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DEL.ICIO.USChildren’s crisis reveals family’s value
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The traditional family consisting of a mother, father and an average of 2.3 children “is becoming a dated notion in an America with more single parents, unwed mothers and blended families,” conclude reporters for McClatchy newspapers, a chain of 30 U.S. dailies.
A dated notion? Interesting proposition.
The point of the story is that President-elect Barack Obama and wife Michelle are the “perfect nuclear family” with two Ivy League-educated parents “supportive of each other and their two children.” The Obamas are, therefore, either “an unrealistic ideal, a midcentury throwback, a false standard” or “an inspirational example of what the African-American family can be — even a post-racial example of the new 21st century American Family.”
If it’s the former — a throwback, a false standard — then God save America. Its demise will come from within.
Children are in crisis. Almost 70 percent of black children, almost half of Hispanic children and a quarter of white children — a third of all children born in this country — are the result of adults’ self-centeredness and/or irresponsibility. It’s a cruelty with destructive consequences.
A study released this week by researchers at Northeastern University finds that while the crime rate for the United States is falling, the trend masks an alarming reality. The number of young black males between the ages of 14 and 17 who were shot to death rose almost 40 percent to 426 in 2007 from 2000. The number responsible for shooting deaths rose 38 percent to 964, reported criminologist James Alan Fox, who co-authored the study with fellow criminal justice professor Marc Swatt. The numbers rose for young white males, too, with a 17 percent increase in victims and a 3 percent increase in perpetrators.
Researchers placed part of the blame on the Bush administration for inadequate federal spending on local police and juvenile crime prevention programs. A better bet would be to check the homes into which the young men were brought.
A direct correlation exists between marriage and the outcomes for children. As the chief justice of the Georgia Supreme Court, Leah Ward Sears, pointed out in convening a summit on “children, marriage and family law” in November, “the decline of marriage in America has had a dramatic impact on the well-being of our children.”
“Children born out of wedlock are more likely to live in poverty, be incarcerated later in life, suffer from physical and sexual abuse, abuse alcohol and drugs, and engage in early sexual activity and premarital child-bearing,” she said, citing a Bureau of Justice Statistics analysis that 72 percent of jailed juveniles came from a fragmented family. While the Obamas will occupy the White House as the first black president and first lady, their race conveys no particular calling to rescue the American family. This president and every other who occupies the Oval Office has an urgent obligation to try to change the culture that causes so much harm to children.
It’s not role models we need. It’s leaders willing to confront Hollywood and the rest of the entertainment industry for their depiction of what’s “normal” in marriage and families. The industry would burn film before it would allow a modern Katharine Hepburn to light a cigarette on screen, as she did in “Woman of the Year” in 1942, with Spencer Tracy, because of the bad example it would set. But in today’s Hollywood, the long-running affair between the two actors would have been on-screen and public. That’s important because children, especially those without a married mother and father in their lives, turn to the media for their role models.
Many of this nation’s prominent voices, including sometimes Obama’s, are in a panic about global warming. They’re convinced that it’s real and that it’ll be the death of us all.
Give me half those voices willing to speak to the self-centered, irresponsible adults who are doing far more harm to this country, and it would have far more impact on this nation’s future.
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Comments
By scrappy
January 5, 2009 12:20 PM | Link to this
I don’t agree with the link between the decline in marriage and Hollywood. If all films showed happliy married couples, would the marriage rate suddenly go up and the amount of kids born out of wedlock go down? I doubt it. What about professional sports stars with 9 kids from 9 different women, do we not allow them to play because of their kids? They are role models too.
The best way to bring down the number of kids born out of wed lock is to promote sex ed & make birth control easier to get. Some (not all) teens really want to be responible but our laws make that harder and harder to do.
By Marietta transplant
January 5, 2009 1:09 PM | Link to this
Come on Jim, blaming Hollywood for societal problems is a cop out. Parents, not celebrities, should be held accountable for the actions of their children. Parents should speak to their kids about sex and birth control. Abstinence is the only fool-proof method, but kids need more information than that.
Abstinence is as flawed as the “Just Say NO” ads of the 80s. It oversimplifies a complex issue.
By Marietta transplant
January 5, 2009 1:12 PM | Link to this
Come on Jim, blaming Hollywood for societal problems is a cop out. Parents, not celebrities, should be held accountable for the actions of their children. Parents should speak to their kids about sex and birth control. Abstinence is the only fool-proof method, but kids need more information than that.
Abstinence is as flawed as the “Just Say NO” ads of the 80s. It oversimplifies a complex issue.
By Marietta transplant
January 5, 2009 1:15 PM | Link to this
Come on Jim, blaming Hollywood for societal problems is a cop out. Parents, not celebrities, should be held accountable for the actions of their children. Parents should speak to their kids about sex and birth control. Abstinence is the only fool-proof method, but kids need more information than that.
Abstinence is as flawed as the “Just Say NO” ads of the 80s. It oversimplifies a complex issue.
By Marietta transplant
January 5, 2009 1:18 PM | Link to this
Come on Jim, blaming Hollywood for societal problems is a cop out. Parents, not celebrities, should be held accountable for the actions of their children. Parents should speak to their kids about sex and birth control. Abstinence is the only fool-proof method, but kids need more information than that.
Abstinence is as flawed as the “Just Say NO” ads of the 80s. It oversimplifies a complex issue.
By Sara
January 22, 2009 5:35 PM | Link to this
Now, with the Kaylee Anthony case quietting, our government and law makers should be looking at the standards in which they set for the custudy and care of our children and not the type of roll models Hollywood, modeling, and, sports advertise. To many women out there are proffessionals at “using” there children. Aren’t there laws against the sale of children? Isn’t it child abuse, of some kind, not to care about the health and education of our children? Using a child as a pawn to secure child support so that mom doesn’t have to work is the same as selling that child to the highest bidder. Teaching a child that an education isn’t important by sitting back and doing nothing to help that child learn is neglect. Allowing an elementary school aged child to miss school, “because mom didn’t want to take me ‘cause it was to early in the morning for her to get up”, 30 plus times, in a four month span (while mom wasn’t working) of one school year, should be criminal. Wait. It is! When did, not attending school, and, lack of support, structure, and discipline towards education, causing a child to fail the third and fourth grades, consecutively, (an A+, honor roll student) become the acceptable practice? It is the custodial parent who should be blamed, not hollywood and other types of roll models. It is regular practice for our government and the judicial system to take the fake, “great big alligator tears”, of mom as sincere. Those same governing and legal bodies, who are supposed to be unbiased, use “the pitty factor” as a tool in their decision making. This is, in fact, gender discrimination at its best. We all know that if dad were to get one or two weeks behind in child support, mom would have the law knocking on his door in a heart beat. If dad were the one who refused to take his child to school for 30 plus days, he would be facing child abuse and neglect charges. If dad were to allow his child to fail two grades without doing anything to assist that child with his or her education, he would be classified an unfit parent and would lose custody of that child and possibly even all parental rights. When mom is the one creating these issues, the child support she is ordered to pay is lowered. All she has to do is cry more of those same fake “alligator tears” and the “pitty factor” kicks in and she will always be given “another chance” by the same judicial system that is supposed to be unbiased and concerned only with the best interests of the child and not weither or not they hurt mom’s feelings. Here, in the bible belt, its worse. It is a rare occasion that a father should get custody of his children after a divorce. Neglect and various forms of abuse have to be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. Yet, you would think, that if a mother was proven unfit, she wouldn’t be given MORE opportunity to ruin their childs life. She is, such as visitation above and beyond the standard to include having the ability to dictate the scheduling of dads household. Not because it is in the best interest of the child, but, because the judge felt sorry for her. Gender discrimination, pure and simple. Dad would never be given anything other than what was standard. To many times we hear from our child welfare services that a childs death was caused by “falling through the cracks of justice.” To many times the truth is staring everyone right in the face but they refuse to look. All to often a mother is allowed to corrupt and or endanger her childs health and welfare just because a judge felt sorry for her. When will the judge feel sorry for dad? After the child is stereo typed or classified as mentally retarded just because they didnt go to school? Or worse, after the child is dead?