Shrinking Families Need TLC

All too soon it will be Passover/Easter at the least and holy week starting with Palm Sunday around the start of April at the most. These days the most of holiday is more needful than just a reason to shop seasonal products. There are loved ones in old folks homes and other residential institutions who literally live for a visitor. This is a cause that only requires the financial investment of the transit cost to visit a loved one, not to mention how many institutionalized are in need of a loved one in the first place.
If this doesn”t sound like a developing story, think again! A recent article in USA Today points out that America’s shrinking families is a financial and personal management crises that should capture the national dialogue instead of blown aside by the rush of presidential politics. Forever it has been said that the pop[ulation is getting older. Older folks rightly point out that fewer children die these days lengthening the average age. But such statistics aside, as it is an undisputed fact that each generation of families have fewer children. WHO will take care of whom? With many more elders for any reason you pick and fewer and fewer children one thing is certain: the most distant of families need to stay together to maintain the fellowship, care, and certainly the financial needs–both personal and public–of an average family. I agree.
This is where a holiday season is so important. It has always been the case that the world is full of poor souls to befriend but never has the needs of children and any family adult been in such jeopardy over sheer neglect by family contact. As such missed contacts fade into history, we each remain so alone in any crises.
So what of family members too far away for a holiday season? Well, there is the summer and the Fourth of July if transportation isn’t clear out of the question for any trip. Meanwhile, we’re in a digital age. Every attempt at every family member must become a national priority and become it now. This means we all should be at the ready to help one another find one another and have the resources to answer the call as it comes from any friend so long, naturally, that the searched want to be found. I can’t imagine this being a problem in the age of social media.
By the way, Happy Holidays!