ABSTRACT
We understand family to be something that develops in time, that it begins with the arrival of children and ends with their departure. Marriage by itself is not sufficient to constitute family, for only children can make a family.When children leave home we say that the family has left.Yet children remain a symbolic presence even in their physical absence.Their birthdays and anniversaries are remembered and celebrated.Their rooms are kept as they were, the refrigerator remains stocked with their favorite foods, attics are crammed with their toys and schoolbooks and albums full of their pictures.The memory of children haunts the modern home, but it would seem that the earliest memories are the most appealing. Now that foetal images of the ‘unborn child’ are available, they have become the most precious of all.
