The breakdown of American family - Essay Example

This paper discusses some of the most important problems of Americans today and discusses their cause-and-effect relationship with the breakdown of family. Problems discussed are drug addiction among teenagers, teenage pregnancy, abortion, and suicide among Americans. Drug addiction is on a rise in America today. A lot of teenagers fall prey to this habit and end up ruining their academic and professional career and in the long run, their life. Teenagers adopt this habit because of lack of parental supervision.

This is the reason why drug addiction among teenagers is far lesser in the more reserved and family-oriented nations as compared to America. Teenage pregnancy is another outcome of breakdown of the family in America. Teenagers have no one to keep a check over them taking benefit of which, they indulge in physical relationships with their fellows before the appropriate age. This causes increase of pregnancy among teenagers and also abortion. Rather than accepting the responsibility, teenage girls tend to come out of it as soon as they realize that they are pregnant and thus, go for the abortion.

The increasing suicide rate is the outcome of depression caused by the feeling of guilt and trauma because of such wrong decisions in life as drug addiction and physical relationships. . This has promoted the culture of cohabitation in America which is one of the biggest threats to the sacred institution of marriage. People tend to cohabit as it relieves them from the financial and legal implications of the marriage. On the other hand, people that do marry have large tendency to have their marriage failed, because the partners have not learnt to compromise from their parents.

Thus, breakdown of the family system in America is both a cause and effect of the increasing divorce rate among the Americans. The family system promotes a healthy culture wherein people can relate to one another psychologically and emotionally. Members of a family assume certain roles and responsibilities that they are obliged to perform in the capacity of the family-member. Rights come with responsibilities. Parents can only have a right over their children and their lives when they have grown up if they have been fulfilling their responsibilities as parents when the children were young and really needed their attention.

Love of a mother and a father is essential to the development of confidence, self-esteem and most importantly, the identity of a child. It is the very lack of identity caused by the breakdown of the family that inculcates carelessness, irresponsibility and self-centeredness in people and they indulge in such behaviors that cause them to repent in the long run. “[T]he importance of the family in binding generation to generation, inspiring love and intimacy in the home, and fostering industry and lawfulness within the broader community” cannot be overemphasized (Carlson).

Concluding, sustenance of a strong family system is fundamental to the solution of