Is it time to re-define our priorities?

All you seem to hear in the news is the (still) tanking economy and other public discomforts. It makes me wonder when more people are going to realize that sometimes, simpler is better. The American People as a whole are working themselves to death, just to keep up appearances within a superficial, materialistic society. Families are living together, co-existing, without ever getting to know one another. How are parents supposed to lead by example and instill morals and values into their children, when their children never see them because they are always at work? If society placed a higher value on being at home than traveling, multi-tasking, and spending money, we would have a greener earth, happier families, better LOCAL economies, and have (possibly) poorer, yet much better off and contented, people.

There is nothing better to me than being at home, watching my children grow, learn and play, while my husband works on whatever project he has dreamed up in the back yard. We aren't spending money, we're using hardly any electricity because we are outside in the yard instead of in the living room watching TV (we don't even HAVE TV), and the children are learning that home is a good thing, to be enjoyed every day. Sitting on the front porch in the covered swing with a cold drink on a hot, sunny day, is, to me, better than being in a mall, or a car, or just about anywhere else.