The Importance of Family – Sunday, June 22, 1980
At a recent conference on families, speakers appealed for an America where the home is a place of love and stability . . . a place where experiences, dreams, joys and sorrows are shared…a place where families are built on love that can span the barrier of generations.
According to a Gallup poll commissioned for the conference, Americans clearly give the family top priority. Eight of ten persons ranked family life among the most important elements in their life. Another public opinion poll indicated that Americans are more concerned about moral decay and its threat to the family than about inflation and economic conditions.
These are reassuring reports. They put the importance of the family back in perspective. We’ve heard and read so much about attacks on the family, about the breakup of families, and about the so-called alternatives to the family that it sometimes appears the family is losing favor in our nation. Apparently, it is not.
Americans continue to support the family as the basic unit of society. Stable families create a stable nation, because they are the most effective place to learn essential human values. The family is the most effective place to experience love. . . love between husband and wife. . . love among parents and children. . . love that extends beyond the family unit to encompass neighbors and friends. And the family is the most effective place to teach love of country, love of God, love of life itself and the promise of life.
The family is a strong social unit that must withstand pressure from without, as well as turmoil from within. It is the foundation of society, the wellspring of the nation. As one educator said, “If we poison the headwaters of humanity which is the home, it is exceedingly difficult to depollute downstream.”1
We are encouraged—encouraged because the American people continue to place the highest value on the family, because they recognize it as the single most important unit in society.
1 Neal A. Maxwell, LDS Conference Report, October 1970, p. 97.
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June 22, 1980
Broadcast Number 2,653