Family, home, parents… How many nice and warm feelings these three simple words evoke! All people want to have a place where they can hide themselves from the storms of  life, where they are always loved and remembered. Every day we hurry to work, school, and hurry home after a hard day… We are in a hurry all the time! Our generation never lives in quiet, but yet we never feel tired. In the morning, crowded buses, trolley-buses, trams rapidly carry us away to the universities and colleges. In the afternoon, we are busy studying. In the evening, we run into clubs to meet our friends.  And we must also find time for rest, home work, and, of course, for sleeping! We communicate on-line, and read newspapers and magazines. We get a lot of new information every minute. It absorbs us, and the more we communicate the more we want to learn and discuss. We discuss the news on the internet, this sticky web that has swallowed all of us! 

Our civilization is very developed, but it also has great problems. We can get everything we want, communicate with the whole world, and have the latest information, but we become weaker and weaker physically and forget the major mission of each of us. Our modern society developed for many centuries, but the family remained its imperishable base. We are so accustomed to hear these words that  sometimes we don’t think about their meaning. If you ask somebody: « What is your family for you? » - the answers will be amazing and shocking. For example, people say, «My family is my house, where I live. » or «My family is people living with me».  People have forgotten in their fast lives what the family is and its importance for us. We  should not judge the young people for  not thinking about marriage because they prefer a career. Now the main thing is speed, and many of us think that a  family hinders the achievement of our aims.

Our parents are only querulous advisers, who want to teach us things that we already know. I think it is one of the problems of all generations, in all ages, when older people do not understand younger people. However, it is a disaster, when we choose a life full of false enjoyments and pleasures, instead of the "dull” daily routine of our parents. Such weak people then become unsocial citizens and further they become alcoholics, drug addicts, vagrants. Many times  they were only trying to run from their problems, and nobody helped them. They simply did not gеt the warmth of the home, of the family.

But we must do something for such people! They need treatment, not only propaganda! In our country there is a special program aimed to help young families, but it does not always work. The so-called "Mother’s capital” is paid to mothers after the birth of their second child, but still we do not see many parents with 3 or more children. I want to believe, that it will soon become reality  that Russian families will have many children, and our birth rate will exceed our death-rate!

Not only the government can contribute to creation of strong families. The health of our nation must worry us most of all! When you face  a teenager holding a cigarette in one hand and a bottle of beer or a cocktail in the other hand, you feel distress. You feel pain for this silly teenager.  You imagine his near future. You clearly understand - he will not want to listen to your tales about the harm of  nicotine and alcohol. He will only laugh at you. He and his generation are not the guilty ones.  Our common indifference is guilty. We have become  accustomed to living as we live: to feel our own discomfort and stress, and to ignore  people around us. If we talk – we use the telephone. If we correspond – we use the internet, sometimes without knowing with whom we communicate! But each of us  can think more broadly  and deeply. Our souls are more complex than our status in the "Contacts” or "Odnoklassniks "(Classmates) on  the net.

Our generation must get some help from an older generation . Only then will we understand in our minds and in our hearts that intelligent and wise, nurturing and loving family values are  the most important things we must have  to survive and to thrive.  The older generation must  give us  examples how to live in this world. Grown-up people say that we don’t respect them, but  our lack of respect is the result of their bringing us up. We simply don’t believe words. We need good examples. But can many of us boast that he or she lives in a happy family... in a family where the mother and the father (if any!) love and respect each other, speak not only about lack of money, but also ask their children about their troubles and give them good advice? In a family where parents and children are real friends?