A little less than a year ago, a group calling itself “The Commission on Children at Risk” presented an excellent work entitled, Hardwired to Connect, The New Scientific Case for Authoritative Communities.  The group is composed of 33 children’s doctors, research scientists, and mental health and youth service professionals.  The work was published jointly by the YMCA of the United States of America, Dartmouth Medical School, and the Institute for American Values.  While its findings have profound implications for virtually every area of human existence, I would like to use them as a backdrop for my comments relating to the role of the family in contributing to economic growth. 

The report provides empirical evidence that humans are genetically and hormonally driven to connect to other people and to moral meaning.  I emphasize that this is “not merely the result of social conditioning, but is instead an intrinsic aspect of the human experience.” [1]   The report suggests that this need is best met through what the commission calls “authoritative communities.”

These are authoritative social institutions that include children and youth and treat them as ends in themselves, that are warm and nurturing, establish clear limits and expectations, that are multi-generational and have a long-term focus, that transmit a shared understanding of what it means to be a good person, that encourage spiritual and religious development, that teach love of neighbor, and are institutions where the core work is done by non-specialists. [2]

It is worth noting that the commission considers the family as “arguably the first and most basic association of civil society, and a centrally important example of what should be an authoritative community.” [3]  

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With that definition, the commission presents ten planks of the new scientific case for authoritative communities.  I will not identify them all here, but want to mention five that I consider to be relevant to my topic.  You won’t need to remember them specifically, but a general sense of what they convey will be helpful.

1.  Nurturing or non-nurturing environments affect gene transcription and the development of brain circuitry.  When children are held and loved, they become predisposed at cellular level to pass on good nurturing and physiological resilience to the next generation.  In other words, generations can be affected by the nurturing that does or does not occur within a home. [4]  

2.  Social contexts can alter genetic expression.  Both “nature” and “nurture” are important.  Positive social environments can reduce genetically based risks and even help to raise intelligence. [5]  

3.  Assigning meaning to gender in childhood and adolescence is a human universal that influences well-being.  Some gender role behavior differences are biologically primed and established prenatally.  By the age of 18 to 24 months, children show a deep, vital need to understand and make sense of the same-sex-as-me and the opposite-sex-from-me.  Gender identity is much deeper than a mere “set of traits” and runs to the very core of human identity.  [Children need to see these things in terms that are black and white, not shades of gray.]  Not to recognize real differences between males and females can have dangerous consequences.  For example, the capacity for pregnancy in adolescent girls places them at special risk for lower education and higher poverty.  The aggressive behavior of adolescent boys places them at increased risk for being perpetrators and victims of homicide, suicide, or injuries. [6]  

4.  A child’s quest for parental approval is the foundation for the emergence of conscience as children learn that certain behaviors are prohibited, permitted, or encouraged.  In fact, our sense of right and wrong originates from a biologically primed need to connect with others. [7]  

5.  And finally, forming a moral identity is an on-going process that becomes increasingly complex as a child matures through childhood and adolescence.  It is a process that cannot be left on autopilot.  For children, connectedness to adults is a protective factor that helps guide them through difficult times and circumstances. [8]  

There is no magic in any of this.  It is foundational.  Families make a difference in providing healthy, stable, connected, contributing individuals who improve all aspects of society, including economic activities.  And beyond the general benefit of healthy individuals, we can also look to the benefits of specific skills children learn in families that are transferable to the economic community. 

Getting Personal

Now with these general ideas in mind, let me share some experiences from my life that I hope will prompt you to remember similar circumstances in your lives and consider how family life contributes to productivity.  I do so realizing that it is always ¨risky¨ to use personal examples because of their imperfection and perceived lack of professionalism.

My mother had a college degree, was an accomplished violinist, and was teaching elementary school when she married my dad.  She left teaching in the school system and began teaching in her home as a stay-at-home-mom, her highest aspiration.  Because of circumstances within the family of his youth, my father became a principal breadwinner at a very young age. 

Notwithstanding this significant responsibility, he was determined to get a college education, which he did with my mother’s support.  Once he received his undergraduate degree, he entered law school and passed the state bar exam a year prior to graduation from law school.  When he graduated the following year, he concluded that rather than pursue the practice of law he would pursue entrepreneurial activities, thus allowing him to include his children more closely in his work.  Do you think family life can influence attitudes of children toward the importance of education and its relationship to family?

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At a very early age I was taught the value of work.  The day would begin early in our home, usually before sunrise.  Although very young, there were household chores Mother assigned me to do, consistent with my age and capacity.  I would sweep, clean, fold, carryout, and mow.  My brothers and sisters also participated in these and other activities on the basis of their age and capacity.  Although we lived in the city, we had a small farm a couple of miles from our home where we had cows to milk every morning and every night, other livestock to tend, and where we occasionally grew various crops like alfalfa and cotton. 

When I began to have interest in sports, Dad thought it would help my physical conditioning if rather than riding with him in the pickup out to milk and do the chores I would run to the farm.  He would meet me there and I would milk the cows and then run back home.  He would take the milk back home where my mother and sisters would prepare it for family use.

Part of Dad’s business activities included construction work where we would labor from early in the morning until late into the evening.  While my sisters were spared the rigors of this work, they were nonetheless engaged in other activities surrounding the home such as washing and ironing.  It was a joke in our family that we were always happy when “summer vacation” was over because we could finally go back to school and get some rest.  Do you think family life can influence the work ethic of children? 

Important Lesson

I remember many lessons from my father as we worked together.  My father’s idea was that if someone else could do it, so could he…and probably save money in the process.  I also learned an important lesson on the value of using both brain and brawn.  When I was about 12 years old, during the plumbing portion of a construction job, after having dug the trenches in which to lay the pipes, we were connecting the lengths of pipe together.  Dad asked me to get the threads started and he would then use a wrench to tighten the pipes together. 

After getting the treads started, I sat and watched as he tightened.  After only a moment, he looked up at me and asked if I thought he was doing a good enough job.  Puzzled, I said that it looked fine to me.  Since I had not taken the hint, he then directly explained that I had to work with my mind as well as my back, that there was no useful purpose for me watching him tighten the threads, that in just a moment he would complete the task and would be wanting to begin tightening the next length, but because it was not yet prepared, he would have to wait while I did then what I should have been already doing by thinking ahead and preparing the next length to be ready when he was. 

That principle has come to my mind myriad times as I have tried to think what would be the next steps of any given project.  Do you think family life helps build skills that are beneficial in the workplace? 

Missed Date

Another of Dad’s business activities involved petroleum delivery.  Several years later, one Saturday afternoon as we were finishing up work for the week, Dad received word that one of the petroleum accounts about fifty miles away was out of product.  He asked me to load up the truck and make the delivery.  I explained that I had a date that evening with a young woman and that there was not time for me to load the truck, make the delivery, and return in time to make the date.  I further reasoned that it was the customer’s own fault for not keeping better track of the inventory and that a delivery on Monday (we never worked on Sunday because of religious convictions) would work just fine.

My law-trained father found my argument unconvincing and told me to make the delivery.  You might imagine that my attitude was not the best at this point.  Still thinking that if I really hurried I still might be able to make the date, yet with some resentment I loaded the truck and began the journey. 

The narrow, two-lane road that led to the customer’s location bent through some large hills as it wound its way into the mountains.  Because of the Arizona heat and it being the weekend, the road was busy with many people trying to get into the cooler mountains for the weekend.  I pushed the engine to its limit and beyond and began to hear a funny noise in the engine, but ignored it.

I made the delivery and began the return trip, now much lighter and faster.  But the funny noise began to be a much more noticeable knock, knock, knock.  Not wanting to delay my return, I continued to push up a long, arduous incline when all of a sudden there was a loud bang as the engine blew up and started on fire.  Yes.  That’s right.  The gasoline delivery truck was on fire. 

I found the fire extinguisher and with the help of some kind people that stopped, was able to put the fire out.  Those same people then gave me a ride back into town where I got another truck that I used to tow the gasoline truck home.  Needless to say, I didn’t make the date.  The more important lesson was reinforced as my father gave me the opportunity to buy a new engine for the truck.  What do you think family life can teach about responsibility and accountability? 

The stories could go on and on.  Hopefully they have generated some memories of lessons you learned in your youth in your families.  These are the ways families contribute to economic productivity and growth by forming character in individuals and by providing skill sets that are transferable from the family to the economic arena.  As Phillips Brooks said, “Character may be manifested in great moments, but it is made in small ones.” [9]   Those small moments are often found in families. 

I’m not sure what kind of stories my children would tell if they were speaking to you today.  I can say that my wife (also a stay-at-home-mom) and I have worried about whether or not we have imbued our children with the same work ethic that we received from our parents.  Our methods of attempting to do so were both similar to and different from what we experienced in our youth.  Our efforts were centered in home chores and planned weekend work and service projects.  We didn’t have a farm, and my children didn’t work at my side during the summers as much as I did with my father, although they did work elsewhere. 

While I believe we have been moderately successful, my belief is that the full measure of our success, if any, will be found in the work ethic that our children will pass to our grandchildren.  Such is the nature and legacy of families. 

An area of emphasis in my education dealt with leadership.  You may be interested to know that the Indo-European root of the word “lead” is literally, “to go forth, to die.” [10]   In other words, the leader was the guy at the front of the battle who led the charge, and was usually one of the first to be killed.  That’s something to think about the next time you push or are pulled to the front of the line. 

We are accustomed to equating leadership with authority, and yet they are really two separate things that may or may not have appropriate moments of confluence.  In his book Leadership on the Line, Staying Alive through the Dangers of Leading, Ronald A. Heifetz suggests that leadership is more appropriately viewed as an act of intervention by any member of a group that causes the group to face and resolve difficult issues, what he calls “adaptive work.” [11]   I would like to briefly explore this concept as it relates to gender questions that have become so prevalent in issues relating to both families and economics. 

Sally Helgesen wrote a book published in 1990 entitled, The Female Advantage, Women’s Ways of Leadership.  Among other things, Helgesen chronicled the leadership styles and characteristics of several women directing the affairs of several large entities.  She did so against the backdrop of an earlier study by Henry Mintzberg published in 1968 which demonstrated that male managers were focused on the completion of tasks and achievement of goals, rather than on the actual doing of the tasks themselves.  In other words, the work in which they were involved was viewed as a means, not as an end. [12]

Noting gender distinctions, Helgesen found that, in general, men work at an unrelenting pace with no breaks in activity, while women work at a steady pace with small breaks scheduled throughout the day. [13]   Men’s days were characterized by interruption, discontinuity and fragmentation, while women did not view unscheduled tasks and encounters as interruptions. [14]   Men made little time for activities not directly related to their work, but women did. [15]   Men immersed themselves in the day-to-day need to keep the enterprise going while women were more inclined to focus on the ecology of leadership, keeping the long term perspective in constant focus. [16]

Helgesen went on to note that

Increasingly, motherhood is being recognized as an excellent school for managers, demanding many of the same skills:  organization, pacing, the balancing of conflicting claims, teaching, guiding, leading, monitoring, handling disturbances, imparting information….  [And as one female leader put it], “If you can figure out which one gets the gumdrop, the four-year-old or the six-year-old, you can negotiate any contract in the world.” [17]  

A decade later, Deborah L. Rhode of Stanford Law School wrote that

Although recent theories of leadership have stressed the need for interpersonal qualities more commonly associated with women, such as cooperation and collaboration, women aspiring to leadership still face double standards and double binds.  They risk appearing too “soft” or too “strident,” too aggressive or not aggressive enough. [18]  

Rhode went on to note that in order to be successful in the business world, women have found it necessary to “combine masculine and feminine traits.” [19]  

While both men and women, and society generally, derive great benefit from the refinements resulting from meaningful interactions between the two sexes, caution must be given to distinguish this social good from a more nefarious march toward androgyny.  Making masculinity and femininity indistinguishable would cause irreparable harm to human existence.  Our emotional, psychological, and even cognitive capacities are refined, deepened, and enriched most fully by living in long-term, committed, loving relationships with members of the opposite sex. The opposites that enable the development of the deepest, most rewarding human identities are much more than mere personality differences among otherwise similar beings.  These important gender characteristics are especially important to children as they mature and develop their own identities. 

Mother’s Lessons

I related to you certain lessons that I learned while working with my father.  But you would not know the full story if you did not know that it was my mother who, when I was five years old, noticed that I had a new toy from an unknown source and accompanied me back to my kindergarten class to watch as I returned the small wooden train that I had stolen from the play box, making sure that I apologized and asked my teacher to please forgive me.  Nor would the picture be complete unless you could see my mother knelt at the side of my bed and hear her prayer in my behalf as I recovered from illness and injury.  It was my mother who helped me understand that any chore worth doing is worth doing well, and that it doesn’t matter if you don’t like practicing the piano…the practicing must still be done. 

In terms of the things that matter most in our society, which is the greatest act of leadership?…which is the greatest act of intervention?…the man who signs the million dollar contract for another order of goods and services, or the woman who trains a child to be honest and to persevere?  This is the idea behind the axiom:  “The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.” 

Barbara Bush stated in her address to the graduating class of 1990 at Wellesley College, “Your success as a family—our success as a society—depends not on what happens at the White House, but on what happens inside your house.” [20]   George Washington, whom we in the United States refer to as the father of our country, once said, “My mother was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. All I am I owe to my mother. I attribute all my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical education I received from her.” [21]

Society should allow to anyone, male or female, the opportunity to participate in every economic activity according to capacities and desires.  I am simply saying that in terms of real leadership that occasions adaptive change, there is perhaps no greater or influential intervention than that of a mother.  Our world stands in need of such interventions.  And there is no better combination than that of a mother and father jointly and lovingly preparing their children to be active, contributing members of society.  This is the family’s greatest contribution to productivity and economic growth.