Epigraph:
Thy Lord has commanded, “Worship none but Him, and show kindness to parents. If one of them or both of them attain old age with thee, never say unto them any word expressive of disgust nor reproach them, but address them with excellent speech. And lower to them the wing of humility out of tenderness. And say, ‘My Lord, have mercy on them even as they nourished me in my childhood.’” (Al Quran 17:24-25)
An extended Muslim family
BBC News
The “traditional nuclear family” is often cited by British politicians as the ideal family unit for a stable society.
Many an MP has turned misty-eyed comparing the gay dads, spiralling divorce rates and working mothers of today, with a bygone golden age where a wife, husband and their two or three children lived serenely under one roof.
Yet Home Secretary Jack Straw now says white British households could learn a lot from the extended structure of Asian families.
He is particularly keen on the way different generations live together in households of Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Indian origin, the older ones nurturing the new ones, with the young in turn caring for their elders.
But is this too simplistic picture of how Britons, including British Asians, actually live?
A recent study by Henley Centre for Forecasting goes further, saying that economic circumstances may soon force the majority of Britons into multi-generational households.
It suggested that an ageing population and the inability of the state to provide adequate welfare for them, combined with factors such as rising house prices, could mean everyone is sharing with multiple relatives by 2020.
Categories: Europe, Family values, UK
a good outcome for the wrong reason ?
The “traditional nuclear family” was the outcome of the shift from a feudal society to an industrial society in Europe. Added to that was the economic system adopted by the European society and the drift towards materialism which was a result of the rebellion of the “scientist” against the “Church” and which lead to a trend of an atheist mindset.
The Americans, being more religious, had kept the family intact until about 1970s, when the single income did not suffice and the American mother was forced to work to meet the family’s expenses.
The “nuclear family” in Europe and pretty much elsewhere was essentially need oriented. With the onslaught of the Industrial Revolution the family values flew out the window as the old villages gave way to large cities and farms yielded to huge industrial organizations and of course elders surrendered to consultants. Sadly, the same is happening in Asia, albeit slightly differently.
The Quran, by the way, brings in the human factor and that makes it ever so relevant to family values over all times.
The way family values ‘flew out of the window’ was in fact lead by a positive thing: The introduction of state and company pension schemes. The old did no longer need the young and could care for themselves. As the article suggests with the crumbling of the financial system and thus the state pension system and the company pension system and at the same time the unemployment of the young the different generations will need each other again. Return to ‘family values’ by outside forces …
Thanks for the input!The family values did not fly out the window overnight and the now crumbling Social Security/pension schemes did not move in instantly. The society adjusted itself to change, with some discomfort to some, and hopefully it will adjust itself again with some discomfort to some.
Those who are talking about Asian family values are trying evade their responsibility of keeping afloat the ideal Social Security schemes that brought prosperity to the West. The reason why I chose to post was to observe that the Quranic message applies to all situations all the time. In fact there are instructions in the Quran to cover one’s attitude towards one’s parents and other humans.