Children’s crisis reveals family’s value

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.

> Jim Wooten is associate editorial page editor. His column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Friday.

jwooten@ajc.com