For creating a Family we need to have a set of principals. We live in a world where we receive manuals for every single item we purchase, yet, once we are building families, we have no manual to follow. Obviously there are huge number of literature and accumulated work out there; however, in our Iranian world, although we Iranian are family oriented, we still lack the main characteristics of family building.

I am certainly hoping that people from my home country and the Middle Eastern region would one day be able to have manuals talking about how children and families all deserve to live a peaceful, dignified, and respectful life. We all agree that individuals and families alone can not do it all. Stability comes with peaceful family building concepts that are practical enough for anyone to follow.

We Iranian often talk about how much we can die for our children. How about to live for our children and supervise them carefully?
We all believe that our children, just ours are the most talented and genius ones, how about to view all children, I mean all of them, as capable and genius?
We Iranian parents emphasize on respect, education, conformity. How about we respect our children to do what they are best at without asking them to follow our sometimes not best advises?
We Iranian have either too much control over our children or have no control at all. How about to work for social equality in our families, give our children a voice while we be the adults in our homes?
We Iranian often talk about our great love for our families, while not spending time with our children. How about encouraging all family members appreciating one another?
We Iranian parents lie to our children as we do not tell them the truth about our life situations and then we ask them to always be truthful. How about we model honesty by sharing what is going on in our families with our children (in an age appropriate manner)?

Once are life is distressed due to many life situations, our children feel the pressure twice. Once our families are separating, our children are much more in pain. There is a tendency among us, we Iranian, to think that children do not understand. We keep realities away from our children by manipulating them to the fictional life we believe would help them grow better. We do not tell our children how we feel as we fear to see them upset. How about having an open communication and share what is on our minds with our children?

This is the best private school we could offer to our children, school of truth and honesty.
Once our men and women divorcing each other, our children are in conflict.

We need to build a family, with or without both parents, in peace and harmony. We have no other choice.

If we use the Iranian common sense that we are all children of god, why not treat each other with respect as much as we believe god does. Middle Eastern countries for thousands of years have had people from all shapes, colors, and cultures. Why not to go back to the time when people traded with each other based on equal values and dignity. We need to be brave enough now, need to act like our heroic ancestors, and to voice our concerns about how much peaceful family building is important.

Family building based on individual values and peaceful conflict resolutions can be gradually transferred to our societies and communities. We Iranian should revisit our great philosophers and poets such as Molana (Rumi) to see how they define love and compassion for one another.
Family building should be encouraged and passed on to the next generations. We can only change ourselves. We need to change, to grow up, and to evolve; from inside out. Be in peace.

Note: This article was originally written and published in EzineArticles July 2, 2008 by this author.