As the family goes, so goes America

OPINION:

The late James Q. Wilson, former professor of government at Harvard University, once said, “It is not money, but the family that is the foundation of public life. As it has become weaker, every structure built upon that foundation has become weaker.”

Peter H. Schuck, professor emeritus at Yale Law School, adds, “the family is the essential core of any society, and the steady decline of two-parent households is probably the single most consequential social trend of the half-century.”

These words crossed my mind the other day as I was reading some rather sobering statistics on the state of the American family and the resulting cultural chaos in which we presently find ourselves as a nation.

Forty-three percent of all children are now born into unmarried households. Despite an increase in our national population, 220,000 fewer people have gotten married than a decade ago. And 20 million children now live in single-parent homes, which often means they will experience childhood poverty and other forms of turmoil that will affect them the rest of their lives.

The result is what Robert Rector of The Heritage Foundation has described as a “caste society.” Children who grow up in stable homes with two parents end up with all the resulting advantages — a good education and a solid economic base to launch from as they enter adulthood. In contrast, there is a bottom half raised by single parents who either have a high school degree or less, and thus too often have the door of opportunity closed to them.

Sadly, this is a trend that we have seen being played out for several decades. Currently, on an almost daily basis, we have been bombarded with stories about inequality and the lack of opportunity for certain members of our society. But this is not new news. While all should have equal opportunity to succeed, the breakdown of the family has resulted in a society that has made it nearly impossible for a sizable portion of our populace to do so. And it has been particularly acute for poor children, many who have never known what an intact family is like. That is the true cause of inequality, and one that did not happen overnight.

In my book, “American Restoration,” I looked at numerous factors that have led to the decline of marriage in America — and the resulting decrease in social capital. Sen. Daniel Moynihan, a classical liberal of the FDR/Truman/JFK brand, had come to the same conclusion as Professor Wilson — that all the government money in the world will not eliminate our nation’s ills, and in fact often exacerbates them.

Moynihan, while an advocate of big government solutions, knew that government money and programs could not save a marriage, tuck a child into bed at night or heal a broken family. He also knew that the more marriages failed, resulting in more broken families and poverty, the more likely such despair put our culture into a death spiral. Other important sociologists, left and right, have come to the same conclusions.

So if the solution is not more money or programs flowing from Washington, what is it? As Professor Wilson explained, America’s marriage crisis would not be solved “from the top down” but be solved “from the bottom up by personal decisions.”

Those decisions are things like waiting until marriage to have children, making marriages a priority so husbands and wives do not drift apart, and as a society, elevating rather than denigrating the natural family.

It is important to acknowledge that not all is rosy in intact homes either. The foundations of marriage continue to weaken as couples grow apart and place other priorities — whether it be work, friends or finances — ahead of the necessary romantic spark needed to keep their relationships flourishing and healthy.

While they may be physically together, there is often an emotional chasm that has turned them into roommates. Love seems to have evaporated. This has a calculable impact. When children see parents who show love for each other, it gives them an added layer of security and guidance as to how to act in their own, future relationships. When they see emotionally detached and glacial parents, they are not drawn to seeing marriage as the “ideal.” Instead, it comes across as not much more than a business agreement and not something necessarily to aspire to.

That is why it is critically important that we as a nation renew and restore our appreciation for our marriages, for parenting and for personal responsibility. The restoration of virtue, along with strong families, will slowly start to turn our nation away from the cultural abyss we are presently facing. It is strong families that will make a strong nation, providing genuine equal opportunity for all.

• Timothy S. Goeglein is the vice president for government and external relations at Focus on the Family in Washington, D.C.