Ludovine de la Rochère is president of the Manif pour tous, author of Familles, je t'aime (Pierre-Guillaume de Roux ed., 2016).
Since the second week of confinement, the drama of family violence has been in the news, the prolonged confinement and the anxiety-provoking climate being aggravating factors. These tragic situations make us uncomfortable. How could it be otherwise by imagining this violence, physical, mental or sexual, which must be denounced and combated by all means. The discomfort is further reinforced when we only hear about families from this dramatic angle.
However, we must not forget that if confinement is possible, it is thanks to the families: the government was able to make the decision to close the nurseries, schools, colleges and high schools because it knows that the parents are there, present and responsible, for the vast majority of them. If most of the students follow their lessons via a screen, if they attend and do their homework, it is because their parents do what is necessary. And if the youngest manage to continue their learning, it is still thanks to their parents, who have taken over from the school teachers. It is also because in the homes, the atmosphere is calm enough for that.
In the same way, if the spring break took place, despite the confinement, it is because the parents know how to occupy their children, find ideas, make incredible discoveries ... As they always did, parents today assume their roles, devote themselves to their children, successively becoming cooks, nurses, teachers, play partners, consolers of sores and sorrows and a thousand other things ... while juggling, for many, with their professional activity, in the field or in telework.
The family is the first refuge, the most suitable, on a human scale.As for parents of older children, adult siblings, members of the extended family, confinement showed all the evidence of solidarity for them. To whom did most French people immediately turn? Towards their families: children, parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters, cousins… And to whom, for the most part, we ask for news, do we send information and jokes via Whatsapp, to play down? To those in the family who are confined elsewhere.
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Certainly, not everything is rosy in family life. Of course, family relationships can be complicated. Certainly, it is not the will of each of us to find ourselves forced to spend together, and in a limited space, seven weeks or more. The fact remains that the family is the first refuge, the most suitable, on a human scale. It is also an obvious lack for those who are deprived of it and who face more than others this historic crisis in isolation and loneliness.
Some are confined far from their families because they are in a retirement home or in a nursing home. The wave of indignation at the ban on visits ended up prevailing and the President of the Republic finally helped to find this family bond so essential for the most vulnerable among us.
Others, often young adults, have confined themselves rather with friends. It is logical, since they are themselves completely independent, without having to take care of children or elderly parents either. The fact remains that they know they can count on their family circle if necessary, including for the coming months, which promise to be difficult for all.
We must find in the public space a culture of the family.So, instead of systematically associating the family with tragic situations, it would be more logical to praise their contribution during this difficult time. And as we applaud each day at 8 p.m. the caregivers who devote themselves to the bedside of the sick, in such difficult conditions, we could associate with this meeting the fathers and mothers who fully assume their responsibilities, with all the patience and energy required.
Far from being the place of all dangers, dramas and violence, the family is usually a refuge. It protects as much as it brings together and reassures all its members. We must find in the public space a culture of the family. Often abused by governments, the family must instead be supported by an ambitious dedicated policy. Solidarity, education, dignity, dependence, quality of life, pensions ... the family is the heart of society. Our future depends on it; we all know it. At a time when the contours of the next world are starting to take shape, we must not forget it. More than an error, it would be a fault, serious.