Families tend to stimulate the egocentric aspects of their members, to foster self-fulfillment, to exalt self-centeredness and to impose ties of mutual obligation, especially among parents and children, often in a disguised manner. Because of this, families frequently curb the freedom that their members need in order to follow their destined paths. 

Ideally, the family institution should carry out the role of the first teacher, preparing the incarnating beings to discover their own inner guidance and to recognize the part that they are to play in the progress of the world. However, the family is generally incapable of fulfilling this role and incarnating beings find more hindrance than help in their quest for universal realities within the realms of the family's affection and spirituality. Currently, institutions such as the family, religion and the state, which were created to assist inexperienced souls, are disintegrating. Deprived of this backing, one has to rely on an earnest desire to attain spiritual life so as to be able to follow the quest on one's own and with minimal support. 

The family, as an institution, carries a heavy karma. This karma is difficult to resolve while family members remain tied to levels of affinity or rejection that cause various problems in their interrelationships. Moreover, for many, the family group as a social unit has lost its meaning. 

However, great and radical transformations await us. The present seemingly hopeless situation will be changed. The new form of relationship that is emerging will be based on interaction among souls and no longer on purely human affinity or rejection. In the forthcoming world cycle other significant changes will also occur in the very constitution of the human being.

“Beyond Karma” -  Trigueirinho. Irdin Editora, p. 41 (English edition)