The Impact of Alternative Family Forms on the Economy
I recently attended a talk on family forms from an economist's viewpoint. It was interesting, and I thought I would jot down a few of the things discussed here on my blog for people to read and think about. I don't necessarily support or oppose the views - but it is interesting information to think about. My impressions etc are in brackets [].
In the family law world there is a leaning towards a redefinition of marriage. There are 2 terms being thrown about in this discussion that are being highly misused. These terms are equality and freedom. Freedom now means to be completely unencumbered by any personal relationship. No adult should be compelled to be in a relationship he or she does not choose to be in. If we have to get married and stay married we are not free. What equality means now is that equality demands that the government take no stand on any marriage issues - that is be completely neutral and take no position.
These notions ar eincoherent because they are unstable and cannot last. More freedom for adults today means less freedom for children tomorrow. In limited government people do most of the governing themselves through self-control. You cannot have a free society with limited government unless people are moral, otherwise people will use their freedom to bother others. If people are doing everything they can get away with you need a big government wrapped around them to keep them from bothering others. It has been shown that people develop a conscience within a family [This makes sense through psychological terms too: Freud terms the 'Id' which is basically our conscience asthe 'parent in the head'. Without a family with 2 parents it is conceivable in a Freudian framework to see that this development of the Id to maybe be impossible, if not in a normal, 2-parent home. I have to think about this further.]
Children are more likely to have attachments disorders if not in a 2-parent married home. Childrenwith attachment disorders will do whatever they can get away with. They need to be controlled, because they are not controlling themselves. To have civilized society depends on having a good 1st year of life and you need 2 parents to raise a child. Statistically, children in married-couple 2-parent families. This is measurable. Children of unmarried-couple homes have lower birth weight, more emotional problems, have more accidents as a child (no one knows why), do more drugs, drink more alcohol, go to jail more frequently, miss more school, are held back in school more often, and are less likely to attend college. Society then has to step in (and it costs money) when children aren't raised properly. You need more government to monitor the improperly raised childen when they cannot control themselves. (more children from unmarried-couple homes commit crime, so more law enforcement and jails are needed)
One of the biggest predictors of a child's life chances is whether he or she came from a 2-parent married-family. Cutting down on a child's life chances is making them less free. In order to bring equality among the unmarried-parent children and the married-parent children will use larger and larger expenditures from the government to bring the unmarried-parent children to the same level that the married-parent children are at. The end result is that the married will be taxed to pay for the children of the unmarried (Statistically, marrieds do better economically) - The breaking down of the family means more government expenditures (and therefore more government and more taxes)
The most the government EVER intrudes into a person's life is when there is a breakdown in marriage. [Dude - I've seen this working with the Department of Human Services and Friend of the Court. The government gets involved in every tiny detail of a person's life to make sure that the proper child support is getting paid...sometimes you cannot attend certain children's events because of rules governing when you get the kid etc.] To ensure freedom and minimal government are happening we need to strengthen the private agreement between 2 people that is marriage.
Most people in alternative family forms aren't there because they wanted to be on the vanguard of social reform. Usually they are in an alternative family form because they WANTED the long-long married love, but it didn't work out for them for some reason. Therefore putting incentives into law like a waiting perioud for divorce and and counseling or reducing incentives for being a single mother through joint custody being the default may help curb alternative family forms that people don't really want anyway.
Lastly, it's a myth that government CAN be neutral in a family discussion. If it's 'neutral' then you're taking from the married to support the unmarried and so supporting the unmarried or taking freedom from the children of tomorrow to feed the desires of the adults of today.
In the family law world there is a leaning towards a redefinition of marriage. There are 2 terms being thrown about in this discussion that are being highly misused. These terms are equality and freedom. Freedom now means to be completely unencumbered by any personal relationship. No adult should be compelled to be in a relationship he or she does not choose to be in. If we have to get married and stay married we are not free. What equality means now is that equality demands that the government take no stand on any marriage issues - that is be completely neutral and take no position.
These notions ar eincoherent because they are unstable and cannot last. More freedom for adults today means less freedom for children tomorrow. In limited government people do most of the governing themselves through self-control. You cannot have a free society with limited government unless people are moral, otherwise people will use their freedom to bother others. If people are doing everything they can get away with you need a big government wrapped around them to keep them from bothering others. It has been shown that people develop a conscience within a family [This makes sense through psychological terms too: Freud terms the 'Id' which is basically our conscience asthe 'parent in the head'. Without a family with 2 parents it is conceivable in a Freudian framework to see that this development of the Id to maybe be impossible, if not in a normal, 2-parent home. I have to think about this further.]
Children are more likely to have attachments disorders if not in a 2-parent married home. Childrenwith attachment disorders will do whatever they can get away with. They need to be controlled, because they are not controlling themselves. To have civilized society depends on having a good 1st year of life and you need 2 parents to raise a child. Statistically, children in married-couple 2-parent families. This is measurable. Children of unmarried-couple homes have lower birth weight, more emotional problems, have more accidents as a child (no one knows why), do more drugs, drink more alcohol, go to jail more frequently, miss more school, are held back in school more often, and are less likely to attend college. Society then has to step in (and it costs money) when children aren't raised properly. You need more government to monitor the improperly raised childen when they cannot control themselves. (more children from unmarried-couple homes commit crime, so more law enforcement and jails are needed)
One of the biggest predictors of a child's life chances is whether he or she came from a 2-parent married-family. Cutting down on a child's life chances is making them less free. In order to bring equality among the unmarried-parent children and the married-parent children will use larger and larger expenditures from the government to bring the unmarried-parent children to the same level that the married-parent children are at. The end result is that the married will be taxed to pay for the children of the unmarried (Statistically, marrieds do better economically) - The breaking down of the family means more government expenditures (and therefore more government and more taxes)
The most the government EVER intrudes into a person's life is when there is a breakdown in marriage. [Dude - I've seen this working with the Department of Human Services and Friend of the Court. The government gets involved in every tiny detail of a person's life to make sure that the proper child support is getting paid...sometimes you cannot attend certain children's events because of rules governing when you get the kid etc.] To ensure freedom and minimal government are happening we need to strengthen the private agreement between 2 people that is marriage.
Most people in alternative family forms aren't there because they wanted to be on the vanguard of social reform. Usually they are in an alternative family form because they WANTED the long-long married love, but it didn't work out for them for some reason. Therefore putting incentives into law like a waiting perioud for divorce and and counseling or reducing incentives for being a single mother through joint custody being the default may help curb alternative family forms that people don't really want anyway.
Lastly, it's a myth that government CAN be neutral in a family discussion. If it's 'neutral' then you're taking from the married to support the unmarried and so supporting the unmarried or taking freedom from the children of tomorrow to feed the desires of the adults of today.
posted by Xana Ender @ 3:50 PM
1 Comments:
At 1:21 AM,
Esther said…
That, in a nutshell, is exactly why LBJ's "Great Society" failed to change poverty problems, and, in fact, encouraged single mother households. I have never been able to say it better than that. I think you're gonna have to be some sort of an advisor to me if I get elected. Wait... you already are a friend, that works.
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