When a survey is done at street level, the interviewer knows the answer will depend on how he asks the question. So, for example, we Spaniards like to say that we sleep little, so if they ask us: How many hours do you usually sleep each night?, we will give a number between 6 and 7 hours, but if the question is: What time do you usually sleep? and what time do you wake up? which are much more specific, the answer will be closer to 8 hours.
Likewise, if they ask, What is your favorite hobby? Reading seems to be one of the most frequent. But if the question is how many books have you read in the last six months, the number of readers drops significantly.
Well then. According to surveys, the family is the most valued social institution in Spain, and I would not be surprised if it were so in a large number of countries around us and beyond. In theory, at least when we are asked, we give more importance to family than work and even leisure, and we consider family the fundamental source of satisfaction, some even say happiness.
Do these studies reflect reality? I’m not sure. Recently, I saw a report about the largest family in England. They are expecting their sixteenth child and the eldest has already given them their first grandchild. Throughout the report, there was not the slightest reference to religious issues. Religion was not an element of the decision. The family was neither of Opus Dei nor the neocatechumenal path. They couldn’t catch them there. But constantly, in a striking way, the term “obsessive” appeared to refer to the option of these parents to have children, particularly toward the mother. The fact that both were children given up for adoption at the time of birth and how this determined in both of them their reference to what a family is was mentioned almost by chance throughout the report. The report was all judgmental and nothing documentary.
They imagine a documentary focused on a couple that has decided not to have children in favor of their professional life. Where would the interest be? Don’t a huge number of families today give up having more children in exchange for a supposedly greater professional projection? If a dog bites a man, it is not news; if a man bites a dog, it is one. What is frequent is not news. Statistics say that women have between one and two fewer children than they really want. In that, we husbands have a huge fault. But let’s continue with the argument: imagine a documentary in which the majority’s option of families to limit the number of children for work reasons is questioned; where there was talk of “obsession” – which in many cases exists – for professional success. Today that is not questioned. It is not questionable. And it doesn’t seem bad to me that each one makes a tunic out of their cloak, but then, stop questioning, criticizing and calling those families retrograde and other niceties that take the option that one of the spouses – usually the wife – decides give up their professional development and choose to have more children than is usual today. When I perceive so much criticism of these options, I think, is the mirror of these families so uncomfortable in our society?
I only have four children, and there have been many occasions when I have had to face phrases like “Four?! You’ll stop!, right?”; “Don’t you have a television or what?”, and of course the nonsense of “how brave!” Don’t believe that I heard the phrases from the lips of friends, they came from complete strangers: a waiter in a restaurant, a woman shopping at Carrefour or a neighbor in the elevator. Can you imagine saying to someone who has a child: “Just one? When are you going to put family as a priority instead of your professional development?” Logically, the most basic education prevents anyone from being so imbecility indiscreet. Unfortunately, the same does not happen in the opposite direction.
And what about the amazing permissiveness that exists towards adultery? From the outset, no one talks about adultery anymore, it is a sin and has a greater moral depth than this society is willing to tolerate. Today we talk about “infidelity”. But I can be unfaithful to my principles, to my football team or to my company, but I can only be an adulterer with my wife. Adultery is much more precise than infidelity, and that is why this term is no longer used in favor of a subterfuge. If a man or woman CHEATS on their spouse with another person, they are usually frowned upon, but a year later, when the separation is already a fact and the adulterers present themselves as a couple (sic), everyone accepts it as if it were the most correct thing in the world.
When a survey is done, what do those who have committed adultery, sending their family to hell, respond? Do you still put family as the first and main reference in your life? We could argue that he indeed is, but that he “had the wrong family.” But do you know many adulterers who have quit their job because of their “infidelity”? Adultery takes down entire families, but if to “go with my true love” they had to give up their professional development, they would see the number of adulteries decrease very significantly.
And not to leave any doubt, how many families are there in which two brothers do not speak to each other because of an inheritance? Don’t you know a case (or many) of those who are full of talk about their family, but who have been destroyed by one of those inheritance shits? The deceased parents would think that in addition to the money, the house or the grandmother’s jewelry, they had left them the best possible example of what really matters in life, but all their efforts have dissolved faster than sugar in hot water.
In English there is an image that explains it magnificently: the breakup of a family derives, in any case, from a 180º turn in priorities, from transforming the “WE” (we) into “ME” (I).
Giving the family the priority it deserves implies being aware that my role in this life only makes sense in the mechanism of a structure that precedes me and, D.m., will succeed me. Knowing that I only matter to the extent that I contribute to the common good, first of all that of my family, but from there the good spreads like waves in water: neighbors, friends, colleagues, and fellow citizens in general.
Reversing the individualistic drift that invades us depends only on each of us. The next time you see a family with more than two children, thank them, they are the only ones doing something really useful for someone to collect pensions in the future. When you see a couple that remains faithful, thank them, they are maintaining the battered moral gear that sustains us. When it is your turn to inherit, take charge and remember that you are facing the best test capable of demonstrating whether the most important thing for you is YOUR family or your personal interest.
