Does anyone remember the times when nobody got divorced or the times when families stayed in the same house for several generations living all together or the times when even if hard times came nobody left just cause of family? These times still exist here on the island of Crete.
Standart family here usually has at least 3 kids, sometimes more but the number 3 is the most popular. The parents usually try to build a house where each floor is a huge apartment for each child, if the family can not afford to build this type of house so that everyone has an apartment then firsthand daughters get apartments and the youngest. Sons are loved too but they don’t get an apartment as they are supposed to build their own, but daughters get the house and then they make a family of their own. . And even when the house is done there is an apartment also for the parents so they all live in one big house. Don’t get me wrong, this is not discriminating against women, this is how they prefer it. Most girls dream of having a family, having children, taking care of the husband and the house and this is very respectable if a man can support his family so well that the woman can stay with kids and raise them. Of course, the 21st century is coming slowly to Crete as well and this is changing lately as well but there are still so many families that support each other like this and they love it.
Cretan families stay close for life but when something happens in a village then they all come together and become one big family. A couple of years ago, just after the first summer season in the world pandemic, in the village of Malia and some other villages there was a huge flood, it was raining cats and dogs or as we say in Crete it was raining chairs and tables for many many hours, and some people were in danger, some houses were destroyed, some stayed without a road to civilization, some stayed without water, electricity, and heating for many hours and authorities did try to help but there is not much they can do while all this is going on. So this day the whole village came together and became one. Some offered a place to stay for those that had no dry place to sleep, people brought food, blankets, hot tea and men tried to fix that can be fixed to slowly bring the village back to life, they took care even of the street cats that were cold and hungry and so the local people saved each and everyone and day by day they fixed every single house that got destroyed in this tragedy.
Maybe with some things most of us would agree on these days, maybe more independence is good but the value of family that exists here should be spread more around the world so we help each other in difficult times and have some benefit of the doubt that there are still good people out there, cause sometimes it feels like we don’t trust anyone these days cause people are scared of something bad happening to them, so we should learn a little bit from Cretan families.