Blankenhorn, David

Santa Clara University School of Law

Santa Clara Law ReviewVolume 36 | Number 2 Article 101-1-1996The State of the Family and the Family PolicyDebateDavid BlankenhornFollow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/lawreviewPart of the Law CommonsThis Symposium is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at Santa Clara Law Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion inSanta Clara Law Review by an authorized administrator of Santa Clara Law Digital Commons. For more information, please contactsculawlibrarian@gmail.com.Recommended CitationDavid Blankenhorn, Symposium, The State of the Family and the Family Policy Debate, 36 Santa Clara L. Rev. 431 (1996).Available at: http://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/lawreview/vol36/iss2/10THE STATE OF THE FAMILY AND THE FAMILYPOLICY DEBATEDavid Blankenhorn*Let me address three issues: first, the current state ofthe family as a social institution; second, the current state ofthe family debate, or the state of our public discourse aboutthe family; and finally, the future of the family debate. I be-lieve that these questions will, or at least ought to, occupy usin the next few years as we continue our evaluation of childand family well-being.What is the current state of the American family? In theUnited States, the trend is clearly toward a post-nuclear fam-ily system - a society in which the mother-father, marriedcouple childraising unit is no longer the dominant social formfor raising children, either as an empirical reality or as a cul-tural norm. Some scholars describe this trend as a movementtoward a post-marriage society - a society that is experienc-ing the steady de-institutionalization and de-juridication ofmarriage, and where, as a result, marriage is no longer thedominant social institution regarding the raising of children.Of course, Americans remain a marrying people. Most ofus get married, and this will continue. By calling us a post-marriage society, however, I mean to describe a society in themidst of a deep and continuing collapse of confidence in, andadherence to, marriage as a social institution. Clearly, weare rapidly losing our belief in the ideal of marital perma-nence. In addition, the belief that marriage has, or shouldhave, a monopoly on the bearing and raising of children issteadily losing its privileged cultural and legal status in oursociety. For these reasons, our society is moving in the direc-tion of a post-marriage or post-nuclear family system, wherethe married couple, mother-father unit will no longer be held* David Blankenhorn is the president of the New York-based Institute forAmerican Values, a nonpartisan group studying family issues, and the authorof Fatherless America: Confronting Our Most Urgent Social Problem publishedin 1995. He is also chairman of the National Fatherhood Initiative.SANTA CLARA LAW REVIEWup as a dominant cultural ideal and will no longer reflect theempirical reality for all, or even most, children.The data to justify this conclusion are dramatic and rela-tively unambiguous. First, the percentage of births occurringoutside of marriage is now more than thirty percent. Roughlyspeaking, one of every three babies born today is born outsideof marriage, which is up from only about five percent in 1960.Second, the United States has the highest divorce rate in theworld. There has been more than a five-fold increase in thenumber of divorced persons per thousand married personssince 1960.Having children no longer serves as the inhibitor to di-vorce that it once did. Moreover, since second and third mar-riages are even more likely to end in divorce than first mar-riages, a surprisingly high proportion of American childrenwill watch their mothers divorce not once, but two or eventhree or more times. Studies show that about fifteen percentof all American children will experience at least two parentaldivorces prior to the age of eighteen.Third, the percentage of children not living with their bi-ological fathers is now approaching forty percent, up fromseventeen percent in 1960. More than half of all the childrenin this country will spend at least a significant part of theirchildhood living apart from their father. This level offatherlessness is historically unprecedented in our society or,indeed, in any society. In my view, fatherlessness is clearlythe family trend of our generation that will bear the most so-cial consequences.What are the societal consequences of this post-nuclearfamily trend - more births outside of marriage, a high di-vorce rate, and millions of children growing up apart fromtheir fathers? The two primary consequences are a continu-ing decline in child well-being and a continuing rise in maleviolence.Almost all of the evidence suggests that child well-beingis continuing to decline in this society. With each passingyear, it is becoming harder to be a child in the United States.Many scholars believe that this generation of children is thefirst generation in American history to be less well-off eco-nomically, socially, psychologically, and morally than theirparents were at the same age. This is almost certainly thefirst time in American history that our society has exper-[Vol. 3643219961 SYMPOSIUM: THE FUTURE OF THE FAMILY 433ienced generational regression regarding the well-being ofchildren.The evidence is also quite convincing regarding the riseof male violence. When there are more young males growingup without a father in the home, and when there are moremales in our society who are not being socialized into the fa-therhood role, one clear result is a steady increase in maleviolence.Apart from education, the principle social spending pro-gram for young males in the United States today is prisonconstruction. Why are we producing so many young maleswhom we are sending to prison? The social science evidenceclearly suggests that the absence of a father is a much moreimportant and more accurate predictor of a young male get-ting into trouble with the juvenile justice system, and ulti-mately ending up in a prison cell, than any of the other fac-tors, such as educational attainment of the mother, familyincome, race, religion, quality of the neighborhood, and so on.Consequently, a society that has fewer and fewer boys grow-ing up with fathers will be a society that has more and moreprison cells, since that society will be generating male vio-lence faster than it can incarcerate.Moreover, we are also witnessing a rise in domestic vio-lence and other forms of male violence against women. Re-ports suggest that the incidence of these crimes is increasingsteadily. Studies of the risk factors associated with such vio-lent behavior show that it is not the presence of a married,biological father in a home that produces the likelihood ofsuch violence, but rather the opposite: the growing absenceof the married father and his replacement by either no manat all or by unrelated males, such as boyfriends andstepfathers.Married fatherhood is a socializing role for men. Thecontinuing decline in the number of men in our society whofill this role, and their replacement in so many homes by un-related males, is clearly driving up the rate of male violenceagainst women and children.These trends raise a larger, more fundamental question:Does our society expect males to nurture their offspring? Asociety such as ours that no longer cares whether or notmales nurture their offspring, or at least no longer enforcesany expectations of paternal nurture, will be a society inSANTA CLARA LAW REVIEWwhich child well-being declines and male violence rises. Thisis the current trend in our society.It is within the context of this trend toward the post-nu-clear, post-marriage family and its consequences that thestate of the American family is being debated. Clearly, overthe last twenty years, the dimensions and consequences ofcontemporary family change have been the subject of intensenational debate. This debate has often been incoherent andeven silly, and still more often, highly partisan and politicallydivisive. Despite these handicaps, a genuine debate has in-deed occurred.Until recently, this family debate has primarily been be-tween those who have argued that the family is declining, orgetting weaker, and those who have argued that the family isnot declining, but instead is merely changing. This debate,however, is now largely over because one side has won.In terms of both social science evidence and public opin-ion, the family debate of the past two decades has largelybeen settled in favor of those who argue that the family isdeclining. More specifically, it is now increasingly believedby scholars from across the human sciences and the politicalspectrum that child well-being is declining, and that the lead-ing cause of this is family fragmentation, and the steadybreak-up of the mother-father childraising unit.Consider this summation from Urie Bronfenbrenner ofCornell, one of the nation's most respected family scholars:[C]ontrolling for associated factors such as low income,children growing up in such households are at greaterrisk for experiencing a variety of behavioral and educa-tional problems, including extremes of hyperactivity orwithdrawal, lack of attentiveness in the classroom, diffi-culty in deferring gratification, impaired academicachievement, school misbehavior, absenteeism, droppingout, involvement in socially alienated peer groups, and,especially, the so-called "teenage syndrome" of behaviorsthat tend to hang together - smoking, drinking, earlyand frequent sexual experience, a cynical attitude towardwork, adolescent pregnancy, and, in the more extremecases, drugs, suicide, vandalism, violence, and criminalacts. 11. Urie Bronfenbrenner, Discovering What Families Do, in REBUILDINGTHE NEST: A NEw COMMITMENT TO THE AMERICAN FAMILY 34 (David Blanken-horn et al. eds., 1990).434 [Vol. 361996] SYMPOSIUM: THE FUTURE OF THE FAMILY 435Or consider this summary of the current scholarly evi-dence as analyzed by Ronald J. and Jacqueline L. Angel ofthe University of Texas:[Tihe preponderance of evidence suggests that father ab-sence results in fairly serious emotional and behavioralproblems in children. Children in single-parent familiessuffer more psychiatric illness and are at a developmentaldisadvantage in comparison to children in two-parentfamilies. These children have more problems at school,have less self-control, and engage in more delinquent actsthan children who live with both parents. Children in fa-ther-absent families are more vulnerable to peer pressureand more easily led to commit delinquent acts than chil-dren with a father present. A mother with no husbandmay often be a poor disciplinarian, and her children mayseek moral authority from others. Often that source istheir peers, and children who grow up in the streets areunlikely to be exposed to the best role models. The evi-dence also indicates that fathers are important for a girl'ssexual development and her ability to form relationshipswith men. Taken as a whole, then, the research we re-viewed indicates that father absence places both girls andboys at elevated risks of emotional, educational, and de-velopmental problems. 2Finally, consider this recent conclusion from a two yearinvestigation of marriage in America prepared by Council onFamilies in America, a nonpartisan, multidisciplinary groupof eighteen leading family scholars and analysts:The evidence continues to mount, and it points to onestriking conclusion: the weakening of marriage has haddevastating consequences for the well-being of children.To be sure, television, the movies, and popular music con-tribute to declining child well-being. So do poor teaching,the loss of skilled jobs, inefficient government bureaucra-cies, meagre [sic] or demeaning welfare programs, and theavailability of guns and drugs. But by far the most impor-tant causal factor is the remarkable collapse of marriage,leading to growing family instability and decreasing pa-rental investment in children.'2. RONALD J. ANGEL & JACQUELINE L. ANGEL, PAINFUL INHERITANCE:HEALTH AND THE NEW GENERATION OF FATHERLESS CHILDREN 118 (David L.Featherman & David I. Kertzer eds., 1993).3. COUNCIL ON FAMILIES IN AMERICA, MARRIAGE IN AMERICA: A REPORT TOTHE NATION 6-7 (1995).SANTA CLARA LAW REVIEWWhat is society going to do about this state of affairs?Given the increasing recognition of the trend toward the post-marriage, post-nuclear family and the obviously negative con-sequences of this trend, especially for children, a new familydebate is now emerging. The new debate focuses less onwhether or not we have a problem - that question haslargely been settled - but instead on what society is pre-pared to do about it. In short, the coming debate will be lessabout describing the problem and more about proposing thesolution.There are two fault lines that I believe will characterizethis new debate in the coming months and years. On one sideof the first fault line will be those who argue that we cannotreverse the trend - that is, that we cannot reinstitutionalizemarriage. Therefore, we must instead deal with the conse-quences of the weakening of marriage, especially the eco-nomic consequences, recognizing the reality that more andmore of our children are simply not going to be growing upwith their two married parents. Conservatives may urge theconstruction of more prisons and urban boarding schools andorphanages to deal with the consequences, and liberals mayurge a system of family allowances, a reform of the divorceprocess, or the creation of more jobs. But many liberals andconservatives will be agreeing that we must deal primarilywith the consequences of the trend rather than the trenditself.Those on the other side of this fault line will insist thatwe must seek to reverse the trend. They will direct their ef-forts to strengthening the institution of marriage and seekingto create cultural change in favor of the idea that unwedchildbearing is wrong, that our divorce rate is far too high,and that every child deserves a father.I personally am on the "reverse the trend" side of thisargument, although I believe that the "remediate the conse-quences" side currently has the most support among policy-makers and other opinion leaders.The second fault line is between those who take a welfarestate approach and those who take a laissez-faire approach.The former will hold that society ought to use the instru-ments of government to meet humans' needs, primarilythrough marketplace regulations and other public policies436 [Vol. 361996] SYMPOSIUM: THE FUTURE OF THE FAMILY 437aimed at reducing economic inequality and improving eco-nomic security.In contrast, those taking a laissez-faire approach willhold that government and the welfare state is not the solu-tion, but rather the problem, and that the welfare stateshould be dismantled so that families can form and thrive ontheir own and in local communities, unharmed by the policiesof the welfare state. Those favoring this latter approach areincreasingly in the majority in Washington and in many statecapitols.In sum, the priority of dealing with the consequences ofthe post-nuclear family trend (rather than the trend itself),combined with an economistic, laissez-faire, anti-welfarestate philosophy, is clearly steering the current debate inWashington and elsewhere.My own view differs somewhat from this prevailing ap-proach. I believe that it is utopian and impractical to believethat any set of public policies will reverse the deterioration ofchild well-being in our society unless our society also reversesthe core trend that is causing the deterioration. To me, if wewant to make things better for children, there is simply noalternative other than trying to reverse the trend of familyfragmentation.Society needs to use the tools of government and othertools at its disposal to strengthen the basic institutions of thecivil society, especially the institution of marriage, and to pro-mote a cultural shift and attitudinal changes toward the viewthat every child deserves a father and that more childrenought to be growing up with their two married parents. Sucha fundamental cultural shift is not likely to result simplyfrom dismantling the welfare state, nor will it result from ex-panding the welfare state, although government obviouslydoes play a role at times in either making things better orworse.But the change we need most is primarily a culturalchange. The most important challenge that our society facesis to shift our culture in such a way as to strengthen the civilsociety and reverse the trend of family fragmentation.

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