Elites.”

“It’s a way to try to damage her credibility anyway that he can,” she said of Trump. “Whether it’s going to work, who knows?”

Dahlia Walker-Huntington, a Jamaican American lawyer and longtime Harris supporter, called Trump’s comments challenging the vice president’s racial identity “condescending.”

“It is also ignorant to think that we can only have one identity” in a society that is increasingly multiracial and multicultural, said Walker-Huntington, who divides her time between South Florida and Kingston. “The America of 2024 is the America that Kamala Harris represents.”

Walker-Huntington said she has followed Harris’ career for years, going back to her time as a local prosecutor and California attorney general. She first met Harris at a Florida fundraiser in 2018 for Florida Sen. Bill Nelson’s campaign and would go on to become an enthusiastic backer of Harris’ short-lived presidential bid.

Now, along with other Caribbean American supporters, Walker-Huntington is activating networks of friends, relatives and acquaintances in the hopes of getting Harris over the top this time.

“I support her because she’s a strong woman, and she stands up for her convictions,” Walker-Huntington said. “The fact that she’s Jamaican, that’s icing on the cake. It makes me feel like that’s my cousin running for the presidency of the United States.”

CNN has reached out to the Harris campaign.

Those who know her say she celebrates her ties to the island to this day. On the eve of her swearing-in as vice president, Harris told The Washington Post that her father instilled in her and her sister a deep pride in Jamaica and its history. Walker-Huntington and Winston Barnes — an elected official in Miramar, Florida, who also hails from Jamaica — said she was quick to banter with a group of them in a Jamaican accent when they first met her at the Nelson event a few years ago.

The vice president’s cousin, Sherman Harris, said he has not seen her for years, but Donald Harris still visits with the family.

Jamaica has formally recognized Donald Harris, bestowing on him an Order of Merit in 2021 for “outstanding contribution to National Development.” Over the years, he has served as an economic adviser to the Jamaican government and helped craft a 2012 strategy to encourage economic growth on the island.

Back in Brown’s Town, there’s been talk of adding Kamala Harris’ visage to the mural of prominent Jamaicans that encircles the grounds of St. Mark’s, her cousin said. It currently includes figures such as sprinter Usain Bolt and Black nationalist leader Marcus Garvey, who was born in the parish.

But Belnavis, the mayor of St. Ann, said he is thinking bigger — a statue, perhaps, in or near a municipal building if Harris wins the US presidency.

“The murals that you see on the walls eventually will wear away and so on,” he said. “We want something more permanent.”

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• America’s immigration policies are failing

A new surge of migration is straining a broken system and might cost Joe Biden the election

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S O YOU WANT to come to America. Venezuela, your home country, is suffering under Nicolás Maduro’s violent kleptocracy. What to do? Good luck getting a green card: employers won’t bother sponsoring a low-skilled worker like you, and you have no immediate family in America to vouch for you. Your WhatsApp is filled with news of friends who have crossed America’s southern border. You decide to follow them and, after a hellish trip, make it to the Rio Grande. You could try to slip across undetected—about 600,000 “gotaways” managed it last year. Or you can tell the border agents who intercept you that you want asylum. Odds are that they will release you with a court date scheduled in several months’ time, kickstarting a process that may take years. Welcome to America.

In November 2023 nearly 250,000 migrants crossed the southern border. The surge—and the perception that America’s borders are open—is a giant political liability for President Joe Biden. Just 27% of Americans tell pollsters that they approve of his handling of the border. More than twice as many trust Donald Trump on the issue. The fact that surging migration over the southern border could cost Mr Biden the election in November has made the problem trickier to solve. Wrangling over a deal to fund Ukraine in exchange for tighter border security and asylum limits has dragged on for months. Although Senate leaders say an agreement is close, some Republicans—reportedly including Mr Trump—seem to want the border chaos to fester, to better beat Mr Biden over the head with it during the election campaign.

Several factors explain the surge: violence and instability around the globe; plentiful job openings in America; the accurate perception that Mr Biden is more welcoming than his predecessor; and cumbersome, limited pathways to come legally . An overwhelmed border apparatus also invites more crossings, notes David Bier of the Cato Institute, a think-tank. When people hear that they are unlikely to be detained and deported, more try their luck.

Decades of neglect and partisan rancour have crippled America’s immigration system and created a situation where immigrants view asylum-seeking as the surest way to get into the country, rather than a long-shot attempt. Congress last made meaningful reform to immigration law in 1990. Comprehensive, bipartisan reform has seemed close several times since, only to fall apart in the end. In 2006, 2007 and 2013 bipartisan Senate bills included a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, more visas for workers and stricter enforcement at the border. In recent years Democrats have largely been animated by the desire to protect daca recipients, immigrants who were brought to America as children, from deportation.

Mr Trump’s candidacy upended the politics of immigration. When he launched his campaign in 2015, the number of migrants apprehended nationwide was at its lowest level since 1971. That fact did not, of course, stop Mr Trump from declaring that migrants threatened the American way of life. (“They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”) In 2019 irregular entries at the southern border jumped. Mr Trump saw detention as a means of deterrence and made some migrants with pending asylum claims wait in Mexico. At one time during his presidency nearly 57,000 people were detained. The surge was so great that even Mr Trump released a quarter of migrants into the country immediately with a notice to appear ( NTA ) in immigration court.

Borderline, personalities, disorder

Mr Biden reduced detentions—the number in custody today is around 38,000—and scrapped the requirement to remain in Mexico. He has tried less effective deterrents. His administration wants to steer migrants towards ports of entry where they arrive for appointments made via a smartphone app. Most are admitted with permission to stay for a year or two. By contrast people caught crossing illegally are presumed ineligible for asylum, with a few narrow exceptions, and quickly deported.

At least that is how it is supposed to work. In reality most migrants who cross illegally are still being released into the country, and irregular arrivals far exceed those at official crossings. Once on American soil a migrant can request asylum, which involves a screening with an asylum officer. Because of Mr Biden’s reluctance to pursue detention and an insufficient number of asylum officers, in November seven in ten were handed an NTA and sent on their way.

Last year the Biden administration also began granting parole to up to 30,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans each month, if applicants identified a financial sponsor in America. Again the goal was to make flows more orderly and decrease illegal arrivals. Permission to stay lasts two years but can be revoked at any time. Illegal crossings by Haitians, Nicaraguans and Cubans plummeted. But Venezuelans, who are less likely to have social ties to America, continue to enter illegally . “Most of the Venezuelans arriving now don’t have family, friends, relatives,” says Theresa Cardinal Brown, who served in the Department for Homeland Security in the Bush and Obama administrations.

Once across the border, migrants head to cities. Shelter systems in New York City , Chicago and Denver are overwhelmed and their mayors want Mr Biden’s help. This is partly the doing of Greg Abbott , the Republican governor of Texas, who is busing migrants to Democratic-run cities. But big cities are also natural magnets for migrants.

With an NTA in hand, new arrivals enter the court system, where the backlog is growing faster than judges can keep up. Cases in immigration court surpassed 3m in November. It takes more than four years on average just to get an initial asylum hearing. Doubling the number of judges would clear the backlog—but only by 2032, according to an estimate from the Congressional Research Service.

Half of asylum cases are denied, and decisions are inconsistent. One judge in Houston denied 95% of her asylum cases last year; another in San Francisco denied just 1% of hers. But the immense wait, low chance of detention and the prospect of work in America encourage migrants with a weak claim to cross the border. Prioritising the most recent arrivals’ cases would reduce this incentive, notes Stephen Yale-Loehr of Cornell Law School. A long journey seems less worth it if the reward is deportation rather than an NTA .

The looming election, Mr Trump’s perceived strength on border issues and Mr Biden’s desire to arm Ukraine mean that the president wants to make a deal. His openness to tougher border enforcement is also no doubt fuelled by Americans’ rightward turn on immigration. Polling from YouGov suggests that more Americans favour building a southern border wall than don’t. Even 32% of Democrats now say they support the idea, up from 20% in 2022.

Whether the House and the Senate can agree on reform is questionable. A deal may include funding for more Border Patrol agents, the ability to shut down migrant intake if encounters reach a certain level, a higher bar for migrants to pass their interview—so that they are not released into the country unless they are likely to actually receive asylum—and limits on parole. Any changes to asylum rules will almost certainly be challenged in the courts.

But House Republicans have waffled, often insisting that they would accept nothing other than HR 2, a hardline immigration bill passed along party lines last year that would be dead on arrival in the Senate. On the left, progressives do not want to tighten access to asylum. Both groups should beware. A new poll from The Economist and YouGov suggests that a plurality of Americans want Congress to pass a bill that both funds Ukraine and restricts asylum. The politicians should not ignore their voters. ■

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This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline “How America’s immigration policies failed”

United States January 27th 2024

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