Family As a Way into the Future

Pendle Hill Pamphlets

by Elise Boulding

The future of the family is a subject often approached with great anxiety in these times. I propose to strike a new tone of inquiry, and to ask what discoveries lie before us about the °family. Since family-type togetherness is the oldest and longest-continuing human experience, it is not unlikely that what lies ahead for us as members of the human race will be arrived at in the context of having been formed as persons in family-type settings in the past and in the present. As a futurist I have long been convinced that families are the primary agents of social change in any society. It is in this setting that individuals first become aware that the passage of time means growth and change, that tomorrow is never like yesterday. It is in this setting that one’s first daydreams about a different future take place. I have come to find the phrase “the Tao of family” meaningful, because it reflects the special nature of family as directioned movement. Tao means the way, and the Tao of family is the Way of Family into the future. In this view the family is not a barrier between us and a better society, but a path to that better society.

24 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1978

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Boulding draws on her previous academic research, Taoism and the Bible to discuss the importance of family – in all of its structural manifestations – to build the capacity to love and respect others. She does not hold that the concept of family requires the stereotypical western affluent, short-lived concept of two parents, wife at home, multiple children structure. But she does see a parent-child relationship as a prerequisite (the parent does not have to be biological). She sees “surviving” and developing the capacity of love in this structure as a necessary precursor to broader relationships in society.

Perhaps. But in a society in a state of decline or war, the nuclear family can serve as a means to insulate and shy away from the rest of society. The increase diagnosis of anxiety and inability to cope with life or adulthood seen in younger Americans these days is resulting in a strong family, perhaps, but also a lack of capacity to engage in or trust others in the larger community.

Boulding was writing in the early decline of American society, though so perhaps she would write something differently today.