While I was exploring the University of Texas at Austin this July, I discovered a statue and a plaque that were quiet interesting to me. The plaque was at the base of a statue of a father and mother holding their young child. They are looking upward together. They are striving for a better world and teaching their child to do the same. The plaque reads,
“The family is the foundation upon which the world of business is built, and it is a vital force in the local, state and national economy.”
The statue is by Michigan native Charles Umlauf who worked at UT Austin as a sculpture instructor. His works can be seen across America from the Smithsonian and New York city to Central Texas. I believe that Mr. Umlauf catches the essence of the importance of the family in this simple statement and with his statue. The family is not simply an old tradition, it is the fundamental building block of society. Without a family with a mother and a father to teach them, children grow up with a skewed sense of their place in society. They struggle to understand their civic duty and they have more difficulty becoming a contributing citizen. It is important that our society preserve this fundamental unit. If this unit crumbles or if it is forcibly replaced by a government or social activists, the very fundamental part of our free society will disappear and we will be left to stumble in the dark.