What Makes Happy Families?

            Families can be happy families if they follow the correct principles, and happy families will bring more happiness to communities and nations. “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” declares, “Happiness in family life is most likely to be achieved when founded upon the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ.” It then lists the principles involved in creating happy and successful families: “Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities.” 

            Leo Tolstoy is credited with saying, “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Hanna Seariac said that this is a true quote. “Happy family life on both sides of the political aisle looks remarkably similar” 

            The latest edition of the American Family Survey was recently released. It is a nationally representative poll that was conducted by YouGov for the Deseret News and BYU’s Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy. Seariac wrote, “The survey of 3,000 U.S. adults, fielded Aug. 8-15 and released Tuesday, found that 76% of families eat dinner together weekly and 73% have weekly activities at home like watching TV or playing games.”

Co-investigators Christopher F. Karpowitz and Jeremy C. Pope wrote, “We find large swaths of agreement in Americans’ assessment of the strength of their families and in the day-to-day activities in which families take part.” Family activities only differ sharply by political leaning when it comes to worshipping together.

Thirty percent of American families worship together each week, but that number is heavily weighted by conservative Republicans (44%) and moderate Democrats (39%). Just 15% of liberal Democrats say they worship weekly as a family, compared to 24% of moderate Republicans and 25% of independents.

Although the COVID-19 pandemic gave many people unprecedented time spent at home, nearly half of respondents said they would like more time with their family. While this was a new question in the American Family Survey, the results track with other polls. In a 2021 survey published by the Brookings Institution, 70% of mothers who were essential workers or working from home reported that they wanted more time to spend with their families….

Having enough time for family life is an important determining factor for overall health of children. Spending quality time with children, even doing something as simple as eating dinner together, has substantial effects on behavior and outcomes for children.

Simply put, as Latter-day Saint apostle Elder Dieter F. Uchtforf has said, “In family relationships, love is really spelled t-i-me-e, time.”

            Happy families invest in time together. They make the necessary sacrifices to be together and to strengthen relationships. Families were together during COVID-19, and they learned that they enjoyed being together. Government and business would be wise to make policies that would make it possible for families to spend more time together. One suggested policy change is to change the standard forty-hour work week over five days to forty hours over four days. By the time people prepare for work and travel to work, the four-day work week would save time. This policy change would allow families to be together for three days, half the week, every single week. Happy families spend time together, and happy families bring more happiness to communities and nations.