What is the perfect family - without gravy?

Last night I was invited to my 16 year old son's school to watch the Year 11 students perform the work they had been doing towards their GCSE exams.

It was incredible performance of drama and music completely written and performed by these young people.

As incredible as it was, it was also thought provoking and I am sad to say - very sad.

The students put together different sketches of how they see life.

It made me think what have we done to these children?

Aggressive, disrespectful, materialistic may be what they are portrayed as being today but just take a moment to see life through a child's eyes and you will see that this children are wise and have not forgotten what life is about - and boy, do they crave life to be as it was designed to be in the beginning.

Their views on the government, crime, education, fame, the NHS to name a few but what struck most was their views on family life.

Scenes of the past where the mother stayed at home to raise the children, the children seemed happy, content, they had a stable life - the father was the bread winner and everything seemed solid - mealtimes were had as a family. Children were children with toys and had a mother dedicated to bringing up that family. The students showed a family sitting together over a meal, all talking and passing the gravy...

And then there were the scenes of today where the mother is out at work, mobile phone constantly ringing, microwave and convenience meals, no family meal sharing the day, not even a meal table, children with no emotional or social skills - just looking for the next material thing to compensate for a lack of mother - no father - single parent families, arguments from the strain and pressure of modern living - too busy to talk, the child rebelling because it's needs are not being met .....

Yes this is not every family of today and yes it was not all rosy back then but just watching a handful of 16 year old children performing "life" as they have experienced it so far, just showed me that something has gone very, very wrong.

Life has become "external" - the material house, the car, the high flying career - pressures from the government to get women out to work, things being so expensive they have to - and yet what about what really matters?

What about the children we had because we love children, what about all the promises we made to help them grow up to be emotionally stable people?

What about the vowels we took on our wedding day, why do we allow those wedding bells to go rusty?

What is the point of a large house if it is empty?

What is the perfect family - without gravy?