Families were often extended families or joint families. Children were socialized not only into the moral norms of their parents, but their economic activities as well. Grandmothers helped take care of the children. While there have been many cities and empires in history, the backbone of the human economic life has been family farms and enterprises. That has changed with modern industrialization and postindustrial life.
Individuals move from traditional homelands to work in industries for a salary.
They no longer depend on their families for economic support and they are often separated from traditional kinship systems and find themselves trying to raise their children in a culturally diverse and sometimes hostile urban environment. Throughout the world, from the Eskimo in Alaska to the Maasai tribes in Kenya and the Hindu family in India, these global phenomena are making their impact. The genocide in Cambodia, the forced evacuation of Phnom Penh by the Khmer Rouge, was an example of a reaction to modern urban life by a people who wanted to retain an agrarian economy. The wars being fought in Bosnia-Hercegovina, Somalia, Laos, and elsewhere are signs that human beings everywhere are still attempting to impose their particular ethnic culture upon defined geographical boundaries. These attempts, notably in the former USSR and Yugoslavia, reflect a desire for identity and cultural security in a very uncertain and changing world.