"Family Reunion" - 1975 - The O'Jays
The painting is taken from the cover of the album that introduced the song.
As to the philosophy of family expressed in the spoken part of the song (which is often omitted from radio playings of the song today) -- from a commenter at YouTube named Kenneth Hill:
This song is about the family, Or better yet how the family used to be, But now with liberalism, Feminism, And the culture war on the family this song is like ancient history. But how many of us grew up in a family like this, With a father and mother who loved and cared for us?? What was so wrong about the "Nuclear Family" that people felt the need to take it down and destroy it?
Our entire history was built upon the family, Of a strong father who was the keeper of the house, The mother who was the care taker of the house, The children who learned about life from the parents and left home and became parents themselves and raised their children from the lessons learned from their parents!!
Our country is fragmented and dying, Unless we get back to the family, We will perish, Strong words? Yes, But true words, My words, Unscripted, Unfiltered, Heartfelt.Well, it wasn't a bed of roses for the human race before the nuclear family started to break down. Both world wars occurred while the nuclear family was still going strong. At any rate there's no going back to the way things were.
On the other side, the O'Jays were right to emphasize the key importance of the father as head of the family and the mother's role in raising children -- that last a responsibility left more and more to school systems.
What we can do is re-emphasize the family unit in a way that fits with our times, which demand that both women and men share the load of keeping close watch on their governments and participate in society in ways that our grandparents and even our parents couldn't have imagined would be necessary.
I hope you've enjoyed Old School Week at Pundita blog; I enjoyed putting it together.
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