Great news! Hope all in your family are doing well! I hope you get time together to be loved by those you've made possible.
Growing up, I took family for granted. Now that I'm old, I realize why my grandparents emphasized establishing relationships with aunts, uncles, cousins, distant great-aunts, uncle's uncles, third cousins and the rest by marriage. Families, tribes, and villages are the the bedrock on which to build good lives and civilization.
Unfortunately for too many modern generations, the role of the family has also changed, even diminished, with the times. Beleaguered by a crazy world and economic system that rewards greed and predation, no longer are most parents in a position to make life better for the young simply by working harder and longer. Nowadays, big money is needed to make more money. Labor is considered a cost to be minimized.
Speaking of devolution: My wife and I got a free month of Paramount TV and started to watch all the Yellowstone and related programs (1883, 1923, there must be more as we see commercials for new Yellowstone/Taylor Sheridan shows that we hadn't even heard of all the time). I bring it up because Harrison Ford's character explained to the younger generation about "The 500."
Ford's character, the Dutton family patriarch, was describing how in olden times, when humanity lived in familial clans or villages, everyone literally knew everyone else. If one cough teenager like myself was not acting in line with the law and custom, the parents would hear from their cousins or neighbors what was going on. Public pressure backed by parental authority would straighten out the cough teenager out PDQ.
Decision making in the tribe could be accomplished by meeting where all could express opinion and be heard -- and respected -- by everyone else before the group found consensus. When the community grew past the size of 500 people, however, things changed. It became more difficult to know everyone and know where everyone was coming from in a public discussion. Proper behavior no longer was a matter linked to public pressure.
Most importantly: The familial/social contract devolved into the rule of the jungle when the community grew past 500 individuals. Compassion, Cooperation and Consensus devolved into a dynamic of "survival of the fittest" meaning the biggest, meanest and most cruel lorded it over the flock. The strong few eventually became the aristocracy; and the royals made themselves tops by law until 1776.
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