The Social Media Revival of Family Ties

With all of the polls and surveys out there, for everything from what political party do you hate the most, to what is your favorite gift to get or give in Farmville on Facebook, there needs to be a poll of how many families stay connected through past generations. I believe this is something that families have lost over the last 40 years or so.

There does seem to be more of a long lasting connection within families that have deep-seated roots in their culture or religion. In my family, somewhere between the generations of my grandparents, my parents and my own family, we lost touch with the related family units. I remember, when I was very young, how my parents visited their parents regularly, every week, usually on Sunday. I think that my grandparent's generation, of the Great Depression era, pretty much stayed in touch with most of his or her family due to needing the support of everyone, during those hard economic times. Families depended on each other for survival! As parents of the Baby Boomers continued this gathering, it seemed to not be as critical, especially between their siblings' families. If my parents' family went to my grandparents regularly, you would usually see their brothers and sisters, really because of the connection to my grandparents. As my grandparents passed away, my parents didn't necessarily visit their brothers and sisters families that much anymore. The connecting factor was gone and each separate family was involved in their own lives and family issues. As times were better during the 1950's and 60's, there was no longer that need to depend upon the other families, so these groups just grew further and further apart. I saw my cousins when I was very young, at my grandparents' house and when that stopped, I totally lost connection with them.

I can't explain why I never took it upon myself to remedy this and I am relatively sure that it never even seemed to be a problem to me! Then when I first married and started my own family, I was exposed to a family of Greek origin who valued these lasting traditions of their culture and younger generations never thought to stop the family gatherings, even if they may have only been for major events, such as weddings or yearly reunions. The fact is that most all siblings and their separate family units all attended these major events. In my family, when the binding force ended, so did the effort. In my wife's family, it seemed to be related to culture that propagated this continuation of family connection.

Years later, as I divorced and remarried, my second wife's family was of Italian decent and the same family value of continuing this family connection was obvious. Again, when major family events occurred, everyone, even remotely connected with the family, attended and there were yearly family reunions. The families I was descended from never had one family reunion, so this exposure of different and lasting family values was glorious to me!

Although, I have observed that even in these culturally connected families, current generations are seeming to be losing, ever so slowly, the members that continually make that effort to keep the entire family connected. It does appear as if families are steadily losing the desire or will to continue this.

Perhaps, many will blame the way society is communicating, which is more and more electronically through email and social media via the Internet. I actually see this as a new awakening of bringing back those family connection values. As current generations become more used to being electronically connected and more and more of all the generations join in these social networks, this is becoming a new-found way of staying in touch with family like never before.

Most people following of the Boomer generation and after, dropped the art of letter writing long ago. Whether that is a good or bad thing, will be realized perhaps, some time in the future. For now, as more and more Boomers and older generations are joining social networks like Facebook, they are finding family members all over the country and the world who they have not communicated with in nearly a life time!

One thing is for sure, baring a day when all electric power ceases, which could happen, families can look forward to reconnecting once again, even if not physically, but with sharing pictures of grand-children and spouses, who would have most likely never known each other, this may bring some great, old family traditions back.