On International Family Day, Frieder Otto Wolf, President of the Humanist Association of Germany, pleaded for people to remember the importance of these elementary human relationships and to think about ways to create a new space for them in life.
Tuesday marks the 19th International Day of the Family. It is based on a resolution of the United Nations General Assembly and aims to emphasize, among other things, the importance of the family for children to grow up healthy and happy. The motto of this year’s International Day of Families is: “Family and Work: Building Bridges of Time”.
And building such time bridges is always linked to structural possibilities, but is ultimately a task for the people themselves, Wolf said. Although taking enough time for family life is always of great importance, it cannot always be treated with the appropriate urgency given the pressure of worsening social conditions and at the same time the multiplication of choices in a demanding and complex world of life and work.
“We should build on these shortcomings so that all family relationships can always be given the appreciation they deserve. It is important that factors that run counter to human needs and desires for cohabitation and family do not permanently gain the upper hand in our lives.”
And time for family life together has to be wrung out of all life situations, especially the demands of gainful employment and professional activity.
Families can be found wherever intimate personal relationships are cultivated over the long term, but especially in all human relationships that create and maintain a space for children. “Family communities that do not create a space in which children can also develop a basis for their independent lives are missing an important dimension.”
Wolf opposed the discrimination and degradation of family relationships that do not correspond to the image of nuclear families in lifelong marriages between a man and a woman. “From a humanist point of view, there are no good reasons why forms of family that deviate from a particular tradition with its sexual norms should be placed in a worse position politically and socially. Wherever family communities are to be found, they must also be supported, both through public services and through our solidarity with them.”
Wolf ultimately pleaded for neither placing professional life above family life nor accepting social conditions that force people to subordinate central elements of family life to work. “If we lose our understanding of the importance of family in this elementary and broad sense, we will lose a good part of our own humanity.”
