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.

 

Why Go to the Trouble?

            It is late on Thanksgiving night. The food that took hours and hours to prepare was eaten within half an hour. It took longer for us to put away the leftover food, clear the table, and do the dishes than it took to eat the food. Why do millions of Americans go to such trouble for such a short period of time? The answer to this question can be answered by the comments of several former Presidents of the United States as reported by the editorial board at The Deseret News. 


            President Abraham Lincoln was “in the middle of the slaughter and tragedy of a grueling Civil War” when he paused and observed that the year 1864 “has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies.”  He noted that the population of the nation had been increasing even though there were many dying in the war.


            Not long after Washington was attacked and the White House burned, President James Madison “declared a day of thanksgiving. He showed no bitterness when he offered thanks for “all those privileges and advantages, religious as well as civil, which are so richly enjoyed in this favored land.”


            President Franklin Delano Roosevelt understood that American soldiers were dying in the war and Americans at home were suffering while supporting the soldiers. Yet he suggested in 1944 “a nationwide reading of the Holy Scriptures during the period from Thanksgiving Day to Christmas.” He continued by encouraging “every man of every creed go to his own version of the scriptures for a renewed and strengthening contact with those eternal truths and majestic principles which have inspired such measure of true greatness as this nation has achieved.”


            General George Washington prayed when his soldiers were suffering at Valley Forge, and General Dwight D. Eisenhower prayed for his soldiers as they prepared to invade Europe on D-Day. Both generals knew that God could help their missions to be successful.


            These great men understood that humility, gratefulness, and reliance on God brings power. Americans are at their best when they are humble and grateful. We need only to look back on September 12, 2001, the day after terrorists hijacked four airplanes and flew them into the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and the ground in Pennsylvania.

            This is the reason why Americans go to great effort, time, and money to gather with family and friends to celebrate Thanksgiving Day even though the actual meal may be short in duration. The very act of observation of a day of Thanksgiving brings blessings from heaven We humbly acknowledge our weaknesses before Heavenly Father and plead for His continued blessing upon our nation.