Healthy families where children grow up feeling loved, learning responsibility, showing respect and giving service are the basis of a healthy society, and mothers undergird the strength of such homes.

That was the message heard by thousands of Utahns gathered in the LDS Conference Center on Saturday for "Standing Together, Standing Strong: An Interfaith Conference on the Family." Sponsored by American Mothers Inc. of Utah, the program featured a keynote address by Father Val J. Peter, executive director of Girls & Boys Town U.S.A.

Using stories from among the 37,000 emotionally bereft children his organization houses each year, Father Peter said he works daily with those who have fallen victim to a culture where individual wants and needs trump family responsibilities.

He said there are two kinds of people in the world: individual people who believe the center of all human existence is the needs and wants of the individual, and family people, whose moral mandate is to live for others in the family.

The latter keep society healthy because for them, true fulfillment "isn't self-fulfillment. It's a happy family life." They see the enemy of true fulfillment as "anything that will destroy family life," while people focused merely on the individual "will chase their tails around and around like a dog" and fail to find anything that fulfills them.

The world's most important work — that of raising healthy children — is best done by "small people" in family-centered homes because celebrities and "important people" are too busy with their eyes on other priorities, he said.

President Thomas S. Monson, first counselor in the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said there are three hallmarks of a happy family: those who take time to pray; who step up to serve; and who reach out to rescue.

He said there seems to be the beginning of a movement in modern society "of a return to basic virtues and an appreciation of traditional families. Just maybe the world is sick of sin, discouraged by degradation and fed up with falsehoods."

The traditional family is "the only institution upon which it is practical to build for the future" and must continue "to hold its pre-eminent place in our way of life," he said.

Former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Steve Young spoke of his recent realization of the importance of families who love for their children and teach them values. When the first of his two sons was born in December 2000, he realized "a love beyond all that I had known was possible."