Sam's Lab # 20 on Family

Family

Family is definitely the greatest creator of social capital. One of the best examples of the importance of family and its social capital can be found during the Christmas season. Speaking in majorities, Christmas is one of the most popular, if not the most popular, holiday. When you ask someone why he or she loves Christmas, the response usually has something to do with spending quality time with family (while presents, cookies, lavish dinners, and a fat man in a red suit are often mentioned as well). In this fact alone, one can see the human need for familial love. The desperate desire for this love often stems from an extreme lack of such sentiments in many families that can only be increased with an more family time.

In order to demonstrate the importance of family, I used my own experiences and memories from this past Christmas that I spent at home with my family. As with most families, the rapidity of my family's pace of life keeps many dinner tables vacant and makes full family gatherings a rare and highly cherished event (boarding school is definitely not helping the issue). My mother values family time above all else, and the drastic decrease in family time often upsets her. She is an ardent believer that today's society completely undervalues the family, and her way of contributing to a reform of this issue is in providing my family with as much time together as possible.

Christmas day sticks out in my memory as one of the happiest days, not only during break but throughout my life's memories. I am not so superficial that the opening of many, many presents has made this emotional connection. I know it is because, my whole family is together, celebrating, and enjoying themselves with the simple objective of being together. Below are some pictures documenting this happy family time.

So Matthew, my eight year old brother, is probably grinning because of the present, but look at Mom and Alec... they are happy because Matthew is happy.

Jess and my mom just chatting in their pajamas.

The three boys (dad included) all trying to be Santa at once on Christmas morning.

Awww... (he is smiling like that because of the present he is holding in his arms, which I gave him! That sort of response is my one of my favorite parts of Christmas.)

Converse to what these pictures illustrate, Christmas is not only an array of happy memories, for it is also a stress-ridden and fight-provoking time. However, fighting is an inherent aspect of family, something in which all of humanity partakes, and which is crucial to social capital in that it teaches one to listen, compromise, and forgive, which ultimately creates stronger family bonds. Strong families create strong individuals, as a result of having the loving, supportive base that a family provides. I also believe that people who are part of a strong family go on to value community and family more, and are more likely to contribute to an increase in social capital. A great deal of my confidence I attribute to the supportive family I have at home, while my will to achieve is in part due to my sense of responsibility as the oldest of four children. In this way, family contributes not only to the larger community, but also to the individual.

I love my crazy family!

-Sam Miller