JUST ADD WATER

IN THE past month, two
_ good friends, both mothers

_.and single parents, have told .

* me that they feel over-
whelmed by the weighty re-
‘sponsibility of being a.
‘parent...

Each woman works long hours
to earn a living and each faces a
child who is ‘‘acting out’’ the pain
of not having two parents together

_ and there for them daily.

This is not the scenario these
women had in mind when they
-held their children in their arms
and rejoiced i in the creation of a
family. . us

Their current family situation is

° far’ removed from the steadfast’

-and seemingly indestructable fam-

“ily that nurtured them in the 1950s
"— they are ieft struggling to pro-
* vide some stability in a new,

'
i
'

fn the First
‘week of

- December,
my true

~ love bougnt For me .

VANCOUVER
128 W. Georgia
Cat Thurlow)
669-0045

uncertain cra.

As we move towards 1994 —
the International Year of the
Family, as declared by the United
Nations — one fact we can all
agree on is that the family is in
transition.

According to a StatsCan report
released in November, the pro-

. portion of Canadian families

headed by a married couple has
dropped to 77% from 83% a de-
cade earlier. ;

In the same 10-year period the
percentage of mothers working
has increased from 49% to 64%.

Behind the bald statistics,
signalling this transition for the
family, is a lot of pain — children
trying to adjust to a parent they
oniy see on weekends, adults try-
ing to be decent step-parents in
tense blended family situations
and so on.

To get a more accurate reading
on the state of the family I talked
to four individuals who work reg-
ularly with families on the North
Shore.

Jane Cowan, a teacher at
Gleneagles elementary in West
Vancouver, has witnessed consid-
erable changes in the family in her

20 years in the teaching profes-

sion.

She doesn’t view one of the
major changes in family life — an
increased divorce rate — asa
wholly negative development.

‘*People are not staying in fam-
ily situations that are destructive
and that’s good,” she says.

“What does concern Cowan is
that, given the breakup of so
many nuclear famities and the lack
of support that in the past was
provided by the extended family,

BY a EWES

SERRE Pet of sit

44 The proportion of Canadian families headed
by a married couple has dropped to 77% from

83% a decade earlier. 9?

the community and the church, we
must develop new support
systems.

Due to the weakening of these
support systems, Cowan says, ‘‘I
see a lot of children in limbo.”

While she feels there is an onus

on individuals to develop support
systems for their families, she
believes society must change to
deal with working parents.

As we move through what
Cowan sees as a ‘‘creative stage’’
— developing support systems for

“new and different kinds of fami-

lies, she believes we should still
strive for the ideal.

“I don’t think we'll come up
with anything better than a male
and female loving parent for
children,’ says Cowan.

As the exccutive director for
B.C, Parents in Crisis Society,
Julie Norton secs first-hand the
results of the lack of support for
families in these times of stress
and upheaval.

While most people agree that
families are still the primary
system of support for individuals,
and healthier families make a
healthier society, Norton is
dismayed at the wide gap between
words and actions.

“Our society does not support
families,’’ she states flatly.

While her organization’s prin-
cipal mandate is to organize self-

Se ZON 0

help groups for parents to prevent
child abuse, Norton says many
parents call the society to express
feelings of desperation and inade-
quacy.

Norton feels strongly that we
should all be working to support
families. — -

In particular, she believes more
employers should be doing a lot
more to support families through
these trying times with such things
as flexible working hours, on-site
day care and parental leave to care
for sick children.

“A parent should not be treated
like a criminal for staying home
with a sick child,’’ says Norton.

North Vancouver family lawyer
Sheilagh Sparks is sympathetic to
the stress facing many parents to-
day, but in her work she sees a
lack of long-term commitment to
family and that sometimes you
have to work hard at making
family life work for everyone.

“What are people committed
to? They’re committed to making
money.’

Sparks sees an attitude in many
adults that can be summed up as
“we have to have everything and
we have to have it now.”’

She sees people whose primary
goal for their children is to make
sure each child has his own VCR.

Says Sparks, ‘‘We’re supposed
to have all these things because

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that’s how we’re judged to be
successful."”

Sparks believes many parents
have allowed television and out-
side groups and individuals to
weaken family ties.

Instead of spending time with
children, parents let them watch
television or send them off toa
variety of lessons to learn things
from other people.

“Few people seem able to sit
around and just talk and be a
family,’’ Sparks says.

As a district counsellor for West
Vancouver secondary schools, Sue
Okazaki believes the major prob-
lem for families today is that
parents are ‘‘finding it difficult to
keep all the balls in the air.’*

Says Okazaki: “So many
parents teil me, ‘My life is just out
of control.’ ”’ |

Okazaki feels many parents
have good intentions but ~
‘everyone is split in 18 different
directions.”

She also says many parents have
problems dealing with stresses on
their children such as alcohol and
drugs, because these problems
weren’t a factor in their youth...

How much responsibility must
parents take for the breakdown of
the traditional family? Can
children who aren’t part of a
traditional family still thrive and
develop into loving, happy adults?
Why aren’t more employers in- .”
itiating “family-friendly’’ prac.”
tices and what will it take for /
them to do so? ra

I'll explore these and other
questions related to the family i in
future columns. Z

RICHMOND
325] Sweden Way
(across from-IKEA)

270 0045