A recent post on Veritas Rex is headlined “No Choice for Pro-Family Voters.” It was triggered by news of a Stonewall Democrats reception for the Democratic Gubernatorial candidates. It’s understandable—if candidates take money and/or solicit votes from citizens who are gay, they can’t possibly be “pro-family.”
Right.
Odd as it may seem to these exemplars of Godliness, I have always considered myself pretty damn pro-family. (We have five kids! I couldn’t stand being any more pro-family!)
I do have a rather different take on what a real family looks like, but then, I live in the reality-based community, where we’ve noticed that families have changed since the 1960’s.
In 1960, according to the U.S. census, 44.2% of Americans lived in “Ozzie and Harriet” households, defined as a married couple living with their own children under eighteen. (Okay, so maybe mom was hitting the bottle in her suburban kitchen and dad was smacking the kids around when he came home from golfing with his buddies, but in Ozzie and Harriet time we didn’t ask impertinent questions. They were married, the kids were theirs, God was pleased. End of story.)
By 2000, however, only 23.5% of Americans fell into that category, and the folks at places like Veritas Rex who know exactly which families God values are anguishing over what went wrong.
One piece of the puzzle is pretty value-neutral: people got older. The life expectancy and average age of the population has increased, and those kids aren’t under 18 any more. More women are widowed. But there are, of course, many other factors. Growing numbers of married couples decide, for one reason or another, not to procreate. Maybe mom got the hell out of the kitchen, found out she could make a living and didn’t have to stay any longer in a sterile or miserable marriage. Maybe Dad found the courage to come out, and is living happily with his partner in Upper Sandusky.
Now it is certainly true that two-parent families have more money, and more personal resources, and that money and resources are important to childrearing. In a society that truly valued children, the census findings should motivate us to find ways to help children who are living in poverty, children whose custodial parent is overwhelmed. A number of initiatives come immediately to mind: expanded Day Care and Head Start programs, easier access to Medicaid coverage for children and pregnant women, increased educational and job opportunities for single parents.
Whatever the merits of such programs, however, they aren’t even being discussed. They cost money, and we need to save our money to make war in Iraq, and to ensure that the richest 1% of the population will continue to have tax relief. Instead, for the poor folks, George W. Bush and his administration have provided programs that “provide incentives” for marriage by those receiving government aid. (Add a breadwinner to that household, and get off the dole, you slacker!)
Leaving aside the general lunacy of this approach, you have to appreciate the irony. Marriage is the answer to all our social ills. It will provide jobs for the unemployed, make an uncaring father into an earnest and helpful mentor, improve public school test scores and keep people off welfare. (It might even cure cancer!) But don’t let those homosexuals marry! Two parent families are more financially secure, and have more resources to devote to childrearing. But don’t let homosexual partners in committed relationships adopt children!
Those who bemoan the demise of “traditional families” and “family values” refuse to admit that there are many different kinds of families, and that no one type has a monopoly on the ability to raise emotionally healthy children and contribute to the public welfare. They are too intent on seeing to it that everyone accepts their limited and limiting definition of “family.”
Real “family values” would require valuing families. Everyone’s families.
