Playing Political Football With The Family

So many things, too many things these days have become
politicized in the ongoing and escalating political war
over what direction our country should take in establishing
and maintaining a manner of governance. Thus it should
come as no surprise that the family, the bedrock of
American life and society, is now considered to be fair
game for the politicizers, especially those on the Left.
A new poll shows that a paltry 33% of liberals "agree
that marriage is needed to create strong families,"
according to the Institute for Family Studies.
The numbers, by the way, for conservatives are 80%
in agreement and 55% of moderates.

Here, the conservatives hit the bullseye. Children get both
emotional and material security, and indeed a loving
household with a mother who shows lots of sensitivity and
empathy and a father who is engaged and protective.
Now, children who are raised by same-sex parents, or by a
single mother or by other nontraditional arrangements
can be emotionally healthy and well adjusted. That being
said, children need a balance of secure attachment and
healthy separation, which the two-parent family model
certainly provides. Mothers are best at nurturing, while
fathers instruct their children to control their aggression
and become independent, learning to assume responsibility
for their words and actions.

Children of single parents, because of the family makeup
and environment in which they were raised, miss out
on being able to observe a loving relationship between two
adults, and this can pose difficulties for them when they
grow up and form relationships which could lead to starting
families. Adults, especially in families, are models which
the children emulate, as they are the children's immediate
point of reference.

Traditional family structures have made possible a division
of labor in which the father is the breadwinner and the mother
is the caretaker for the children. This setup has become more
challenging for such families, especially in challenging
financial times, i.e a recession, but single parents have it
even harder. They are more likely to experience poverty
and the children are more likely to have emotional and
behavioral problems which can disrupt their education
(dropping out of school) and therefore not getting the basis
for a profitable career, making them more susceptible to
longer-lasting poverty, which could last them the rest of their
lives. Some of them even get involved in criminal activity.

The liberals' denial of some family structures being less than
ideal has lead to government policies which have made for
more nontraditional-model families and less of the traditional
-model ones, with all the attendant troubles in the former,
including more dependence upon the government for basic
needs and subsistence. Perhaps now is the best time to
re-channel governmental efforts toward encouraging the
formation and maintenance of the traditional family
structure for single parent families. These families will
benefit by having more stability and more wherewithal
to meet their needs, and taxpayers will have a consider-
ably reduced burden. The only ones who will not be
among the winners in this scenario will be the so-called
anti-poverty advocates who try to get as many impoverished
families as possible onto the welfare rolls and think that is
all that is needed to help them. Such help these families
can do without, the taxpayers can certainly do without
the onerous tax burden, and we all can do without the social
burdens which accompany the present arrangement.


MEM