The courts, the legal systems, the legislatures, and every conceivable kind of agency or bureau also increasingly substitute themselves into the traditional roles and functions of families. Courts are so preoccupied with individual rights that they ignore and undervalue family rights and responsibility. Children can sue their parents. Child protective services can take kids from their parents on the hearsay of neighbors. Custody rulings seem designed to pull families apart.
Legislatures keep trying to fix things with new laws.
Even the community and voluntary sector, the churches an clubs and other neighborhood entities that should be closest and most nourishing to families often seem bent on making the family redundant. Plenty of activities and involvements are offered for kids, but precious few for whole families. As long as they get their kids to school, to scouts, to music and dance lessons, to sports and summer camps, to after-school programs, to etiquette classes and tutors and college test prep coaches, everything will be fine. The biggest problem with this general contractor approach is that it doesn't work. What children need is the unconditional, even irrational love that only a parent can provide.