Family? Who cares.

Why does family mean so much to us? I understand that in retrospec, they are the only ones that can carry on our lives through our names. But hey isn't that kinda selfish?? I thought, at first, that family meant you could run home and feel safe and loved. But the statistics say other wise. Whenever 1 in 4 teenage girls in the United States go home, they are abused and/or neglected. In the next twenty four hours 1,439 teenagers will commit suicide because they don't have a relationship with their parents. There will also be 2,795 teenage girls that will become pregnant with in that same time, and 80% of them only had sex because they don't have a sturdy relationship with their father. Sexual abuse within the family has been reported up to 80,000 times in the year 1995. In the next twenty four hours 3,506 teens will run away from home. Every two hours a youth is murdered by someone they live with. A report of child abuse is made every ten seconds and more than 5 children die EVERY DAY because of child abuse. About 30% of abused and neglected children will later abuse their own children. The cycle continues. I don't know about you, but this doesn't sound like family. Yet with the media, and with the news, stories, and maybe even how we were raised, family isn't family anymore. It's simply the people you live with and who will carry on your blood line. Let's get real. It shouldn't hurt to be a kid. It's ridiculous how often all of this happens to kids we know, and I pray that maybe one day family will mean something again.