Family and importance

How come everybody, from mafiosos to celebrities, say “there’s nothing more important than family”?

 For one thing, of course there is. If you are successfully working on a cure for cancer, say, is that not more important than whether you show up to your son’s softball game every time?

 T Pratchett said it slightly inelegantly: “Personal is not the same as important.”

 Or, emotional importance is not the same as rational importance.

 For another thing, family ties is the one thing built into us. If those have been superseded, I doubt that somebody saying that family is important will change very much.