It was not a pretty sight, nor one that I will ever forget, but there she stood....my mother, with her "wait till your father gets home" look.

A pane of glass from the front door lay shattered by her foot, the same foot that kicked it in to enter the house.

What began as a mischievous, yet innocent joke to lock our sister out of the house, became a prank gone awry. Both my brother and I stood there, staring into a mean set of maternal eyes which spelled out a wrathful punishment for us.

Don't think for one minute that a warning would dissuade us from plotting further playful atrocities against our sister. We were spiteful brats and saw no civil injustice in the fact that we were two....against one defenseless little girl.

It has been many years since our sinister days and I sometimes think back and laugh about it. But when my sister called me last week, crying about how miserable, lonely, and hopeless she was feeling, I put down everything.

After listening, I gave her some encouraging advice. Half an hour later, when I was somewhat sure that she felt better and wasn't going to do anything irrational, we got off the phone.

That was the first time we actually had a heart-to-heart talk. I smiled. It has taken us a long enough time, but now that we have truly opened up to each other, I think our conversations will be more sincere and extend past simple platitudes. Even more importantly, this talk brought to light the importance of family.

My newfound reliance on family as a stronghold for security and happiness puts me in the minority. Maybe it's just me, but is the idea of the family unit unfashionable nowadays? Do episodes of "The Waltons," where challenging and unresolvable conflicts that are settled through family cooperation and understanding, reveal a certain sappy and long-gone portayal of the household?

Leaving home for college is no longer simply a chance to immerse ourselves in an academic environment and prepare for a career. For many of today's students, attending school is also a desperate flight from the nagging and oppressing scene at home. Most sons and daughters only seek the refuge of their homes in times of necessity.

Unfortunate are those who have little appreciation for how precious it is to have a family.

It is sad to think and even to admit, but today's concept of the family unit is drastically different from that of years ago. The rigorous work habits of the 1990's are shifting attention away from the home and toward individual career goals.

This emphasis on personal achievement is driving family time to the wayside. Rushed and highstrung lifestyles cause infrequent sitdown dinners and few opportunities together, to play cards or just chat.

Granted, the traditional family unit has been affected by both sociological and economic factors. More women pursue careers today and there is often a need for both parents to work to maintain a decent standard of living.

Enforcing this counterargument is also the idea that women nowadays have more social liberty to call it quits than in the past.

But that just underscores the serious nature of matrimony, rather than the cavalier attitude that it is afforded today. Families can adjust, they always have, both financially and emotionally. We are so quick to give up without compromising.

The breakdown of the traditional family is alarming. Cases of divorce in the United States have nearly tripled since the 1960's, increasing from 400,000 to 1,180,000 per year. And unwed mothers, once an exception, are now the norm.

In this toss-and-turn revolution of family structure and ideals, our children suffer tragically in two key ways.

First, poverty rears its ugly head in many broken homes. In America, overlap between the 25 percent of children living in one parent homes and the 20 percent of children living in poverty is no coincidence.

The fact is that while only 7 percent of two-parent families are poor, more than 40 percent of one parent families are poor. And children who are born into poverty-stricken families face a difficult struggle in escaping this black hole of destitution. Opportunities are harder to secure, and societal ills such as drug use and crime, rampant below the poverty line, thwart individual potential.

Second, the lack of attention given to a child's upbringing is sometimes responsible for complicating a child's emotional growth. There certainly are parents who admirably care for the welfare of their children, but without sufficient attention, a child is deprived of this basic necessity.

Children need to be lavished with loving concern from parents. They have to be praised when they bring home a good report card; they have to be admonished when they spit food on the dog.

Children develop ethical values from those who touch their lives daily. To deprive them of guardians, who function as mentors, forces children to find substitute role models, often coming up short. Those children whose role models influence them in a detrimental manner may develop values that are generally undesirable.

There are no easy answers to family disintegration, especially when society's attitude --individualism over family togetherness -- distances itself from a solution. I suggest that we start small. Be nice to your little sister.