Fix the Family

One day I was listening to the Glen Beck radio program. Here is what I heard Glen say that day, “Fix the family and you fix almost everything that is wrong with America.” Glen often jokes about having A.D.D., and it may not be a joke. At any rate, within a sentence or two, he was off to a different subject. My mind, however, was fixed on that insightful comment.

My oldest son turned 40 this past week. Yes, that makes me feel my age. Through Steve’s whole life, the institution of the family has been under assault in America. First, divorce has broken most marriages in his lifetime. And most of these broken marriages involved children. Many, if not most, of the people from the broken marriages with children eventually remarried. Thus, blended families (made up of children that are yours and mine, or yours, mine, and ours) have become commonplace over this 40 years.

Add to this social change the massive move of women into the workplace. When I grew up, it was common that moms were at home when the children were there. For the past decade or more, that situation has reversed. Now it is the exception rather than the rule that there is a stay-at-home parent. Don’t get me wrong here: I intend no assault on women who choose a career and children. Some parents juggle the responsibilities of two careers and family life pretty well. I personally know some who do. Still, it is no small challenge; and frankly, a high percentage of parents in these situations fail to adequately address the needs of their children. As a result, these children muddle their way through childhood and carry the damage of emotional malnutrition into their adult lives.

Thus, woefully ill-prepared for the challenges of marriage and parenting responsibilities, these young adults try to build their own families nonetheless. The adults from my son’s age down are generally skeptical about marriage. They have seen too many marriage vows broken, if not by their own parents, by aunts and uncles, cousins, grandparents, and others. The state of family in America is worse than even divorce statistics suggest. We speak of the awful 50% divorce rate that has remained pretty steady for the past two or three decades. These divorce statistics do not factor in this fact: more and more people have chosen to just cohabit through these recent decades and the rate of demise of these relationships is not factored in (when there is no marriage, there is no divorce).

Consider another dynamic of the breakdown of families over these recent decades. The children from these broken homes were often given “stuff” by parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles to compensate for the fact that they weren’t given what they really needed – a secure, loving home. Many of these young people have been conditioned to be materialistic in this process. Contrary to the words of Jesus, these people actually believe that life does consist in the abundance of things.

All of these circumstances have become so common that a high percentage of young people are directly affected. Because of that high percentage that are directly affected by family breakdown, most young people are indirectly affected. That is, even in solid families where divorce will not likely ever occur, children may experience fear that their parents might divorce. If Mom & Dad had an argument and are still not happy with each other a day or two later, divorce is not a bizarre thought for their child. So, I assure you that the security of what are in fact secure homes has been shaken by the fact that most of us have seen people divorce that we never thought would.

We have also witnessed an alarming rise of youth gangs. Though we don’t often hear it mentioned, this is a result of family breakdown. Many kids don’t feel like they belong at home, so gang membership seems to offer what they need but can’t find at home. Many of these kids have little or no relationship with their dad. They live with an exhausted and frustrated single mom. These kids may feel unloved and unwanted at home. Sometimes, they feel like a burden to the people who have to provide for them. They easily resent the adults who seem only to have demands of them, but are prepared to give very little of what matters most to the kid. Many kids from broken homes feel like nothing more than a poker chip in a hostile game between the parents.

The woes of public education are related to the breakdown of families, too. Politicians and educators like to tell us that the educational system needs to be fixed and that with more funds, but I tell you that it is the family that most needs to be fixed.

It is true that some students from strongly dysfunctional families actually flourish in the world of academia. These are some of the intellectually gifted kids who find in the school environment a place to shine and gain affirmation via performance. It is not unusual to find some of these kids named valedictorian or salutatorian of their classes. In contrast to these high-performing kids, however, are many other kids from these chaotic and painful families who struggle in the school environment. They struggle in both performance and motivation. I can tell you from personal experience that it is difficult to care about and apply oneself to the work required at school when you are stressed by stuff happening at home. Trust me, our schools are heavily populated with kids whose home-lives are so drama-filled that they have little motivation to do what, for them, naturally requires extra effort. We can keep throwing money at our schools, but we shouldn’t expect to see much positive change until we get as serious about fixing the family as we are about fixing the schools.

To “fix the family” in America is a huge task, in fact, too huge for you and me. It seems sufficiently challenging for me to “fix” my family. The task is beyond the role of government, too; although government certainly has a role in fixing the family. They could start by ceasing doing stuff that messes up families and perpetuates messed up families. For instance, they could stop siding with the people who want to make our public schools religion-free zones (except for secular humanism). They could allow students to be exposed to ideas like creationism and intelligent design. They could actively oppose the idea that men are only needed for their seed and their funds.

Fixing the family in America is a God-sized problem. What really is needed is a great revival among young people, a serious turning to the Lord and His ways. I keep hoping to see a host of young people who are ready to say “enough” with the social experiments of secularists. These would be young people who renounce the lie that all sex between “consenting adults” is acceptable. They would take courting very seriously, and marital vows even more seriously. They would seek godly wisdom for making a marriage and family work. And they would depend on God for strength to implement wisdom as they attempt to build a wholesome family. Fixing the family in America is really done one family at a time. I pray that you will invite God to help you build or rebuild a strong family. If America does not fix the family institution, at least you can participate in fixing of yours. And, if America does not fix the family, things will get worse in our land; but you will engage those worse things better in a better family. And therein lies real hope.