[originaltext] The Family is a central principle of American people. To appr

The Family is a central principle of American people. To appreciate the degree to which this is so, one need merely consider the evidence of one of the Greatest American Festivals, Thanksgiving. More Americans travel for the Thanksgiving holiday than at any other time of the year.(23)And where do they travel to? Surprisingly, most people chose to be together with their family.
    It is family—however they think about it—that is the goal of their trip.
    There should be no surprise, then, that as social and cultural pressures have challenged conventional assumptions and habits concerning the family and its role, many spokespeople have expressed alarm, criticizing the gradual vanishing of "family values". If this central institution of American society is endangered,(24)what will become of American society itself? If divorce increases and families fall apart, who will raise the children to be responsible adults? If women and men choose to live together without marriage, who will teach children the value of stability and commitment?
    Who will assume the responsibilities that have "traditionally" been the business of the family?
    But this alarm is founded on a false assumption: that there is an entity, called the family, that performs these functions and more, and that the absence of this very narrowly conceived family would create an irreparable tear in the structure of American society. History shows clearly that this is simply not the case.(25)In fact, history forces us to recognize that there is no single model of "family" that does what, in our experience, families are supposed to do.