Family or friends - which are more important ? (CAE)

Family or friends - which are more important ? Everybody, undoubtedly, will say: family, because it is said that our family is closer to us than our friends. But is it always like that ?
In the first place, I must admit that it is a very individual issue. Everyone is different and has diverse opinions on that. We become part of our family when we born. We don't have any chance to change our family for another - our childhood parents are the most important to us and we spend a lot of time with them. They provide us with security and education.
However, everything changes when we grow up and become teenagers. We make new friends, start to spend more and more time with them. Why does this happen ? Mostly teenagers (youngsters) are in the same age and have similar or even the same problems as each other. Moreover, we find it easier to communicate with our friends than with our parents, but it doesn't mean that the family can't understand us.
To sum up, if we have problems we can talk about them with both, friends and family. We shouldn't choose which is more important for us, because it'd be unfair to family and friends. We need them both in different situations.