OPINION:
The recently passed Fourth of July was supposed to be a joyous celebration of America’s 250th anniversary — but the glee turned to chaos in Newport Beach, California, where mobs of youthful revelers looted rather than saluted.
Such scenes have become all too familiar. Skyborne video caught young men and women surging by the hundreds along the beach and boardwalk, while other young people stormed a grocery store and emerged with armloads of stolen goods.
This is the look of a civilization in decline, brought on by the destruction of society’s quintessential foundation: the family.
Restoring the loving two-parent home that equips the next generation with goodwill is the only reasonable pathway back from a culture spoiled by malcontented young masses driven to vent their misery upon others.
The source of such deeply anti-social conduct is worth pondering. In his seminal study of human nature, “Civilization and Its Discontents,” psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud contended that human beings are compelled by the need for gratification. It is the task of society, he maintained, to impose controls that repress the instinct to indulge.
Destructive impulses that the early 20th-century Freudian theory was meant to explain have an associated component not to be overlooked in these modern times: the collapse of the family as society’s principal unit.
The conservative Heritage Foundation spotlights the troubling trend in its recent report “Saving America by Saving the Family: A Foundation for the Next 250 Years”: “The percentage of married adults in this country has been on a steady decline since the 1960s and a third of young Americans are expected never to marry.”
Spurning marriage, the biblically ordained bond between man and woman, has consequences, none more harmful than those visited upon children. “Today, the national nonmarital rate is 40 percent,” reads the study, “and one-quarter of American children live with a single parent — the highest rate in the world.”
For Black children, the single-parentage rate is more than double. These are, simply put, damning statistics.
Sadly, a sizable portion of U.S. children spend their formative years in broken homes bereft of a mother and father giving them unconditional love and teaching respectful interaction with others.
Is it any wonder that so many of today’s youths regard their fellow souls with a heartless eye?
Law enforcement’s methods of repressing the Freudian instinct for gratification have proved no match for the hypnotic influence of social media mischief, which feeds the appetite of the nation’s youth for malevolent behavior. It is a form of learning by example — bad example.
Trendlines in modern mental therapy also prove ineffective. A recent Wall Street Journal article articulated a growing practice among therapists: urging patients to respond to troubled relationships with parents, siblings and other family members by cutting off all contact with them in the name of “self-care.”
The oft-cited adage, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” does not apply only to historical figures.
Government has also proved helpless. For generations, policymakers have attempted to replace marriage with money, rewarding single parents who shun work with cash, food and housing. Accordingly, expansion of the welfare state has saddled American taxpayers with heavy debt, now more than $300,000 per household, according to PrimeRates.com.
Child rearing has become a risky proposition — for even two-parent, double-income families — in a nation with a perilous financial outlook.
There are no simple solutions to the scourge of family breakdown. The Heritage Foundation, for one, advances several proposals to help lift off the financial burdens that hinder the flourishing of American families.
Among the ideas proffered are supplementing recently approved Trump Accounts — $1,000 federal seed contributions for newborns, invested in index funds and available at age 18 for education, a first home or retirement — with an additional $2,500 Newlywed Early Starters Trust for young couples. Another is a revision to the tax law that allows new parents to claim the existing adoption tax credit for their own newborns.
More fundamental than the government’s role in supporting financial prosperity, though, is the critical parental role in nurturing a child’s sense of self-worth. There is no substitute for a parent’s assurance that the countenance a child gathers from the morning mirror reflects the omnipotent Creator’s magnificent handiwork.
Thus reassured, there would be little cause for America’s youths to surge into the streets, seeking a brutish outlet for their malcontent.
• Frank Perley is a former senior editor and editorial writer for Opinion at The Washington Times.
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