The Problem with Families Today
Disclaimer: before I begin my post I want to present this disclaimer. Many of us are taught to never discuss money, religion, or politics in a mixed crowd. Unfortunately, to complete this assignment I have to discuss all three. My blog is not meant to offend anyone or deny any opposing opinions. I want to exercise my “freedom of speech” to express my opinion that money, religion, and politics are the problem with today's family and not the changing family structures.
We are a constantly changing world, redefining as we go.
Change and redefining are necessary in order to keep up with and/or meet the
demands of the evolving human race. This assignment is to discuss the general
issue of the family in the contemporary United States. Depending on how far
back your imagination or beliefs take you into the history of the family, the
human race has been forming their own version of "family" since
"Adam and Eve" or the "Caveman" times without a socially
constructed, governing body. This point alone is proof to me that family came
before policy (policy was created by man). Therefore, in my opinion we are not
experiencing a decline in family, instead our expired, outdated policies and
socially constructed beliefs about money, religion, and politics regarding the
family are in need of change. This change will allow us to adapt to current
times, current need, current culture, and current challenges of individual
families, in order to maintain social order.
I am very frustrated with the debate on how to define family
in the United States. The fact remains that all of the types of families that
the government is either trying to include or exclude from political/policy definition
of family are already formed and exist in today’s society, hence our reality. Therefore,
it seems ignorant and discriminatory at the very least, to think that those excluded
families magically disappear and do not need to have the same rights or
benefits that the included families have in the current definition only creates
disparities for so many.
In our reality, the “Leave it to Beaver,” single parent,
nuclear, same-sex, blended, etc. type of families are the foundation of our
society. The family on down problems like death, divorce, remarriage/partnering,
unplanned single parenting, abuse, financial difficulties, and disparities are real
problems that have always existed and probably always will. Interestingly, and the point I want to make is these problems are happening within all families (the recognized and the unrecognized families). These families on
down type of problems do not change or go away just because policy does not
define them to be "a family." For
this reason, I chose to focus this blog post on the “families on up” problem
caused by money, religion, and politics in defining family more accurately to
match what "we the people" have already formed in society and are
existing in with the avoidable discrimination and disparities caused by money,
religion, and politics.
From the religious point of view, some religions have been
very outspoken about the decline in family regarding premarital sex, divorce,
birth control, and most recently and controversial same-sex marriage. Thankfully,
there are religious leaders that also speak on behalf and in support of
same-sex marriage. Nonetheless, religious leaders are very powerful and
influential (including who becomes elected officials). I say with
facetiousness, good thing we have "separation of church and state" (joke)
so that these religious institutions do not create public policy, but we all
know they do play a role. As far as I'm concerned, the religious leader’s rhetoric,
in the following video, against same-sex marriages, does not match the wave of
behavior of our population seen in the following charts. I have to thank my
fellow blogger, Nicole Peterson, for the following charts I borrowed from one
of the previous posts. In addition, I would like to share an example of a
religious leader expressing his church's view on gay marriage.
The religious leader in this video starts talking about "we
the people" or "the majority" and indicating very specific statistics
to support his claim that a minority of political leaders are in charge of changing
the face of American families. As a reminder, statistics can be manipulated to
influence whatever side a person may represent. The video depicts that "we
the people" implying that the majority of us do not want the definition of
marriage to include same-sex couples. Yet, when I look at the charts above, the
“majority” that this religious leader is referring to may only include the
declining majority within his particular shrinking institution. This chart
clearly shows that the religious leader’s definition of majority is quite
different than the measurement of the majority in these charts. As you can see
the unaffiliated, the nonbelievers, and the "nones” (meaning nothing in
particular) are rising in numbers while those affiliated with religious
institutions are declining. It is also important to point out that the
percentages are staggering in the views of religious institutions. Majority of
the US general public and majority of the unaffiliated with religious group
feel that churches and other religious organizations are too concerned with
money and power, focus too much on rules, and are too involved with politics. With
more and more people leaving the church, this reduces the number of people included
in the religious leader’s "majority" he is referencing. In my
opinion, this speaks volumes that "we the people" are looking for a
change and want to separate our self from the religious views that are
occurring.
As I stated earlier, money and politics are the cause of many
problems with families today. To reiterate, families of all shapes, sizes,
color, sexual orientation, etc. already exist. This is not the problem with
families. The problem is politics create disparities by recognizing this
reality by not expanding the definition of family. Why? Some politicians refuse
to take a stand one way or the other because of their personal religious views
and/or the potential harm to their political career. I applauded President Obama
when he went on national TV and sided with gay marriage. I consider this a step
in the right direction in expanding the definition of family.
Breaking News! The President makes a Stand!
Another problem with families today is money. The reason why
I say money is because it affects families on very individual levels all the
way up to the institutional constructs of our society. For example, it goes
without saying that if we expand the definition of family at the government
level, this allows 40% of all Americans who are currently not considered family
under the current definition (Newman, 2012), to gain financially from the
social benefits currently awarded to families today. Yes this will increase the
cost to our government, employers, insurance companies etc. However, by
investing in our family's well-being will not only benefit the family
financially but by reducing the existing disparities among them, in turn, can
help stimulate the economy in many other ways.
Money also plays a role politically. As I mentioned before
some politicians refuse to take a position because they would consider it to be
"political suicide." By taking either position they may alienate their
political supporters who fund their political reelections. Money is power and
power buys influence.
Religion, politics, and money are so intertwined it is
difficult to separate one problem out from the other. One of my biggest pet
peeves is how we are supposed to have a separation of church and state. However,
when the topic of gay marriage arises in the redefining of family, religious
views and beliefs become a part of the political discussion of how to best
represent the people of the United States of America. Who is in charge, the Government
representing “we the people” or the Church?
In closing, acknowledged and unacknowledged families already
exist within our society. So problems do not exist becaue these new structures of family exists. Instead, the problem lies in how money, religion, and politics hold the solution for eliminating disparities and discrimination among our families who do not currently fit in the outdated definition of
family in our culture.
References
Newman, D. (2012). Sociology: Exploring the Architecture of Everyday Life: 9th Edition. SAGE Publications.
Newman, D. (2012). Sociology: Exploring the Architecture of Everyday Life: 9th Edition. SAGE Publications.
Pew Forum, 2012: http://www.pewforum.org/unaffiliated/nones-on-the-rise.aspx
I would also agree that politicians stand in the way of having equal rights and more diverse families. I do add that they would try to only support or disagree when their interests are at stake. It is hard when we have a system we hope would speak for the people, but it doesn't work out as well as expected. A very interesting post, very well done!!
ReplyDeleteAllison