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Politics and
the Family: The Basic Unit of Society
Column 1
By
Richard M. Eyre
We've heard
it so many times (and probably said it so many times), "The
family is the basic unit of society." The problem with
a phrase becoming so common is that it turns into a cliché and
we get so used to it that we don't think very hard about what
it means.
It's difficult
to disagree with the phrase, but do we truly and literally agree
with it and understand it and think about its implications?
"The family
is the basic unit of society." If that's really true, then
it is of enormous importance and it should have profound influence
on us as individuals and on all the other (larger) units and
levels of society. If family is the basic and indispensable
unit, then every other level and type of institution that we
create, from neighborhood councils to nations should exist and
function in order to protect, maintain, and strengthen families.
Legislatures should look to create pro-family laws, judicial
decisions should reflect the priority of protecting and bolstering
families, and politicians and candidates should be measured by
what they do and propose to do for families.
Karl Zinsmeister
of American Enterprise put it this way:
"There
is a mountain of scientific evidence showing that when families
disintegrate, children often end up with intellectual, physical,
and emotional scars that persist for life. We talk about the
drug crisis, the education crisis, and the problems of teen pregnancy
and juvenile crime. But all these ills trace back predominantly
to one source: broken families."
Let's first
examine our title phrase more closely and see if we believe it
enough to make it the criteria for how we view society at large
and how we measure the performance of the other levels or elements
of our society.
First: A
Definition of Terms
"Basic
unit": "That which the rest is made of" as in
the bricks in a brick wall. The most fundamental organization. The
closest and most personal level of relationships and responsibility.
"Society":
Civilization. The order by which we live together and cooperate
to work for the common goal. Society is us, the people, organized
and divided and governed by our political, societal, and cultural
institutions.
"Family":
Despite current attempts to dilute or pervert the word, family
will always be best defined as a person with his or her spouse
and/or children. Only two events create or add to family: 1)
marriage and, 2) birth or adoption. Politically and economically,
family can be thought of as one, two, or three generations of
related persons living under one roof.
It's fine (and
complimentary) to say "My friends are my family," but
it is the literal, legal, genetic and living-together family
that is society's basic unit.
Now, with our
definitions in place let's return to the question: Is the family
truly the basic unit? Does it have to be? Can it be replaced
or substituted for? Communist societies have tried to make the
commune the basic unit, using parents for "creative" purposes
only and assigning communes and classrooms and worker cells to
do the nurturing and educational functions traditionally done
by parents within families. In other societies, orphanages
have substituted in the absence or abdication of parents. Today,
gay "marriages" and other alternative households make
their attempts. And unmarried co-habitants try to perform the
function of family without the commitment.
None of the
other options works as well as family. Statistics and surveys
as well as common sense tell us that economically, emotionally,
practically, and spiritually, it is families, real families,
that are the most basic and the most indispensable unit of society.
Implications
So what are
the implications? Simply that if the bricks in the brick wall
are unsound and crumbly, then no matter how well the wall is
designed, laid out, constructed, maintained, mortared or organized,
it's going to fall down. If, on the other hand, the builders
of the societal wall understand and strive to maintain the soundness
of the bricks, the whole wall will stand and last.
All metaphors
aside, the real reason family is the basic unit is that it is
more basic to our individual happiness than anything else. Having
a good city council may have some effect on our happiness, and
living in a free country certainly does, but no other level or
unit of society even approaches the effect that family has on
our well-being and our happiness. This is one reason that survey
after survey tell us that over 90 percent of Americans say their
family is their highest priority and the most important thing
in their lives.
Elder M. Russell
Ballard in the most recent LDS General Conference voiced the
sentiments not only of Mormons but of all people of faith when
he upped the ante on the old phrase by saying, "Families
are not only the basic unit of society, they are the basic unit
of eternity." Most who believe in a hereafter also believe
that love will also go on and that family relationships can survive
death. Our families, and specifically the state of our families,
has the most to do not only with our happiness here and now but
also is the most important and even further magnified factor
in our happiness for the long term, even the eternal long term.
We see evidence
of this all around us. People who work at prioritizing their
family relationships even at the expense of more money or more
prestige don't always look happier at the moment (because inner
happiness is sometimes harder to see than the trappings of a
more materialistic priority system) but, over the longer term,
those with strong family commitments do better even in materialistic "outer" measurements
and vastly better in the more relevant measurement of spiritual
and "inner" well-being.
As we get older,
family seems to have a more and more direct effect on our level
of joy and satisfaction, the happiness gap widening between a
grandparent surrounded by the love and caring of family and an
ever-lonelier aging person who has traded family responsibility
and commitment for more worldly pleasures that have now begun
to fade.
Strengthening
the Family Unit
Once someone
deeply and thoughtfully agrees that family is the basic unit
of society, of happiness, and of eternity, there are essentially
two things he can do about it: 1) Strive ever harder to better
balance his life (blending family with work and personal needs)
and, 2) Demand that the other units and institutions of our society
do more to help and strengthen families and less to undermine
and tear them down.
This is actually
a particularly good moment in time to think about both of those
things: 1) While we are with our families (and thinking about
them) we can ponder how well we are doing with our balance and
our prioritizing. 2) During the upcoming political season when
we'll elect a president, a governor, congressmen, and local officials,
we can use family as a filter for everything candidates say and
elect those who will do the most, directly and indirectly, to
protect our families, to assist us in educating, training, and
building character in our children, and who publicly recognize
and support the importance of parenting.
The next column
in this multi-part series will be about the first thing we can
do; about the micro, the personal, in-the-home ideas and suggestions
for balancing and prioritizing our individual families. The
following column will be about the second thing we can do; about
the macro, about what we should expect from the other units of
our society in terms of what they are doing and should be doing
for the most basic unit.
This is the first of a multi-part column on politics and
the family by New York Times #1 best selling author Richard Eyre.
The column will be ongoing at this site with a new article posting
every fortnight. Richard appreciates feedback at eyres1@comcast.net.
To learn more
about the Eyres' efforts to integrate politics and
family, go to www.eyre04decision.com
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© 2004 Meridian
Magazine. All Rights Reserved.
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