Family Matters

      You are woken up in the early morning by the sound of small voices. Pecking over the blankets you see your precious little children whispering to each other at the end of your bed, wondering if you're awake. They spot your open eyes over the piles of blankets and shout "Hi mom!" in excitement. As they bounce on to your bed, you look over and see their dad already making room for them so they can join you under the warm sheets. As they settle in the provided space, your youngest child occupying a place on your chest says, "I love you mommy."
      My dream as a young girl always was to have a big happy family that me and my spouse created together. And over the years as I have learned how important families are, that dream has become an aspiration and even a necessity.
      Family units are fundamental foundations of society. They are essential to human capital and a successful economy. They play one of the major roles in human health and happiness. In my perspective as Latter-Day Saint, having a firm family is essential to eternal happiness. Being a very family-oriented gospel, we believe "Marriage between a man and a women is ordained of God and that the family is central to the Creator's plan for the eternal destiny of His children." (The Family, A Proclamation to the World) In short, we need families!
     The world we live in today is very focused on the "individual" and doesn't see the importance of the family. This influences us to make decisions that are satisfying to the separate person but harmful to the family as a whole. When you make a decision, it doesn't only effect you, but those around you. And when we focus on desires of our own, by default, we neglect to nurture the family, because of lack of unity. The way to unify a family is through sacrifice, charity and serve, but instead we seem to be doing the opposite. Pre-marital sex has increased in the past 20 years along with more people delaying marriage, which has caused more people to either living along or cohabitation. These and many more factors have caused a decline in family. When you have less families forming you have less children being born. Which is why the decline in family has caused fertility rate to decline as well. With less babies being born, we have less people to replace past generations, and if we continue to have less children as the human race... well we end up very low in population and maybe even extinction.
      I know this all sounds so extreme, but small things cause great things to come to pass. And at the rate we are going those extreme can totally become a reality.
      Family matters, and no matter who you are the family effects you and your life. We as a human race need our families, and we should always strive to protect them from harm. We should always remember the significance of the Family.