The decline in the size of families–from 3.5 to 2 children in 50 years–has also meant fewer cousins, fewer children in neighborhoods, and fewer relationships in general. That means, according to Ted C. Fishman, that we need to recover friendships, which are also in decline, even though having friends is important on all kinds of scales of well-being.
I would throw in that part of the problem may be the way friendship, which is often a same-sex relationship, has been sexualized by the homosexual movement. So called “queer theorists” in academia are interpreting virtually every close friendship on the part of historical figures is evidence that they are gay. And the counseling and support groups in schools often encourage young people who have the intense friendships often characteristic of adolescence to think they must be gay. But one of the most beneficial qualities of friendship, according to the classic authors, is that it is a close personal relationship that specifically is not sexual.
In fact, some Christians are seeking to channel gay feelings into non-sexual friendships. See, for example, this and this. Wesley Hill has written a book on the subject, Spiritual Friendship.
From Ted C. Fishman, Don’t underestimate the power of friendship: Column, USA Today:
We need to heed friendship’s power now more than ever. American families have never been smaller. While a woman’s average number of children shrank slowly from 3.5 to two over 50 years, the average number of cousins a person has as plummeted from close to 20 to four. Because introductions to friends and society often come through families, shrinking families deplete all kinds of connections.
Small households everywhere mean, for instance, that we have fewer neighbors and fewer neighbors’ children for our kids to play with, or become lifelong friends with. People commute longer and stare at screen entertainment longer; both cut us off. Americans are more isolated than ever; one in four say they have no one to whom they could relate their worries or successes.Among those without a family member to confide in, half say they have no one. This all is not just sad, it’s dangerous.
We tend to take friendship for granted, to make it secondary to other demands on our time. It is, after all, precious in part because it is voluntary, free from the bonds that keep us pressed in other relationships. Even if individuals move in and out of our lives, however, we should not think of friendship itself as something easily jettisoned. The best life, it seems, demands that we think about and plan for friendships just as much as we plan around our family, our careers, money and where we live. New scholarship shows that friends are every bit as important to our health and well-being as family, romantic love and just about anything we deem central to our lives.
It turns out, for instance, that friendships share some the same life-changing qualities of great art. One theory in cognitive science holds that much of our personality builds from the qualities we first copy and then absorb from our friends. Smarter friends make us smarter; more social friends make us more outgoing; healthy friends make us more health conscious. Who they are becomes part of us.
Recent findings suggest, too, that friends have life-sustaining practical benefits. It also appears that adults who socialize often with several good friends live longer than those with few friends who socialize less.
A main conclusion of the Grant Study at Harvard, which followed its subjects for 75years, was that strong relationships are the most important ingredient to well-being over a long life.
What’s more, friendship alone is a kind of wealth. Kids who have close friends in school earn more later in life than those without. Adults who have a friend they see on most days add as much to a their overall well-being as making an extra $100,000 a year. Having a best friend at work likely makes you far more productive than colleagues who do not.
It turns out that friends, just as much as family, can give people the connection they need to stay happy and well.
[Keep reading. . .]
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