The family of tomorrow: a message from a world-famous author

World Health • 46th Year, No. 6, November-December 1993 7 The family of tomorrow: a message from a world·famous author The future seems likely to see a crucial change in the role of the family, which will become the initial training centre where people are apprenticed for life in society. Even more vital will be the revival of what used to be called the "extended" family, which knits together basic family units. This "joint family" comprising relatives in the broadest sense was what constituted Chinese and Indian society in the past. I myself had the good fortune to live in one of those "large" families- good groundwork for being able to adapt very easily to the most varied settings and personalities. Better still , I come from a complex family, mixed Chinese and European, so that I was never trapped within one single culture or forced along one single path; consequently I can take the broad view that the whole world seems like one vast family ... Distrust and fear have no part in it, and there is no need for protection . This large family is not a fortress but rather an access route to everyone and thus the true cradle of society. I have no doubt that the future will see this large "extended" family being recreated, in the sense that it will not be based simply on the notion of blood relations but rather on ties of affection. When the young people of North America tried in the 1960s to form such communities, they failed because all who were not of the same generation were excluded ... Yet chi ldren yearn to belong to a great family; one has only to see the gangs of youngsters in the streets of our big cities to measure thi s need. In order to be successful, the family ought to embrace several generations, since it is essential for the young and the less young to live together, understand one another and help one another. I have no doubt that the future will see the "extended" family being recreated, in the sense that it will not be based simply on the notion of blood relations but rather on ties of affection. In order to be successful , this "family space" ought to embrace several generations, since it is essential for the young and the less young to live together, understand one another and help one another. Within a family at its basic level, the chi ld can be lonely. In the bosom of the extended family it will never be lonely, because if the mother is absent there will always be the grandmother, the sister, the cousin or the aunt. Thus the child is not fixated exclusively on its mother since the very notion of motherhood is itself extended. The future will undoubtedly rediscover this family- community structure, particularly since technological advances make it possible for a lot of work to be done at home, thus avoiding useless and exhausting travelling. Let me say again - because it is crucial - that the extended family can resolve at a stroke all the problems of unequal talents and unequal success which otherwise arouse that devastating emotion- human egoism. The function of the family is to level out inequality. • Extracted, with the permission of Mrs Han Suyin from Les yeux de demain (The eyes of tomorrow), published by Christian de Bartillat, Paris, 1992.