To satisty our "want to be better" requires us to recongize that the definition of family has evolved and today include not only one's personal perception of family, but the acceptance that an array of individuals can create a family.
It also requires today's culture to recognize that the structure of family has expanded to include not only the accepted nuclear family, but other culturally created families, such as same-sex families, single families, or multigenerational families.
Of greater importance is the understanding that the function of family has remain relatively stable throughout the history of the United States.
Familial functions of protection, procreation and socialization, and creating relationships and affection have been the "glue" that has held many family units together during historically hard times in the history of the U.S.
The same familial functions continue to bring and keep contemporary family units together.
Recognizing that this new family created by today's culture is complex and tangled yet, still provides the same functions as did the family at the beginning of U.S. history, may allow for the acceptance of a new kind of family and its members.
People committed to each other for the betterment of all - a newer definitiion of family.