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Re-valu-ing
the Family, Part Twenty-five: The Eyre's Wish List on How Society
Could Help the Family
by
Richard and Linda Eyre
(www.valuesparenting.com)
Note: In this
twenty-six part column, Richard and Linda Eyre explore the recent
revolution of the family from the honored centerpiece of society
to a disrespected and seemingly redundant appendage to the larger
corporate and cultural institutions of our new world. Re-valu-ing
the family, the Eyres believe, is the only alternative to America's
demise. The sequence of the column is: A. Re-valu-ing the family
(part I); B. sThe "crux" (parts 2 and 3 -- why family is the foundation
for everything, including happiness); C. The "curse" (parts 4 and
5 -- the social problems that plague our society today); D. The
"crisis" (parts 6 and 7 -- the breakdown and breakup of families
that allows and leads to the social problems); E. The "cause" (parts
8, 9, 10, 11 -- the reasons our families are failing); F. The "culprits"
(parts 12, 13, 14, and 15-- how our new, large institutions are
destroying the small, most basic institution of family); G. The
"cure" (parts 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 and 22 -- what you as a parent
can do about it); H. The "case" (parts 23, 24, and 25 -- a case
for government and big corporations to pay more positive attention),
and I. Finding or forming a family support group (part 26).
This
week, in part 25, we will conclude our thoughts on what several
additional public and private institutions should be doing to strengthen
and preserve families.
Part
25
Family
Supportive Recommendations for Information and Communication Institutions
The much-heralded
information age in which we live gives us access to virtually everything. Unfortunately,
there seems to be more access to the sensational and the
seamy than to the deeper values and virtues of life. There
seems to be no end to the filth, violence, and anti-value attitudes
that flow through our phone lines and on to our monitors or into
our eyes and ears from the Internet or from a 900 number.
With these
institutions, it's hard even to know who to direct our parents'
appeal to. There is no C.E.O. of the Internet. Unlike
media, merchandising, or financial institutions there is no centralized,
small number of people who make the decisions about the messages
that will be sent out. Everyone can put something on
the Internet, and it seems like everyone does! We can
throw out a general appeal about how vulnerable our children are
and how dangerous these messages can be -- but not many of those
whose preoccupation is violence and raw, random sex are going to
listen.
Thus we have
a classic situation where government is needed to protect people
from other people. The Internet and 900 numbers should
be regulated and restricted at least to the same degree that network
television is.
The three standard
arguments against such regulation are: 1. Freedom of
expression, 2. People choose to pay for and receive the Internet
so they should be able to get what they want, 3. You can't regulate
something that has so many diverse suppliers. The
arguments are all weak. Freedom of expression always stops when
it endangers others. We don't have the freedom to yell
"Fire" in a crowded theater. Lots of things we pay for,
from magazines to movies to the mail, are regulated if children
could have easy access to them. And despite how many
providers or suppliers there are of various types of filth, the
beauty of the information age is that we know exactly where to find
them. If fines and criminal penalties were stiff enough,
most of the worst material could be eliminated over a fairly short
time frame.
6. Family
Supportive Suggestions for Political/Governmental Institutions
Government
on all levels needs to reprioritize and reorient itself to the service,
protection, maintenance, and motivation of society's basic building
block of family. As always, there are two sides to this
coin:
1. Reviewing
and eliminating policies that harm, undermine, or weaken parents
and families.
2. Creating
policies, incentives, and options that protect, encourage, and
strengthen families.
Some specifics
for each:
Reversing Family
Unfriendly Policy
1. Eliminate
the "marriage tax" so two married people never pay more tax than
those same two people as single individuals.
2. Get
rid of no-fault divorce and other divorce laws that favor the
convenience of the spouse rather than the welfare of the child.
3. Roll
back any law that limits parental input and responsibility regarding
educational choices for their children.
Creating
Family-Friendly Policy
Short term:
1. Return
child deductions on income tax to their 1950s levels (over $4,000.00
per child in today's dollars).
2. Create
and improve school/college IRA's and other deductions that allow
families to pay for college with pre-tax dollars.
3. Regulate
the Internet.
Long term (dramatic,
perhaps impossible, real solutions):
1. Give
parents one additional vote (in local and national elections)
for each of their under-eighteen children. This kind of parental
power at the ballot box would cause politicians to pander to families
like never before and no doubt unleash a stunning list of creative,
family friendly ideas and proposals.
2. Eliminate
all federal and state income taxes, substituting value added sales
taxes on everything but food. This would reward saving
and work, strengthening society and rewarding families for the
very prudence and industry that could strengthen the overall economy. It
would also eliminate the enormous I.R.S. and state income tax
bureaucracies and re-focus a huge section of the legal establishment.
7. Family
Supportive Suggestions for Educational Institutions
We live in
a society that requires licensing or training or registration for
almost every conceivable activity. We even need a license
to fish. Yet anyone -- with no license, no training,
and all too often no sense of responsibility, can assume the most
critical and important role that exists in society -- that of a
parent. Our schools are probably the only institution
close enough and influential enough to collectively wake kids up
to the responsibility and importance of parenting. Yet
our schools, have done very little to help young people appreciate
and be prepared for the role of parents, and they do much that is
negative and counterproductive to sexual responsibility and commitment.
The most sweeping
and positive thing all public and private elementary and secondary
teachers could do is to see themselves as the closest,
most accessible and important backups, safety nets, and teammates
to parents (not as substitutes, or surrogates,
but as supplements and supports). When
schools and teachers think of their role and their job
as one of helping parents raise responsible and educated
children, schools become better, parents become better, and most
importantly, children become both better and happier. Here's
what schools should strive harder to do for parents and for kids:
For Parents:
1. Offer
evening or weekend classes on parenting and specifically on how
to help a child succeed academically.
2. Put on
more family functions where kids come to school with parents --
from the traditional sports, plays, and social events to creative
academic and community events and from read-a-thons and back-to-school
nights to service projects. Offer special family prices
to every school function which has an admittance charge.
3. Improve
parent-teacher conferences and schedule options where parents
can come in with their child to work out a teamwork approach to
learning.
For Children
1. Have a
mandatory course on ethics and values in the seventh grade. Plenty
of good curriculums and programs exist. Rotate
the teaching (a math teacher teaches it one semester, a history
teaching the next) thus "outreaching" and "transplanting" values
into the texture and content of other classes.
2. Have a
required class on parenting and family responsibility for all
high school juniors. Teach marriage and parenting skills,
but also teach family and relationship priorities.
3. Incorporate
personal and family responsibility into all sex education classes.
Reorient the curriculum so there are classes about what families
are and that they should be and about the importance of commitment
and responsibility. Within this framework, sex education,
human intimacy, and reproductive facts take on a whole new and
more positive slant. Involve the parents who
are willing to become will get involved . . . and at least inform
the rest.
8. Family
Supportive Suggestions for Courts and Legal Institutions
We're dealing
with two related but separate institutions here: First, the court
system of America and its judicial process which has increasingly
and progressively interpreted laws with overemphasis on individual
autonomy at the expense of what is best for families and parents;
and second, the institution of private law firms and attorneys which
has made divorce, separation, and litigation too prominent on the
family landscape.
Judges and
their courts need to:
1. Re-enshrine
the family and reflect (in their opinions) interpretations of
laws that respect the responsibility and stewardship of parents.
2. Favor
the welfare and well-being of children rather than the convenience
of parents in divorce or other domestic disputes.
3. Strive
for better balance between protecting the rights of individuals
and children and preserving the unity, autonomy, and priority
of families.
With regard
to private legal practice, we need to:
1. Close
down a few law schools -- quit producing so many litigators. As
an alternate to less law schools, just discontinue some of the
divorce law and litigation courses and substitute more instruction
on arbitration mediation, and alternative conflict resolution.
2. Do all
we can to persuade the legal establishment that remains that their
job is to save families, not pull them apart. Focus
more on win-win arbitration and less on win-lose (or lose-lose)
litigation, and always view divorce as a last resort.
9. Family
Supportive Suggestions for Recreation and Social/Cultural Institutions
Recreation
and social life used to not only revolve around the family --it
used to occur primarily within the immediate and extended family. Today
enormous recreational and social/cultural institutions consume and
suck away what used to be family time and fracture the family through
different interests and options which take family members in different
directions.
Play, diversion,
and social and cultural activities -- the very things that should
bring families together and add richness and diversity to family
life, have begun to do the opposite.
Once again,
a new mind set by those who manage and run the institutionalized
recreation and cultural establishments could make a positive and
powerful difference to families. Directions that ought to receive
consideration:
1. Stop scheduling
everything on Sunday. Sundays are still the best chance
for most families to be at home (or at church) together. With
everything from soccer games to kids' recitals spilling into Sunday,
private family time is even more scarce.
We lived
in England for four years in the '70s and '80s. In that
era, everything was closed on Sundays. No stores were open -- except
the occasional emergency pharmacy, and no sporting or musical events
occurred. Even the British Open golf tournament and Wimbledon
had their finals on Saturday and had no play on Sunday. It
had a remarkable effort on our family. Our only option
was to do family things together. We went on long walks, played
family games, went to church together. Sundays became
a true and refreshing change of pace -- something we have never
been able to duplicate here at home in the U. S.
2. Give "real
deals" to families who come together. If more spectator
events -- from high school sports to movies -- offered family
passes or major discounts for family groups, it would increase
ticket sales even as it brought more families together.
3. Encourage
volunteering -- especially family volunteering. There
is nothing quite like volunteering as a family. Working together
in a good cause, whether it's serving food at a homeless shelter
or cleaning up a park or roadway, really brings parents and children
together. Voluntary agencies and community service
organizations should aim more of their outreach and recruiting
at families and create projects where parents and children can
volunteer together.
One of
our daughters has recently been working for Family Matters,
the family volunteering arm of The Points of Light Foundation
in Washington, D.C. Their effort is to reach
out and encourage families to sign up for volunteer projects together
so they can combine family time and parent-child communication opportunities
with the community service they render.
Parents
who have become involved indicate that in addition to the satisfaction
of service and the quality family time, they have had amazing opportunities
to teach values like empathy, love, and self-reliance to their children.
4. Create
recreational options that revolve around family and the parent-child
relationship. Instead of camps, sports leagues, church
outings, and music retreats that take kids away from parents,
organizers should try to come up with occasional alternatives
that let parent and child attend and participate together.
10. Family
Supportive Recommendations for Religious Institutions (and psychological,
self-help, and counseling sectors.
Historically,
it is religion that people have looked to for help with their families
as well as their spiritual well-being and their outlooks and philosophies
of life. During the last several decades self-help, psychiatry,
and other secular counseling have become important factors as well.
The question
is, are either doing their job? Are they working? Are
they (religious and counseling institutions) playing as strong and
prominent a role a they should in saving, safeguarding, and stabilizing
families? Or, are some of these elements of these institutions
working against families by stressing and glamorizing individual
freedom and autonomy at the expense of family connections, responsibilities,
interdependencies and commitments?
We hear far
too little of churches speaking out strongly against anti-family
messages, models, and media. We see divorce becoming
easier and more acceptable in faith communities. We see all sorts
of affairs, amorality and alternative life styles being tolerated
if not sanctioned by religions. It seems that many of
our religious institutions have become so anxious to attract and
recruit parishioners and so over-committed to tolerance
that they no longer try very hard to make it clear what is right
and what is wrong -- both in the eyes of God and in terms of what
is good and bad for the family. We are forgetting the
wisdom and insight expressed by G.K. Chesterton who said, "Tolerance
is the favorite virtue of those who don't believe in anything."
Counseling and self-help entities, on the other hand, are more and
more involved and prominent in "fixing what ails us." Yet
so often what they offer is a "quick fix" that essentially sets
us up for a fall.
Essentially,
our churches, synagogues, mosques, and other religious institutions
have to step up and be stronger and bolder in their advocacy
of the family and in training, assisting, and helping parents. At
the very least, churches should:
1. Formally
and emphatically make recommitments to the sanctity and pivotal
importance of the family, reminding all that family priority and
mutual fidelity lie at the heart of God's teaching.
2. Establish
more extensive programs for parenting education, for teaching
family communication and for providing spiritually based marriage
and family counseling.
3. Speak
out more strongly and vigorously against early casual, recreational
sex (scripturally "fornication") and marital infidelity (scripturally
"adultery"). Talk more openly about the devastation
sexual irresponsibility brings to families.
By the same
token, secular counselors, authors, and analysts need to understand
that individual "solutions" without some connection or acknowledgment
of family are doomed to failure over the long term.
Too much is
being written (and spoken) about avoiding co-dependency, developing
self-confidence, and building wealth . . . and too little is being
written and said about building positive family interdependency,
developing empathy and faith, and building strong families. Writers,
therapists, and "gurus" of all kinds should:
1. Ponder
the long-term and the ultimate importance of family relationships
to be sure their recommended "quick fixes" don't work at odds
with what really matters.
2. Examine
their own motives to be certain what they are preaching and recommending
stems from their genuine belief in what is best for people over
their whole lives and not from their own desire for short-term
profit and popularity.
Next
week: In our concluding column we will summarize our "case" against
the broader society and suggest what you can to do bolster your
family right now!
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© 2001 Meridian
Magazine. All Rights Reserved.
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