1 American Family Values, By Ed Wallace, The Backside of History Values and morale are the core elements of any

humane society. Both of them are developed starting from early years and the main contribution is made by family. It is natural that values of the family are the basis for development of morale and values of the children who come from this family. Unfortunately, lately the society started losing its family values and children are the first individuals who are affected by this change. Unfortunately, the most frequently it does not bring any positive influence, but only deterioration of education and morale. Many people claim that family values are changed or forgotten about because role of a woman has changed in the society women have become more independent, they devote more time and attention to their work, career, social life, communication with friends, etc., and there is not much time left to raise children and take care about their husbands. However, as claimed by Ed Wallace, looking back to the roots of the nation, one will see evidence that men originally were the ones to take care about their families and children: In Colonial America, child rising was not even the womans job. No, bringing up kids was primarily the task of the father (Wallace). The recent history tells about the times when family values were saved and those days women were housewives and it was their task to take care about the house, children, and husband. However, it is not the best choice to blame women for running of family values because of emancipation, which was their fight for their rights, nor it is right to say that men have forgotten the customs of the colonial Americans and that is the reason of values disappearance. Instead of blaming any of the genders it is necessary to pay attention to the fact that both

2 men and women have very active lives nowadays and since their rights and obligations are equal, both of them should take care about restoration of family values, which requires great efforts because all the values are interconnected and influence each other. Treating elders with respect is one more value, which unfortunately is almost lost. According to Wallace, the value has disappeared at once after the Revolution and children started treating elderly people in the way which adults are treated by poorly educated kids nowadays. One of the evidence, supporting this fact belongs to Virginias Carter clans head, who wrote Surely it is happy our laws prevent parricide. Or the devil that moves to this treatment would move to put his father out of the way. Good God, that such a monster is descended from my lions (Wallace). As it has been already mentioned above, all family values are interconnected. Thus, the fact that children do not treat adults the way they are supposed to, depends on the fact that family roles are not divided in the appropriate way, so children are simply not taught to respect older people. Unfortunately, nowadays the situation becomes even more dramatic because of increased amount of divorces which is brought by one more lost of family value family unity. As a consequence, one parent families usually do not bring up children who have many family values. There are two main reasons for this. First of all, children grow up in the atmosphere where there is nobody to share parent duties with; since there is only one parent who usually spends a lot of time at work, grandmothers and grandfathers are not paid much attention to, they are disrespected. And secondly, growing up in a single parent family children realize that a family should

3 be composed of two adults, however, since their childhood they get used to the thought that it is all right to have one parent family as well. As Wallace states, divorces are considered the prime factor in the problems with children today (Wallace). However, he pays a lot of attention to the fact that freedoms of women become the sources of lost of all family values women give more time to work, because of this they fail to bring up children well, they do not have much time to explain them that it is good to respect adults; as a consequence, families break and children have even less chances to maintain family values or develop their own ones. However, it is necessary to notice that such approach is based on the family model which existed in 1940-1950s and it does not take into account the extent of development of modern society. Moreover, the author does not mention what could be corrected by men in their everyday life in order to support family values. Of course, they were believed to be the source of income in the family but this has changed and nowadays there are few families where women do not work, there are even families where women bring higher income than men. And these issues should be taken into account when analyzing the reasons of lost of family values. What is good about this issue is that it is arisen. This means that the problem is understood by the society and some measures are expected to be taken. Identification of the traditions and values and also sharing family roles and duties are the most urgent ones to be addressed. Taking them into account as the basis of family relations, many couples will have an opportunity to save their marriages and bring their children up in the atmosphere of love, trust, and respect.

4 Works cited Wallace, Ed. The Backside of History.