That's a term that everyone interprets their own way, without even realising that they have different values to the person standing next to them; different people's "family values" can conflict in significant and very incompatible ways.
So what are "good old family values"? If your young, unmarried daughter falls pregnant, should you cast her out or should you double-down on helping her? Both of those are good old family values.
In many parts of the world, the answer is that her parents would either simply pick her partner or heavily influence her options. In much of the U.S., that would be unthinkable! How do we reconcile those different family values?
Can we stop trying to go to absurd extremes with everything here?
That's massively different to a lot, a LOT, of other people's family values.
There was a time in the US when a needy person could walk up to nearly any door (except perhaps those of a few known scoundrels) and expect to find a meal, a bed for the night, clothes if needed, breakfast, and (depending on circumstances) some work to do the next day for pay.
The first great awakening had a profound effect on society - sermons preached in the 1700s directly influenced the US founders, belief in God and moral accountability to him became a basic assumption of society.
"Family values" is a term that focuses on where Biblical teachings have the most impact (the family) but it fails to capture the worldview within which such values arise.
Do you have a source on this? Genuinely asking because I’ve never heard of this depiction of early America, but I’m also a layman and not at all educated on American history beyond 101 college. What if you were black or East Asian?
Absurd example? It happens every day. Every day parents cut their children off for falling pregnant in some way that's unapproved, and every day parents support their pregnant-without-permission child.