Many people romanticize the so-called traditional family and yearn for "the good old days." And yet from a historical perspective those days may not have been all that ideal. Problems with the family are not exactly new.

So it's useful to get some perspective. For instance, before the Industrial Revolution, it was normal that fathers and mothers both supported the family by working at home, trying to make ends meet in a largely agrarian society. With industrialization, fathers were forced to work outside of the home, which caused enormous adjustments in the family and the mores of work.

Consider that in the 1830s and 40s the education of women was generally viewed as a threat to society. A minister in England wrote: "Neither reason nor Christianity invites woman to the professor's chair, or conducts her to the bar, or makes her welcome to the pulpit .... They claim not for her the right of suffrage, nor any immunity by which she may 'usurp authority over the man.'" ^{Quoted in "'The Woman Question,'" Christianity Today, July 15, 1988, p. 20 .}

And it was at the turn of this century—before day care was a social issue, and before 50 percent of mothers with preschool children worked outside the home—that the sister of the painter Augustus John wrote to a friend: "I think the Family has had its day .... We don't go to Heaven in families now—but one by one." ^{Michael Holroyd, Augustus John: a Biography (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1975), p. 27 .}

Whether that was a sociological or theological commentary on the times is hard to know. Yet history reminds us of the evils of child labor in Charles Dickens's day, of the poverty of European and American ghettoes in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, of the awful conditions the African-American family was subjected to during slavery and its aftermath.

But there is much more to history than a profile of human flaws and failures. Thoughtful individuals have come along who have caught glimpses of a remarkable spiritual context for life, an intuition that life is actually something different from what the material scene suggests. Correction of social ills may take root in such intuitions. Great novels, new laws, changes in expectations and values, have resulted, often tending to a bettering of mankind's conditions.

Such improvements are hints of what can be accomplished, given the impetus of a better, spiritual conception of what man really is—not a materially limited entity but the spiritual expression of the infinite God. This perspective is found through the study of Christian Science, which reveals man's identity as the child of God. As the spiritual offspring of one Father-Mother, man has never been branded as a sinner in an Eden of illusions. He has always been whole and pure.

Actually this understanding of man's spiritual profile is not something new. It was the basis of Christ Jesus' statement "I and my Father are one." ^{John 10:30.} With this understanding he healed sin and illness and restored harmony to families that were in trouble. This same Christly power is at work now. Understanding that God's love is present can bring healing to individual lives. It may lead some individuals to value certain traditional roles; or perhaps it may save others from continuing in a relationship that is destructive. The Christ is present to guide wisely and comfort realistically wherever human hearts are yearning for God.

One result of looking to God, Spirit, as our true security is a wider, richer expression of family. Not only with our own relatives—children, parents, cousins—but with everyone we happen to meet, there is a more joyful embrace.

Christ Jesus expressed the healing idea of God as always present. He was called "Christ" because his life demonstrated his sonship with God. When he taught the way to pray to God, the Father, he chose the pronoun our, which is definitive and inclusive. ^{See Matt. 6:9 .} The Master stayed with this sure sense of divine Love and its universal family—something far beyond personal ties, human generation, or the ordinary relationships of commitment and responsibility. On one occasion when he was talking to a group of people, including certain scribes and Pharisees, someone told him his mother and brothers wanted to speak with him. "But he answered and said ..., Who is my mother? and who are my brethren?" He gestured toward his disciples and said, "Behold my mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother." ^{Matt. 12:48–50.}

That standard of pure Christly affection holds individuals in the unity of divine Love even more securely than human family ties. It is the ideal pattern for all relationships.

Christian Science teaches that each of God's children always has been and is forever complete and expresses both masculine and feminine qualities. When Christ, Truth, is accepted in consciousness, spiritual selfhood is revealed. The result is often some degree of release from male and female stereotypes. Thus a woman is more able to bring wisdom, acumen, and efficiency into business, law, or politics. And a man begins to feel at ease about expressing tenderness and compassion.

Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science and the author of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, writes, "Union of the masculine and feminine qualities constitutes completeness." ^{Science and Health, p. 57.} The practical expression of such a spiritual realization is not a divisive but a cohesive power, when rightly placed under the will of our one Father-Mother. As men and women gain a more Christly sense of completeness, it's natural for them to reach out in practical ways to bless others. For instance, the desire for adopting children may be fulfilled; older people are brought into homes; friendships are established and warmer family feelings are kindled. Knowing that God's love is secure, we're able to express affection freely in a widening circle that may reach out even to a world community.

These lines from a hymn in the Christian Science Hymnal certainly have been true for my own family:

During and after the Second World War, my husband and I were moved by the great needs of people left homeless and without family. We prayed. Knowing that the children of God—His spiritual offspring—are always loved, we asked our Father to show us how to bring about this better understanding among peoples. We knew that God was our heavenly Father and had all-power. We wanted to see this truth brought out in daily experience, to see divine Love expressed on earth.

Channels opened for us to take teen-agers from different cultures and mores into our home. It was wonderful but also presented terrific challenges. Right along, that pervading sense of Christ—our Father's care for each of us—saw us through.

For over thirty years we extended our hospitality to foreign students who were studying in high schools and colleges in our country. Some of them lived with us for an academic year; others just visited briefly. These youngsters blessed us, and we were able to help them—in some instances introducing them to Christianity.

I recall the time one of our lads violated the household rules, and the lesson we all learned from that. We had to be out of the city, and while we were gone he gave a party. In those days this was a serious offense, definitely contrary to our agreement. It was unusual for any of our teen-agers to act out of line, and this caused us great grief. At first the temptation was simply to expel him, to send him back to his own home.

But my husband and I were relying on prayer, and we did feel God would show us the way. So we turned to the Father of us all, asking to perceive this teen-ager in his true identity as God's own perfect son. We simply had to maintain that the true child of our divine Father couldn't express any quality or condition contrary to His nature. This dear lad actually reflected divine Principle, so disobedience, deceit, willfulness, were not really in his makeup, in spite of the behavior that said otherwise.

We explained this spiritual reasoning to Juan, and he was happy with it. He accepted the idea that he could not really differ from the way God created him, any more than a reflection in the mirror could differ from the original. Our prayer and trust in God's direction turned the remaining six months of Juan's stay into a time of much cooperation and harmony.

Science and Health speaks of the Old Testament concept of God: "This human sense of Deity yields to the divine sense, even as the material sense of personality yields to the incorporeal sense of God and man as the infinite Principle and infinite idea, —as one Father with His universal family, held in the gospel of Love." ^{Science and Health, pp. 576–577.} As we were more and more able to get a better concept of this universal family of God, our lives were greatly enriched. And to this day we are in close contact with some of our "children."