There have been governments and dictatorial despots who have tried to mold the family into units that would better serve them and/or the state. Where or when food was scarce, they would limit the number of children a couple could have.
They have tried to force them to live in communes where several families were assigned to limited spaces within one structure. They have forced them to do work that benefited those in power, not the work best suited for people’s talents and not according to what individuals would like to do. Communes in Russia and China are examples of those kinds of systems that have tried to control families and family members lives. If they were successful at all, it was because the people were forced to live accordingly and punished if they rebelled. It is a form of control that will assure a zombie-like existence. Very few of these governmental experiments with human lives and families have ever worked. Most of them were short-lived. God has granted unto all of His children agency, and when governments or individuals with power have tried to modify the family by forcing them to deviate from what they chose to do, individual or family-wide rebellion has or will happen sooner or later.
The family is a sacred unit approved of God as described in Genesis. And the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him…the Lord God… made he a woman, and brought her unto the man… Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh…And Adam knew his wife and she bare a son.” That was the first family and the pattern that was set forth from the very beginning, by God Himself. Men may deviate from that pattern because of what the Lord called, moral agency, with the understanding that they will be accountable for their choices…(Doctrine & Covenants 101:78) Governments are accountable to both men and God. Controlling and abusive governments are doomed to fall by and by.
Family, the very word is sacred; it is synonymous with love and caring. Families, when free to raise their children in love and in loving discipline, have children who want to follow that same pattern. It is the pattern that God designed and approved of. When parents are loving, caring and productive examples, the children want to be like their parents. The pattern has been established and available for centuries. There are exceptions and variables in most families, but if children generally are asked how important to them their family is, the general consensus will be “the most important” in their lives. True! The parental family becomes secondary as children marry and begin their own families with small children and the obligation to provide for them. However, it is always a happy occasion when they all get together for a more inclusive, broader family event.
My wife and I, as parents of six loving children, are now grandparents and even great grandparents, and we feel that our happiest times in life are when we are with our family. Our grand and great grandchildren are the light and life of our lives. To see a new one added is a very special event, and then to watch them grow is like watching a miracle; it is a miracle. They crawl, they begin to walk, they start talking, they go off to school, and all of a sudden they are graduating from high school and off on a career or to college. They become adults, and soon they, too, choose a companion and the cycle starts all over. The cycle of love, the cycle of family—there is nothing to compare. The word family is sacred; it is love manifested in our lives and who would not love that? My sweetheart and I love it, and we have watched and participated, for many long years, in that sacred basic unit in God’s plan, our family. We have truly experienced happiness, gratitude, and joy because “men are that they might have joy,” and family is the primary place it is found.”