Enough with the doom and gloom. Markets have cycles, which can be hard to predict. It is way too common after a bear cycle for everyone to be full of doom and gloom, "I'm 100% cash", all of that. Then in times like 1999 everybody is falling over themselves to find more money to invest and making plans for what their 600% per year returns are going to do for them in 10 years, since after all this is the "new normal" with the Internet Economy (or whatever rationale they invent). At some point I think it's wise to realize that when everybody is predicting doomsday, it might just be the best time to invest.
My return on investments is very small over the last few years. But I'm 40 years old and have been investing since 21. I've seen several of the up and down cycles now, and I think living through them gives some perspective. Since 1992 my returns are 11.6%, with all the ups and downs in between. Will next year be up or down? I don't know, I'm betting on up right now, I think the S&P 500 will hit the 1500s within a year. But that's just my view, and I don't know that it matters. I don't think it'll go straight up forever, we will have a bear cycle again, and maybe soon after. But if you're able to stick it out for the long term with investing, I sincerely believe the historical trend will continue.
In the OP's case however, I'm not sure I'd be advising stock investing because it sounds like your family may not be willing to ride out the down cycles. Sure education would be great but not everyone can be convinced if they already have strong negative opinions about stocks. You'll never get the long term historical returns if that's the case, because *when* the bad times come you will pull your money out, and not put it back in until prices are high again--ruining your long term returns. If that's on target, I'd say either choose more stable investments with less ups and down, accepting a smaller return in exchange for the reduced volatility, or go into real estate (learning from your mistakes) if they are more willing to stick with that over a longer term. If you look into asset allocation I believe you can craft a portfolio that is virtually guaranteed (based on past history) not to lose money over a 5-10 year time period, if you're willing to reduce your return by a significant amount.