... Unless our hearts (feelings, attention, priorities) are turned toward and centered more on families (marriage, children, commitments), we will continue to face the individual and societal curse of the expanding social problems that are crushing America and the world. Centering on the young, and ranging from teen pregnancy to drugs and alcohol and from crime to violence and abuse, this curse produces poverty and isolation, bloats our welfare and justice systems, and imposes oppressive taxes to pay for ineffective, finger-in-the-dike government “solutions.”
Social problems are never adequately solved by social programs.
The burgeoning problems of today are a direct result of the deterioration of families. The vacuum created by disappearing families creates space for everything from gangs to excess government, which flourish within the hole the lack of family leaves behind. Our public and private sectors—from local officials and public education to big business and electronic media, the very groups which should be supporting, supplementing, and protecting families—instead seem to be trying either to substitute for them or to undermine them. Our newest, largest institutions, from giant corporations to information and entertainment industries, are creating misplaced loyalties and false paradigms that are destroying the oldest, smallest institution of family. And more and more parents, hot in pursuit of professional and financial success, can find neither the time nor the inclination to put family first.
