The first thing I noticed in Urbino is how family oriented the town really was. The day I walked around the market I saw families shopping together. I also saw families working together. They help each other out at their restaurants and their own stores. I saw a boy helping his mother carry a box at the local market on Saturday. Most families in the U.S aren’t like that. My family and I never eat together. In America, family doesn’t always come first. Our jobs come first and families aren’t always together. I think that if more people in the U.S paid attention to different cultures, they would learn something from them For example, if an American Catholic family went to an Italian Catholic church, they might see some of the differences in the Church rather than simply going to their usual church. If the United States was more family oriented, then people would learn from different cultures and have a perspective on how other people spend time with their families. If people in the United States took the time with their families, I think that there would be less divorce and fewer problems with families in general. People in Urbino take time to value what a family really is and how to spend time together. If a lot of people can gain knowledge of how other countries and cultures operate, I believe that it would teach them to have more understanding of the world itself, and how other people go about spending time with their families. I doubt my family would have problems if we sat down together and talked, instead of ignoring each other, or not eating dinner together. If my family spent time together, we’d still be a family.


I agree that U.S. families overall can learn a great deal from observing the benefits of family ties [though remember that the fastest growing segment of the U.S. population is Hispanic, another culture with very strong family values].