When my husband and I were first married, we spent a lot of time thinking about the kind of home we hoped to build together. Like many newlyweds, we knew we wanted a happy family, but we were also beginning to realize that strong families don’t simply happen by chance. Along the way, we read several books about marriage and family life, and one that made a particularly lasting impression on us was The Intentional Family: Simple Rituals to Strengthen Family Ties by William J. Doherty, PhD. Although it’s been many years since we first read it, its message has stayed with me. In fact, many of the ideas from that book have influenced the way I’ve thought about family life ever since.
One of the things I appreciate most about the book is that it doesn’t begin with a list of parenting tips or family traditions. Instead, it takes a step back and explores how family life has changed over the generations. Understanding that history helps explain why so many of us long for deeper connection today. Our world is very different from the one our grandparents grew up in, and while many of those changes have brought wonderful opportunities and freedoms, they have also created new challenges for staying connected as families. That’s why I believe the idea of living as an intentional family feels just as relevant today as when the book was first written.
How Families Have Changed Over Time
Throughout history, the structure and purpose of family life have continued to evolve as society has changed.
-The Institutional Family
For much of history, families were what sociologists often call institutional families. Their primary purpose was stability, security, and survival.
Most families lived on farms or operated small family businesses. Extended relatives often lived nearby, neighbors knew one another well, and communities were closely connected through shared traditions and a common religion. Family members had clearly defined roles and responsibilities, and those roles were generally accepted as part of everyday life.
In many ways, families were supported by the larger community around them. There was a strong sense of belonging, duty, and continuity from one generation to the next.
-The Psychological Family
As the Industrial Revolution changed where and how people lived, family life changed as well.
People moved away from farms and small towns into growing cities. Individual opportunity, education, and personal achievement became increasingly important. Rather than being centered primarily on family obligations or community expectations, families began placing greater emphasis on accomplishments, personal fulfillment, and individual achievements.
By the 1950s, this model had become the cultural ideal. Marriage was viewed as a partnership built on love, communication, and companionship. Parents sought to provide warm, nurturing homes where children could thrive emotionally as well as physically.
This shift brought many positive changes, including a greater appreciation for relationships, communication, and connection within the family.
-The Pluralistic Family
Beginning in the 1960s and continuing into the following decades, family life became even more diverse.
As social expectations changed, families were no longer expected to fit one particular mold. Divorce became more common, blended families increased, single-parent households grew, and people gained greater freedom to define what family looked like for them.
Today’s families come in many beautiful forms, each with its own strengths, challenges, and stories. Flexibility has become one of the defining characteristics of modern family life.
Yet alongside that freedom, many families have discovered a new challenge.
The Challenge of Modern Family Life
Life today moves at an incredible pace.
Parents are balancing work, household responsibilities, school schedules, activities, appointments, and countless daily demands. Children often have busy calendars and full schedules of their own. Technology keeps us constantly connected to the outside world every moment of the day, but it can sometimes make it harder to be fully present with the people sitting right beside us.
None of these things are inherently bad. Sports can build character. Technology can strengthen relationships across long distances. Careers allow us to provide for our families.
But without realizing it, it’s easy for our days to become so full that we spend less and less meaningful time together.
Family life doesn’t usually become disconnected because anyone intends for it to happen. More often, it happens gradually through the ordinary busyness of everyday life.
Choosing to Be Intentional
One of the central ideas from The Intentional Family is that strong families rarely happen by accident.
Like a garden, relationships need regular attention if they are going to flourish. If we simply move from one busy day to the next without giving thought to how we want our family to grow, we may eventually realize we’ve become more like passing ships than companions.
An intentional family doesn’t strive for perfection. It simply chooses to make relationships a priority.
It asks questions like:
- What kind of memories do we want our children to have?
- What traditions will help define our family?
- How can we create opportunities to laugh, talk, pray, celebrate, and simply enjoy one another?
Small choices, repeated over time, shape the culture of a family.
The Power of Family Rituals
One of the practical ways we can build stronger family relationships is through simple, predictable rituals.
These don’t have to be elaborate or Pinterest-worthy.
Sometimes they’re as simple as eating dinner together a few nights each week, reading a bedtime story, saying goodbye with a hug every morning, celebrating birthdays in a special way, attending church together, or taking a yearly family vacation.
These repeated moments quietly communicate something important:
“This is who we are.”
Over time, these ordinary rhythms help children develop a sense of belonging, security, and family identity.
Every Family Can Start Today
One of my favorite things about the idea of intentional family life is that it’s available to everyone.
Whether you’re newly married, raising toddlers, juggling teenagers, parenting alone, part of a blended family, or entering the empty nest years, it’s never too early, or too late, to become more intentional about nurturing your relationships.
None of us will do this perfectly. There will be busy seasons, interruptions, and days when dinner is eaten on-the-go or bedtime routines feel rushed. That’s simply part of real life.
The goal isn’t perfection.
The goal is choosing, again and again, to make room for connection.
Looking Ahead
In future posts, I’d love to explore practical ways we can cultivate an intentional family through everyday rhythms and meaningful traditions. We’ll look at simple connection rituals like family meals, morning and bedtime routines, holidays, family celebrations, date nights, technology boundaries, and other small habits that help strengthen family bonds over time.
Because in the end, it isn’t usually the grand events that shape a family’s story.
It’s the ordinary moments, lovingly repeated, that become the memories our children carry with them for a lifetime!