My Family Story

Introduction

Thank you for your kind introduction. I appreciate your warm welcome, and the extraordinary work you do at the World Congress of Families to promote healthy and strong families. 

Before I begin my formal remarks, I would like to recognize and thank two people.  First, Allan Carlson, the International Secretary for the World Congress of Families.  Dr. Carlson is a long-time friend and colleague of mine, to whom I am greatly indebted not only for his thorough work as a family scholar and commentator, but for his generous advice and wise counsel over the years.  And I’d like to recognize and thank my friend Richard Wilkins who is here today as well. 

My Family Story

I very much appreciate the work of the World Congress of Families.  Here’s why.  For thousands of years, healthy marriages have been the legacy of strong families.

Take my family.  I have a conservative father and a liberal mother.  When I was growing up, I could count on my father and mother having very different views on many of the important issues of the day, including the Viet Nam War, abortion, Richard Nixon, and whether Archie Bunker was a good guy or a bad guy.  But despite these differences and the inevitable conflict that flowed from them, my parents just celebrated their fifty-fourth wedding anniversary.

But that’s not the remarkable part.  You see, John and Daisy Horn had seven children, six sons and a daughter.  Today every one of them is married with children – and all to their first spouse.

Now, that shouldn’t happen.  Statistically speaking – at least statistically within the United States – half of us should be divorced.  But rather than the unexpected legacy of divorce, our family experienced the expected legacy of marriage.

Have there been struggles and challenges?  Yes, of course.  Every marriage has its share of conflict.  But if it is merely the presence of conflict that causes divorce, how is it that none of John and Daisy Horn’s children are divorced?

Here’s how.  Unknown to each of us, when we were children we were learningfrom my parents -- day in and day out – the skills and behaviors necessary to form and sustain a healthy marriage.  It wasn’t that our parents sat us down and said, “This is how you form and sustain a healthy marriage,” but rather we learned by observing them.  On a daily basis, we witnessed them interacting – and through what psychologists call “observational learning,” we acquired the skills and behaviors necessary to deal with conflict in healthy ways.  Just as importantly – perhaps even more so – we learned how two people committed to each other – despite their differences – could enjoy one another.

But marriage is not just about one generation.  It’s much larger than that.  I will never forget the advice I received from my grandmother, who told me on my wedding day, “I bet you’ve heard that marriage should be a fifty-fifty proposition.  Well, don’t believe it.  That’s because if you expect to give only fifty percent in a marriage, then when you think you’re giving 51%, you’re going to feel slighted.  Instead,” she said, “…if each of you dedicates yourselves to putting seventy-five percent into your marriage, you’ll both be happy for the rest of your lives.”  So, I learned about healthy marriages not just from my own parents, but also from their parents – my grandparents.  Marriage, it seems, is a multi-generational affair.

Unfortunately, too many in our world today have lost this inter-generational transfer of knowledge and skills regarding marriage. Too many people grow up without having, like my family, the benefit of parents and grandparents who were each married – relatively happily – for over fifty years.  I am guessing that this loss of marriage, and the detrimental affects this loss has on children, families and communities, is why many of you are here today.  You are concerned about the fact that so many children are growing up in homes without both their mother and father.  You are concerned about the negative impact that this trend is having on children, adults and communities. 

Why is marriage so important that its growing absence should be of such concern?  As Allan Carlson pointed out in his earlier speech, marriage is important for a number of reasons.  One very important reason is because marriage is the institution which, throughout the ages and across all known cultures, has best bound men to families and their children.  We know from history that without marriage, men are less likely to stay connected to their children in meaningful ways for any significant length of time.  Indeed, without marriage, societies need a myriad of laws and bureaucracies – such as child support enforcement – to mandate by force of law that men fulfill their responsibilities to their children.  Unfortunately, we are seeing this truth – that a retreat from marriage also means a retreat from responsible fatherhood -- being played out both in America and throughout the world.

The Growing Epidemic of Fatherlessness

Today, 1 out of every 3 children in America is living in a home without his or her natural father.  Think of that.  One out of every 3 children in America will go to bed tonight without a father to read them a story, bring them a glass of water, kiss them good night, or comfort them if they have a bad dream.

And the problem of fatherlessness is getting worse, not better.  By some estimates 60 percent of American children born in the 1990s will live a significant portion of their childhoods in a home without their natural father present.  Indeed, for the first time in America’s history, the average expected experience of childhood now includes a significant amount of time living absent one’s natural father.

There are two major pathways to fatherlessness.  The first is divorce.  In America today, 40 percent of first marriages end in divorce, compared to just 16 percent in 1960.  And, since 3 out of 5 divorces involve children, each year approximately one million children enter a fatherless home due to divorce.

The second major pathway to fatherlessness is men fathering children out of wedlock.  Today in America, one third of all children – over one million each year -- are fathered by men out of wedlock.  That's up from 5 percent in 1960 – a more than 600 percent increase over the past 40 years. 

There are, of course, those who say these trends do not mean much of anything – that it doesn't really matter whether there is a father in the home or not.  Some even go so far as to say that children in the modern world don't really need fathers at all. 

Research, however, suggests otherwise.  Studies have shown that children in America living in homes without fathers are 5 times more likely to live in poverty than children who live with both their mother and their father.  Fatherless children are also 2 to 3 times more likely to develop an emotional or behavioral problem requiring psychiatric treatment.  Studies have shown that children who grow up without fathers also are more likely to commit crime, and do poorer in school.  Perhaps most tragically of all, children who grow up fatherless also are more likely to commit suicide than those who grow up in a home with both their mother and father.

What seems clear is that children growing up without their father in the home face an increased risk of developing significant problems.  This does not mean that all children who grow up in fatherless homes will encounter problems.  Indeed, many of them will do just fine.  But research indicates that fatherless children face more obstacles than those who grow up with both a mom and a dad, and are at greater risk for a host of developmental problems.

Unfortunately, fatherlessness is not just an American problem.  Increasingly, fatherlessness is becoming an international problem as well.  For example, half of all children born in Sweden today are fathered by men out of wedlock, as are almost half of Danish children and more than a third of Canadian children.  Roughly 20 percent of all families with children in Britain, Canada, Australia and Norway are growing up in father-absent homes. 

The increase in the number of father absent households is not restricted to industrialized nations.  Seventy-five percent of marriages in Cuba are now expected to end in divorce.  And single-parent families account for nearly one-third of households in Trinidad and Tobago and almost one-fifth of households in Cameroon, in sub-Saharan Africa.

Studies show that the consequences of fatherlessness encountered in the United States are the same as those encountered in other countries. One study of Dutch adolescents found that children growing up in single parent households had higher levels of psychological problems and higher rates of suicide attempts than those who grew up with both a mom and a dad.  A Swedish study found that children who did not live with their married mother and father did poorer academically compared to those who did.  A study in Finland found that children fathered out of wedlock are more than twice as likely to engage in criminal conduct compared to those born into a married family, even after taking into account social and economic factors.  And in Australia, a study found that 64 percent of father-absent families live in poverty.

If fatherlessness is the problem, what, then, is the solution?  The solution to today’s problem of fatherlessness is the same as it has always been: marriage.  Unfortunately, marriage is in trouble as well.  Just last year, the American Census Bureau released figures that charted the precipitous decline of marriage in the United States.  In 1950, the percent of all households in the U.S. that were headed by married couples was 80%.  Today, that percentage stands at just barely above 50%.  One of the reasons why marriage in America is less common today is because of an increasing acceptance of cohabitation as a substitute for marriage.  For example, over the past twenty-five years, the number of high school girls who say that cohabitation is acceptable before marriage has doubled.  As a result, cohabitation has increased in the U.S. from just under 500,000 cohabiting couples in 1960 to nearly 5 million cohabiting couples today.

Healthy Marriage Initiatives in the U.S.

Under the leadership of President Bush, the United States has begun to take action to address the problem of father absence by strengthening marriage.  I would like to focus the balance of my remarks on conveying some of the lessons we have learned in promoting healthy marriage in America, and describing how those lessons have informed the initiatives we’ve undertaken. 

In sharing with you what we have done in the United States, let me offer one caveat.  I do not presume to suggest that what we are doing in America to strengthen marriage is precisely what every other country should be doing as well.  I understand that there are numerous cultures and societies represented in this room – each with its own unique strengths and challenges.  Each one of you will have to explore what works best to strengthen families within your own cultural and geographic context.  However, it ismy hope that my sharing what we are doing in America will be helpful to you as you consider implementing strategies to promote healthy marriages in your own countries.

In a remarkably short period of time, we in the United States have moved past the question of whether government ought to be involved in supporting healthy marriages to the question of how government should be involved in supporting healthy marriages.  That’s because the empirical literature is now replete with data indicating that marriage not only benefits individuals, couples, children and families financially, but also confers a host of psychological, emotional and health benefits as well.  This shift from the question of “whether” to the question of “how” is an exceedingly important one – for it is not possible to seek solutions to a problem until, and unless, that problem is called by its correct name.  Yes, there are many problems worth attending to.  But strong and healthy marriages are the bedrock of strong and healthy societies.  There are few things I know for certain, but here is one:  All societies need a critical mass of healthy marriages in order to function well, and when societies lose that critical mass, they will forever be seeking new programs and services to cope with the ever increasing social problems that result from its absence.

One of the most important lessons we’ve learned when explaining the government’s role in promoting and strengthening healthy marriages is to first talk about what the government ought not to do.  Understandably, people often have misconceptions as to what a government-sponsored “healthy marriage initiative” is all about.  As a result, if you don’t define what the government ought not to do, your opponents will define your efforts instead by putting out all kinds of misinformation about what you really mean.  And so, let me share with you what I believe government ought not to do when it comes to promoting healthy marriages. 

First, government ought not to force anyone to get married.  In America, we believe in limited government.  One of the areas in which government ought to be limited is the decision about whether or not a person should get married.  That decision should remain completely up to the individual, ideally in consultation with the individual’s family.  Government ought not to get into the business of interfering with that personal decision-making.

Second, government ought not – intentionally or otherwise – implement policies that will trap anyone in an abusive relationship.  Domestic violence is, tragically, a terrible reality for far too many couples today.  Marriage does not cure domestic violence.  All too often, it exacerbates it. Whatever policies we implement, none of them should – either directly or indirectly – contribute in any way to this terrible problem. 

Third, government ought not to promote marriage by withdrawing supports for single-parent families.  I know of no evidence that says that you improve child well-being by withdrawing supports for single parents.  Promoting healthy marriage ought to be about affirming healthy marriage, not denigrating single people.  President Bush has said “Single mothers do amazing work in difficult circumstances, succeeding at a job far harder than most of us can possibly imagine. They deserve our respect and they deserve our support.”  He’s right.  Supporting healthy marriages cannot come at the expense of supporting children living in other family structures.  All children are unique gifts from God, and each one – every one – deserves our support and encouragement, no matter what their family arrangement.

Finally, government ought not to promote marriage by being afraid to mention its name.  There is something unique about the marital relationship that distinguishes it from other types of relationships.  Preparing couples for marriage, therefore, is different from preparing them for other types of relationship arrangements.  Relationship education, for example, is a good thing, and I support it.  I would certainly favor helping individuals develop all sorts of good relationship skills.  But marriage is fundamentally different from other types of relationships.  As such, we ought not to shy away from using the word “marriage” if it is, indeed, marriage we seek to promote.

When, then, should government do?  Here are three principles that I believe should underlie government’s role in supporting marriage.

First, we ought to make it clear that government is in the business of promoting healthy marriages.  Government should make clear that it is in the marriage promotion business because it is an effective strategy for improving the well being of children.  The fact is, healthy marriages are good for children; dysfunctional and abusive marriages are not.  Hence, government, as a strategy for improving the well being of children, ought to be in the business of promoting healthy marriages.

Second, government should not merely seek to be neutral about marriage.  Governments are – and should be – neutral about lots of things.  Take ice cream, for example.  The United States Government, and I presume other governments as well, has no business promoting one flavor of ice cream over another because there is no evidence that individuals, couples, children, families or communities benefit from the choice of one flavor of ice cream over another.  Hence, government is neutral about whether you should prefer vanilla to strawberry ice cream.

But the U.S. Government is not neutral about lots of things – like home ownership or charitable giving – precisely because it can be shown that home ownership and charitable giving contribute to the common good.  Hence, government provides incentives – primarily in the way of tax incentives – for home ownership and charitable giving.  I am sure that your own respective governments have their own list of social goods that they seek to reward through the tax code and other various subsidies.  In much the same way, government, while not forcing anyone to marry, can – and should – provide support for healthy marriages precisely because it can be shown that healthy marriages contribute to the common good.  As such, removing disincentives for marriage is fine – but that would only achieve neutrality.  When it comes to something as important to society as healthy marriages, government cannot afford to simply be neutral.

Third, while we don’t know as much as we would like to know about how to promote healthy marriages, that shouldn’t be used as an excuse to do nothing.  While it is true that we don’t have perfect knowledge when it comes to designing initiatives to support healthy marriages, we do know something.  We do know, for example, that what separates stable and healthy marriages from unstable and unhealthy ones is not the frequency of conflict, but how couples manage conflict.  Couples that are able to listen to each other with respect and problem-solve conflict in healthy ways, report higher levels of marital satisfaction and are less likely to divorce than those who are not able to do so.  The good news is that through marriage education, we can teach these skills and in so doing, increase the odds that couples will form and sustain healthy marriages – to the benefit of their children, themselves and society.

And new research is constantly shedding more light on our path.  For example, research is dispelling the myth that couples – and especially low-income couples – no longer are interested in marriage as a life goal.  Survey after survey shows that most young people continue to aspire to life-long marriage, and not to the serial marriages too often modeled by our cultural elites.  Even unmarried parents continue to aspire to marriage.  According to researchers at Princeton and Columbia Universities, more than half of unmarried parents when asked at the time their child is born out-of-wedlock, indicate that they are actively considering marriage – not some time to somebody, but to each other.  Yes, we have much to learn – but government ought not to be paralyzed by imperfect knowledge.  For in the words of the Russian novelist Ivan Turgenev (tur-'gAn-yef): “If we wait for the moment when everything, absolutely everything is ready, we shall never begin.”

Those are the three principles that have informed healthy marriage promotion in the United States.  The Bush Administration has begun to implement these principles through a number of initiatives. 

First, President Bush has proposed increased funding for marriage education services within our welfare system.  Specifically, the President has requested spending $200 million annually to support innovative efforts to integrate supports for healthy marriage into existing government-sponsored welfare programs.  With these funds, states, local governments, and community and faith-based organizations could conduct public education campaigns about the importance of marriage and how marriage education can help couples build healthy marriages;  offer pre-marital education and marriage enrichment programs to help couples develop the skills and knowledge necessary to form and sustain healthy marriages; and provide targeted outreach to troubled marriages so that couples do not have to view divorce as the only alternative when they experience marital distress.  The goal in all of these efforts will be on increasing the number of children growing up in healthy married households.  Why?  Because healthy marriages are good for kids, unhealthy marriages are not.

Second, we are working to integrate support for healthy marriages into our existing array of social service programs.   We have, for example, begun to integrate marriage education programs into our child welfare system, providing marriage education to couples as a way to reduce child abuse and neglect, for example, as well as providing marriage education to couples who adopt to help ensure the success of that adoption.  We also have provided funding for the development of curriculums that include effective ways of the promoting of healthy marriages for schools that teach social work.  And we’ve begun to integrate support for healthy marriages into services currently being offered through the child support enforcement system.

When it comes to promoting healthy marriages, we don’t believe in a “one-size-fits-all” approach.  Different groups of people need different types of help.  That’s why we also are targeting funds to help particularly vulnerable populations form and sustain healthy marriages.  For example, we have added marriage education to the range of social services we offer to couples who come to America as refugees.   We also have launched an African American healthy marriage initiative to help deal with the unique challenges facing marriages within the African-American community.  And we are exploring a Hispanic Marriage Initiative as well, designed to reach out to the nearly 39 million Hispanic citizens in America.

Each of these initiatives is not about subtraction – but addition.  They are about adding supports for healthy marriages into our publicly financed service delivery system – a system that for far too long has been afraid to even speak the word “marriage.”Finally, we also are seeking to integrate messages about the importance of healthy marriages into programs that seek to discourage teen pregnancy.  The good news is that teen pregnancy is down in America.  The not-so-good news is that the rate of out-of-wedlock childbearing for women in their 20’s is increasing.  That’s because while we have given the clear message that, all things being equal, teenagers should avoid becoming fathers and mothers, we are less clear in America about telling them that they also should avoid becoming a mother or father until after they are married.  We need to help our young better understand not just the value of waiting until they are “older” before becoming a parent, but also the value of waiting until they are married.

Of course, if our young people are going to avoid becoming parents before marriage, the best way for them to accomplish that is to be sexually abstinent until marriage.  That is why President Bush also has proposed dramatic increases in funding for abstinence education programs.  For as the President has said, “When our children face a choice between self-restraint and self-destruction, government should not be neutral.  Government should not sell children short by assuming they are incapable of acting responsibly.  We must promote good choices.”  He’s right, of course.  Good choices early on pave the way for healthy families in the future.  If we succeed in implementing this vision, we will succeed in strengthening marriages and families for years to come.

But, some critics ask, is this really the function of government?  Isn’t supporting healthy marriages too intrusive a role for advocates of limited government to propose?  Good question.  Here’s our even better answer.  To the extent to which we are successful in promoting healthy marriages, we will be successful in preventing many of the social ills that impede the healthy development of children, families, and, indeed nations.  And if we are successful in preventing many of the social ills that impede the healthy development of children and families, we will also obviate the need for other more costly – and more intrusive – interventions.

We know, for example, that children who grow up in unhealthy marriages and experience family breakup are more likely to be abused and neglected.  A compassionate society doesn’t stand idly by and tolerate children being abused and neglected, so we have a child welfare system, including the investigation of reports of abuse and neglect, and a foster care system to take care of children who are abused and neglected.  But if we are successful in helping couples form and sustain healthy marriages, fewer children will be abused or neglected, and as a result there will be less need for child welfare services in the first place.

Indeed, as Assistant Secretary for Children and Families, I oversee 65 different social programs at a cost of nearly $47 billion dollars each year.  Go down the list of these programs -- child welfare, child support enforcement, programs for runaway youth, anti-poverty programs – the need for each of these programs is either created or exacerbated by the breakup of families and marriages.  If we are ever going to prevent the need for these services, we must begin preventing these problems from happening in the first place.  One way to accomplish that is to help couples form and sustain healthy marriages.

The Importance of Leadership

Let me conclude with one further lesson that has helped us immeasurably to promote healthy marriages in America.  The lesson is this: never underestimate the importance of leadership.  The reason we have come so far in promoting healthy marriage in America is because of the leadership and commitment of President Bush.  You see, President Bush understands that the cry of the hearts of so many children is for their fathers.  And he understands that the only way to answer that cry is to become serious about renewing marriage.

During his first year in office, President Bush said this about the need to renew fatherhood by strengthening families:

“None of us is perfect.  And so no marriage and no family is perfect. After all, we all are human.  Yet, we need fathers and families precisely because we are human.  We all live, it is said, in the shelter of one another.  And our urgent hope is that one of the oldest hopes of humanity is this, to turn the hearts of children toward their parents, and the hearts of parents toward their young.” 

Turning the hearts of children to their parents, and the parents to their young is, indeed, the great hope of our efforts to strengthen marriages in America.  As believers in the family, as promoters of marriage, and as fellow representatives to this Fourth World Congress, I know this is your hope as well. 

Thank you.