Back to the Future: Fixing the Family Infrastructure
During a recent panel discussion, Ari Fleischer identified the “soft under belly” of vulnerable American society as the destruction of the family ( https://youtu.be/6r-pcKfofbI ) time index 27:15). He stated that 25% of White families, 50% of Latino, and 75% of Black families go to bed at night without a father in the home. This situation is sadly a prime breeding ground for the following consequences:
- Delinquency/incarceration (1 in 4 Black adult men in prison, 70% of men come from fatherless homes)
- Low scholastic achievement
- Low financial status
- Fosters government dependency
- Fosters drug and gang connections
- Fosters unwed-teenage parenting
- Fosters abortion
So, if we continue on our present course, it would appear that more prisons, more cameras, more police, more government “surrogate-parenting” is in our future. But how can we get to the root of the problem and stop forever “trimming branches” only to eventually have them grow back?
What if we take a step “back to the future”, back to what worked? And what worked: a committed two-parent marriage. What if the government “incentivized” marriage rather than raised taxes to deal with crime and delinquency? What if couples were “rewarded” for:
- Participating in pre-marital counseling programs
- Actually getting married
- Waiting to have children after marriage
- Every year of “staying” married until their youngest child turned 18
The reward(s) could be in the form of various compensations (money, exemptions, privileges, scholarships, tuition, etc.), but the bottom-line is a “win-win” for families and government.