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 There
are many factors that have brought on the epidemic we’re seeing,
not the least of which is the trash that is beamed to teenagers
on television, in movies and from the rock music industry. Young
people today are bombarded by immoral entertainment that models
promiscuous behavior and teaches them that “everyone is doing
it.” The diminishing influence of traditional Christian teaching
is also responsible for the changing mores of our kids.
There
is another extremely important consideration that has been identified
recently by behavioral research. A team of researchers from the
Oregon Social Learning Center has found that parental divorce plays
a direct role in fostering sexual experimentation among adolescents.
The
investigators tracked the behavior of 201 junior high and high school
boys who lived in “higher crime areas.” They found that
the boys who had sexual intercourse at an early age tended to be
those who had experienced two or more “parental transitions,”
(divorce, remarriage or repartnering.) Only 18 percent of these
promiscuous boys came from intact families. By contrast, 57 percent
of the virgins came from homes where divorce had not occurred. On
average, these abstinent boys had experienced less than one parental
transition.
A
similar study was conducted on young women by sociologist Lawrence
L. Wu of the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He studied 2,441
white women and 1,275 black women, and found that there was a strong
correlation between those who bore babies out of wedlock and those
who had been through a “change in family structure”
when growing up. Wu concluded that the stresses of divorce and remarriage
on children are directly implicated in out-of-wedlock childbearing.
In
study after study now, we are seeing that divorce, single-parenting
and family disruption are unhealthy for children. This is not to
criticize those who find themselves in those circumstances, but
neither can we continue to deny that intact, two-parent families
are the healthiest, and contribute directly to a stable society.
If that is true (and the evidence for it is overwhelming), then
our public policies and governmental agencies should favor and encourage
traditional families. Anything that undermines or weakens them,
such as confiscatory taxes or governmental intrusion, should be
viewed with suspicion.
The
future of the nation depends, quite literally, on millions of strong,
committed and loving families.
To
those who remember the vice president’s controversial speech
on family values during the election of 1992, we can now say unequivocally,
“Dan Quayle was dead right!”
o
Excerpted from books written by Dr. James Dobson
of Focus on the Family.
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