What's just as important as finding a solution to a problem? Recognizing that there is one, of course! If you don't even realize there is a problem, you won't even start to solve it! Too often older generations are pessimistic about the younger ones, and suspect that they aren't as perceptive about what problems we are up against as a culture. Some great news though, is emerging about the next generation from, of all places, California. New America Media conducted a survey of California youth from ages 16 to 22 about issues affecting their lives.
The survey, called California Dreamers, had this very encouraging result: when asked what the "most pressing issue facing your generation in the world today" is, the plurality of young people, 24 percent, said "family breakdown." In a culture where the media consistently pound out the message that every form of "family" is just as valid as any other and that divorce has no lasting impact on kids, you'd expect that the next generation would believe it.
But this is a generation of children where a huge proportion are raised in families broken by divorce, or even in some cases raised without ever having known a parent - usually the father. This is the generation that knows intimately the results of experimenting with God's design for the family, and the results are not positive.
The second and third most popular answers given in the California Dreamers survey for "pressing issues" of the day were "violence in neighborhoods," and "poverty." Both of these issues are also closely related to family problems. Children growing up in intact families are far less likely to engage in violent crime or become locked in a life of poverty. Children who grow up without a father are at a much greater risk of getting into trouble. Eighty-five percent of the youth population in prison comes from fatherless families.
Growing up in an intact family - one with both a mother and a father - is a huge advantage for any child. On average, children living with both parents do better academically by every measure of success than those who don't have that advantage. What does that mean for their long term success? More than a quarter of the children growing up with only one parent find themselves trapped in long-term poverty. Less than two percent of those growing up with both parents are plagued by problems of poverty.
Broken families are the source of many of the problems we face in our nation today. Why? Because it is God's design for children to grow up and be influenced by both a mother and a father.
Recognizing that there is a problem is just the first step, but we should be encouraged by the fact that young people perceive that there must be a better way. It is now up to us to show them where we went wrong. The false promises of "no fault divorce," "sex without consequences," and cohabitation have wreaked havoc with families over the past half-century, and have damaged the upcoming generation more than any other. We must work quickly to reform and strengthen marriage. We have to do more to educate young people about the importance of remaining abstinent until marriage. We owe it to them to fix the mistakes of the past.
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Brad
Frese is the Research Director for The
Center for Arizona Policy www.azpolicy.org |
© 2008 Good News Tucson™
