In January, The Chronicle of Higher Education ran a
special issue about a federal program to promote healthy
marriages, run by the U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services.
The “HHS family of agencies,” as it likes to call it-
self, comprises 11 operating divisions and 10 regional
offices. One of these is the Office of Family Assistance,
which runs (among other things) the Healthy Marriage
Initiative. It’s hard to say exactly how much the initia-
tive costs, but it has about $60 million in grants out-
standing.
Here’s how it works. Recruiters seek out poor par-
ents, in places like hospitals and food-stamp offices,
and offer them money and other inducements to attend
13 weeks of relationship education. Everyone agrees
that children are better off with doting parents who love
each other. The program aims to create families like
this. Amere $60 million is small potatoes for an agency
like HHS, but it comes to about $11,000 per couple for
the program participants.
The results have been quite disappointing. A three-
year study of eight grantees found that couples who
took part were no more likely to stay together or get
married than the control group. Fathers did not spend
more time with children. Children were not more emo-
tionally secure. Some programs actually showed nega-
tive outcomes, which is to say, the
control group did better. The article
in the Chronicle article asks, “So
why aren’t we pulling the plug?”
It doesn’t seem unreasonable to
spend money to encourage young
parents to marry and stay married.
However ineffective this program
has been, it does focus on a principal
cause of the ills that afflict children
and families. Consider the much-
discussed problem of growing eco-
nomic inequality. A new study by Harvard economist
Raj Chetty indicates that the best predictor of economic
mobility is the percentage of children who live in intact
families.
The program’s failure is more disappointing still be-
cause it is that rare solution that can claim bipartisan
support. Presidents Bush and Obama have both been
fans.
Then again, isn’t it odd that we have engaged
the federal government to teach young people about
healthy marriage and relationship skills? I don’t just
mean “odd” in a constitutional or political sense. I mean
“odd” because HHS, as an institution, knows so little
about love and marriage.
In the past we learned about those things from our
families, our churches, parochial schools and a dozen
other private associations. Today we look to Washing-
ton.
I am reminded of the passage in
“Democracy in
America”
where Alexis de Tocqueville speaks about the
progress of the temperance movement: “I came to un-
derstand,” he says, “that these hundred thousand Amer-
icans, frightened by the progress of drunkenness around
them, wanted to support sobriety by their patronage. ...
One may fancy that if they had lived in France each
of these hundred thousand would have made individual
representations to the government asking it to supervise
all the public houses throughout the realm.”
These days, we’re more like France.
Private institutions and individuals will always un-
derstand love, marriage, child rearing and families bet-
ter than the government does.
Remitting to them the task of restoring marriage
asks each of us to contribute a lot of arduous and unpaid
work. That may explain the appeal of asking the gov-
ernment to manage our relationships. But -- no surprise
-- the evidence indicates that that doesn’t work.
John Garvey is president of The Catholic University
of America in Washington.
Intellect
and Virtue
Garvey
Matrimony in America
Emptying a toy box is like cleaning out the soul
Just this morning I was “happily” mopping my
floors as my three youngest children were peacefully
playing upstairs. Just as I thought to myself how calm
things seemed to be upstairs (and a little worried about
it also) I heard a loud crash and then another. I ran to
the playroom to see what in the world could have hap-
pened. My heart sank, before me I saw every single
bucket and basket of toys dumped out -- everywhere. I
noticed the three little’s were still deep in their game so
I calmly reminded them how every toy would be picked
up before lunch, and then I headed back to my chores.
I thought for a few moments why this mess bothered
me so much, aren’t they their toys, aren’t they supposed
to play with them? Then I saw the mess in my head
again, all those toys, the littlest pieces strewn all over
that room, and everything would have to be put back
in its place. I smiled and decided that this would be a
great opportunity to go through all those toys and put
them back in their proper place, with all the one thou-
sand little parts together. And just like that my mind had
turned to confession!
Confession, really? A huge mess of toys leads me to
a reflection on confession? Absolutely! Think about it
for a moment, isn’t this what confession is? Isn’t it an
opportunity to take all our little messes and clean them
out and put things back in order -- through the Grace
of our Lord? It sure is! Even more than that I thought
about all those little toy pieces and
how our soul is filled with something
very similar. See while the kids and I
cleaned up the mess, I directed them
to pick up all the big toys because
that was the easiest, then I concen-
trated on the small ones knowing that
would take the longest and I really
wanted them put up in an organized
fashion. What about our soul and the
many, many sins we commit every-
day. Sometimes we concentrate on the
really big ones, and we should, but as we pray and pre-
pare for Reconciliation how often do we think of the
little venial sins. It’s those small little sins that lead us
to greater, deeper, mortal sins.
That big pile of toys would have been a synch to
clean up if it was only big trucks and dolls, but it was
much, much more than that. How did it get that way, if
I had all those little toys put in a certain place, how did
they get in those big buckets and then all over my floors.
I’ll tell you exactly how, one day at a time, one small
piece at a time. Each little toy left in a bucket meant
nothing to me or the kids, then everyday those little
pieces multiplied until in was a big, awful unorganized
mess. And that’s exactly how small venial sins pile up
in us, and turn into big awful unorganized messes! See,
we go to confession, clean out our soul and then head
back to our everyday lives. We are very careful and
catch ourselves at the slightest temptation, then as time
passes we let a little sin in. That turns into another and
then another, until our souls are filled with these little
sins, like my toy bucket, that have now caused a very
dysfunctional mess. What happens then is even worse,
if we find that we haven’t “reorganized” our souls by
receiving the sacrament of reconciliation, then we start
slipping further and further away. Those small sins no
longer look like a big deal and we allow ourselves to
fall into bigger temptations.
It’s a very slippery slope, but then again God knew
what He was doing, that’s why He gave us the sacra-
ments. He knew we needed a way to come to Him,
speak out loud to someone, own up to our faults, and
then cleanse our souls. The more often we do this the
harder it is for the devil to tempt us. The same goes
with my kids, the better I can be with reminding them
to put things up exactly where they belong and not just
throw every random thing from the floor into one large
bucket, then the next time they dump out the big toy
bins, maybe, just maybe, it won’t be such a big deal.
Jessica Maddox is a member of Holy Spirit Parish
in Vancleave. Email her at
Faith and
Family
Maddox
Gulf Pine Catholic
•
March 28, 2014
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