Neurosurgeon extols role of faith and family in life

“You don’t have to be a brain surgeon to figure that out,” he said.

Dr. Carson was asked about the difficulty of raising three sons at a time when so many of their peers were falling victim to drugs, crimes and other forms of pathological behavior.

“The brain is extraordinary,” he replied. “Young people look for an identity, someone to emulate.” If they don’t find role models in a “loving, caring and intact family,” they look elsewhere for the concern and interest they crave.

“Youths who don’t have a deep sense of who they are and what they can be” are most susceptible to jail, the welfare rolls and failing in school, he said.

“Peer pressure doesn’t have the best interests of the child in mind,” he said, adding that for his sons “it was different in the sense that they got to choose their friends more than I did [because they weren’t] stuck in an inner-city situation, an inner-city school, inner-city gangs. There were associations that were forced upon me.”

The entry into the White House of Mr. Obama, first lady Michelle, daughters Sasha and Malia and “First Granny” Marian Robinson offers new hope and new role models for families everywhere, Dr. Carson said.

He said he is elated to see a first family that reflects God’s design that “families be the social, educational and moral foundations upon which” individuals build their lives and upon which the world is built.

“I am absolutely delighted that a highly functional, intellectual” family is in the White House,” Dr. Carson said. “The Obamas are role models for everyone.”