Are family pastimes a thing of times past? 

What about families? Where did we come from?  We can start by looking at the family element of family pastimes.  The boundaries of the traditional nuclear family more familiar to our parents and grandparents seem to be stretching further and further with each generation.  It’s not completely inconceivable (though hopefully and arguably unlikely) to imagine its demise.  We must first make the bold assumption that none of us were hatched, that we are (what do they say… millions?) of years separated from having evolved from apes, and that no one since Adam rose from the dust. (Actually, apes have families and lots of free time for pastimes too, so, that one doesn’t count).  With those assumption made, we all have families of one way or sort of another.   

As previously mentioned, the boundaries of the nuclear family (nuclear family: a term developed in the western world to distinguish the family group consisting of parents (usually a father and mother) and their children, from what is known as an extended family) most familiar to our forefathers seems to be broadening with each generation.  Children are, and have been for a long time now, often raised by grandparents or other extended members of the family (aunts and uncles) in place of parents who were unable to raise their children for many various reasons.  Brothers and sisters even come with just great differences in the span of birth years that siblings are often raising one another in place of absent or negligent parents.  Even to the extreme, that for decades now many of our neglected children in the urban core find their family units comprised of a gang.  Brothers in arms who share core values often pertaining to violence, drugs, cash, turf, and most of all, having your brother’s back.  The same thing occurs in other areas as the neglected children find family among a group of friends who, as do the gangs, share common core beliefs, values, and interests.  As society deals with the issues pertaining to the gay members of our society and their rights to be recognized for their partnerships and marriage, the image of the father and mother in our definition begins to take on a whole different image in many of our homes.   

Nevertheless, the common factor and definition of any of these examples, and others not mentioned, seem to be a home group united and unquestionably bonded under common core and shared experiences and values.  Clearly there is the interdependency and support system the family provides as it relies on the members fulfilling particular roles to meet those needs of support and maintain the core values that define its family.  But for our discussion in family pastimes, let’s not make our foundation of the family’s definition such a sociological graduate course study and think of families in the simplest and most common of definitions that we all understand a family to be.