Coffin Corner

The report, which has compiled existing research, was commissioned by the Australian Christian Lobby and paid for by the Vos Foundation.

It blames the breakdown of traditional families for an alarming rise in social problems, and comes as Labor braces for a party brawl over gay marriage.

The report, which will be launched by opposition families spokesman Kevin Andrews in Canberra today, calls for a taxpayer-funded Families Commission that would run relationship counselling and child rearing education programs and a national families hotline.
For full article: http://tinyurl.com/4ys45qf
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- Stable families, stable society. It’s that simple.
Kevin Andrews
06 Sep • The Punch (Australia)
 
In 1998, the House of Representatives Legal and Constitutional Committee issued a report entitled To Have and To Hold about marriage and family in Australia.

Writing the preface to the bipartisan report, I commented: “This report is about strengthening marital relationships. It is about preventing marital distress and the consequent breakdown of relationships. It arises from our concern for children; for their future, their happiness, and their ability to form their own loving and fulfilling relationships.”

While the family continues as a human aspiration, there have been a series of changes in family patterns throughout the industrialised world that point to a decline in marriage and a weakening of family life. To Have and To Hold summarised these patterns:
 

• People are marrying less;
• Those couples who marry do so at an older age;
• There has been a dramatic increase in divorce;
• The number of children involved in divorce has continued to grow since the early 1970s;
• The rates of remarriage have fallen over the past 20 years;
• Families are having fewer children;
• The proportion of children born out of wedlock has increased dramatically;
• There has been a marked increase in the proportion of single parent families;
• Families increasingly have both parents in the paid workforce; and
• In most nations, the population is ageing.
  

A decade later, it is timely to review these trends. Generally birth rates and marriage rates have continued to fall, pre-marital cohabitation has become the norm in most countries, the median age of first marriage has risen, divorce rates have increased, out-of-wedlock births have grown, as has the proportion of sole-parent families, and the population continues to age.

The rates of change vary from country to country, including some welcome reversals in various places. However, the deinstitutionalisation of marriage and the consequent trends for less stable families remains significant.

These trends are graphically illustrated in a new report by Professor Patrick Parkinson, For Kid’s Sake.

Subtitled ‘Repairing the social environment for Australian children and young people’, it is a wake-up call about significant trends in the social ecology of the nation.

Based on social science evidence, Professor Parkinson, a professor of law at the University of Sydney, observes trends in the wellbeing of our children that should concern all Australians. Describing the dramatic increase in the number of children who have been reported to the various State and Territory child protection systems as the “Canary in the coal mine”, the author documents the rise in adolescent mental health and risky behaviours in Australia.

While noting that there may be a number of explanations, he observes: “if there is one major demographic change in western societies that can be linked to a large range of adverse consequences for many children and young people, it is the growth in the numbers of children who experience life in a family other than living with their two biological parents, at some point before the age of 15.” Indeed, the number if children who do not reach the age of 15 in an intact family with both of their biological parents have almost doubled within a generation.

An increasing number of scholars and policy makers have recognised this as a major challenge facing many nations. Few people in western nations would dispute that life is more uncertain for our children then a generation ago. The renowned scholar of family studies, Urie Bronfenbrenner commented two decades ago: “There has been a progressive disarray at an accelerating rate since World War 11 of the disorganisation of the family in the western world.”

His remarks reflected the conclusion of the sociologist, David Popenoe, that there has been a significant decline in ‘familism’, by which he means the family is becoming weaker as an institution.

For Popenoe and others an interesting question was why so many sociologists “think of family decline as a myth and seek to dismiss the idea with such vigour and seeming uncertainty.” Part of the reason lies with the cultural ideals of individualism, sexual freedom, and social tolerance, as well as the obvious gains in health and wealth for many people, he suggested.

What the latest data reveals however are trends affecting families which require an effective social response to avoid the further fragmentation of families and communities, and the alienation of individuals. The chaos created when day to day stability and predictability are lost in family life, particularly for children, is illustrated in the new report.

Social scientists increasingly worry about the current trends. The family scholar, Paul Amato describes the different approaches as a conflict between the institutional and individual view of marriage. Amato concludes that policies should support marriage and family:

“One widely replicated finding tilts the argument in favour of promarriage policies. That is, studies consistently indicate that children raised by two happily and continuously married parents have the best chance of developing into competent and successful adults. . .  Because we all have an interest in the well-being of children, it is reasonable for social institutions (such as the state) to attempt to increase the proportion of children raised by married parents with satisfying and stable marriages.”

Merely decreasing the rate of divorce is insufficient, he adds.

How we support marriage then, as the protective institution of family, particularly the welfare of children, is of profound importance. The parental relationship is unique in human affairs. Parents committed to each other are by far the most willing to make massive, unbalanced investments in children. Who else is capable and willing to make this investment? The State? Peer groups? Public or private childrearing organisations?

The answer, as any parent will tell you, is no-one. No amount of public investment in children can possibly offset the private disinvestment that has accompanied the decline of marriage and the weakening of family ties.

Professor Parkinson makes a series of recommendations to address these issues.  The substance of one of them, namely, the focus on prevention and the government support for better and more widespread marriage, relationship and parenting education was a policy that the Coalition took to the last election and has recommitted to since then.

The Coalition will examine the other proposals, including Community Trusts and a Families Commission as we continue our policy development.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan once observed: “The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself.”  This is an area where Government should respect other spheres of society by enabling them to fulfil their unique opportunities and obligations.

If our desire is for healthy, well-adjusted children and young people, who have every opportunity for the best education, who can obtain employment and live fulfilling lives, and who have a reasonable prospect of forming their own sustainable relationships - in short, if we desire a stable and healthy society - then healthy, functional family life remains the greatest hope for humanity.

As Martin Luther-King said: ‘The institution of the family is decisive in determining not only if a person has the capacity to love another individual but in the larger sense whether he is capable of loving. . . The whole of society rests on this foundation for stability, understanding and social peace.’ It is in family that obligations and values are learnt.

The For Kid’s Sake report makes the task of responding to the trends documented in it even more critical.
   
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