"Dad, what is meant by 'a family'?
Is it you and Mom, the others and me?"
"No son, it's more, much more than that.
It's little Sue's curls, and Mother 's new hat;
Jackie's face when she learns she is able
To help your mother in setting the table.
Your first little drawings that we store away
To cherish and gaze at some future day;
Your mother's lost look on your first day of school;
Learning to live by the 'Golden Rule.'
It's fireside stories on many a night,
The feeling we have that everything's right;
The trials and errors, the laughter and tears
That touch on us all, down through the years.
It's all of these things, it seems to me,
Which, my son, make a family."

Paula S. Dickinson

Found at "Aspring to Greatness"