More on How Big Is Family? Kurt Vonnegut's Idea

A few weeks ago I posted a short reflection on how the family in the USA is way too small. If you haven't read it, check it out on this blog site.

This week I was reading a new release by Hoosier author (but now living in New York City) Kurt Vonnegut, author of Slaughterhouse Five and Breakfast of Champions and many other novels. This new book is titled "A Man Without a Country," New York: Seven Stories Press, 1985.

The work is divided into short reflections that ramble here and there on a series of great ethical and social issues. As you read the book you have the feeling that you are having coffee in a diner somewhere with an eccentric uncle who, in his late years, has decided he doesn't give a damn what you or anyone else thinks. He is going to say whatever he wants, however he wants. And in Vonnegut's case, he wants it on record.

Maybe I feel a little close to Vonnegut even though I never met him because my son went to the elementary school #43 that Vonnegut also attended. And someone told me that in the early years of this arts and crafts style apartment building in which I live, the Vonneguts also lived here. There are still Vonneguts running around Indianapolis.

In discussing the family, Vonnegut says that "It used to be that when a man and woman got married, the bride got a lot more people to talk to about everything. The groom got a lot more pals to tell dumb jokes to". But the extended family has disappeared to the extent that "When a couple has an argument nowadays they may think it's about money or power or sex or how to raise the kids or whatever. What they're really saying to each other, though without realizing it, is this: 'You are not enough people!'". Conclusion: "A husband, a wife and some kids is not a family. It's a terribly vulnerable survival unit."

After discussing how the Igbo children in Nigeria may be taken to meet hundreds of relatives, Vonnegut states that "I would really, over the long run, hope America would find some way to provide all of our citizens with extended families--a large group of people they could call on for help." Vonnegut is right: We need to look to Africa for the way family supports its members. And even there it is fast disappearing.

Thanks, Kurt Vonnegut, for writing on a better version of family values. And if you should ever happen to stumble on this blog site, leave me a comment.