From National Journal Magazine: Do "Family Values" weaken families?

[TalkingDog]

A subject often commented on at DU

http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/st_20100501_5904.php

The paradox is this: Cultural conservatives revel in condemning the loose moral values and louche lifestyles of "San Francisco liberals." But if you want to find two-parent families with stable marriages and coddled kids, your best bet is to bypass Sarah Palin country and go to Nancy Pelosi territory: the liberal, bicoastal, predominantly Democratic places that cultural conservatives love to hate.

The country's lowest divorce rate belongs to none other than Massachusetts, the original home of same-sex marriage. Palinites might wish that Massachusetts's enviable marital stability were an anomaly, but it is not. The pattern is robust. States that voted for the Democratic presidential candidate in both 2004 and 2008 boast lower average rates of divorce and teenage childbirth than do states that voted for the Republican in both elections. (That is using family data for 2006 and 2007, the latest available.)

[Quantess]

1. This deserves 100+ recommendations

[TalkingDog]

2. I have often wanted to recommend my own posts for that very reason n/t

But I understand why I can't

[RKP5637]

6. +1000 +++ n/t

[CTyankee]

3. Ross Douthat admitted as much in today's NY Times...nt

[Orsino]

4. "Family values" is just code for hatin' gays 'n' wimmen.

Any energy spent in parroting the phrase is energy not spent on actually strengthening families.

[RKP5637]

5. The word "family" is becoming a derogatory word IMO because of the destructive use of

the word family by the RW and similar. Now I cringe when I hear the word because so frequently it embodies a bunch of RW BS and hostility toward one group or another. If they are so F'en great, how come most of their families are so F'ed up!

[CLANG]

27. Yeah, like "The Phelps Family". Kind of puts it in perspective...

[AlbertCat]

37. Then there's THE Family....y'know who runs the C Street brothel.

Sarah Palin is the perfect example of the "Family Values"... (Ignorant Family Control Freaks is a better term)

Sarah....the uber-control mom only concerned with how things LOOK.... not how they are, and only how they affect her.

Todd.... up in the frozen wilderness with his dogs most the time.

Children....unwed school drop out with kids when they're not vandalizing empty homes they're having a Par-tay! in.


Now, of course regular families, liberal and conservative, have the same problems as any family, but using the latest knowledge (including science) and having empathy and concern for others in your family (not just the way it makes YOU look)...communication...just liking other members of the family like chums, friends, as opposed to a bunch of people thrown together by the accident of birth... empathy... these thing help make a family get through it all.

[RKP5637]

51. Yeah, that is a family of some pretty strange characters except the one son that

went to Canada. "The Phelps Family," it just resonates with evilness!

[undeterred]

7. And people with 'family values' take a holier than thou attitude

towards relatives who do not share their beliefs, thereby dividing families.

[G_j]

8. makes sense

K&R

[tanyev]

9. They're talkers/yellers/screamers, not doers.

[WCGreen]

10. Big kick and rec...

[Quantess]

11. Evening kick

[MadMaddie]

12. I am curious if the state of education in the blue states vs red states

is the difference in teen births? :shrug:
<snip>
and all seven with the lowest teen birthrates in 2006, voted blue in both elections
<snip>

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. It matches those patterns

from having seen them stats.

[proReality]

I think a lot of the difference is that

most liberals talk to their kids about sex, where all the conservatives I've ever known seem to think just saying no does the trick.

[wolfgangmo]

40. Yah - just say no ... to dad, uncle booger, your brothers and cousins.

The GOP is not conservative but they are pedophiles (or at least that party and the churches that profit from them seem to succor a lot of pervs).

[RKP5637]

52. Their environments/beliefs are so sexually repressed, so it manifests itself

in other ways as you've mentioned. Frankly, DADT should really apply to the GOP. As you said, "Yah - just say no ... to dad, uncle booger, your brothers and cousins." ... and don't ask don't tell.

[ShamelessHussy]

14. That rings very true

[Hannah Bell]

15. money strengthens families, economic stress divides & destroys them.

red states typically = poorer states.

[Alcibiades]

33. And also the ones getting the most money from the treasury

Even the Tax Foundation doesn't try to spin this basic fact: of the reliably Republican states, only Georgia and Texas get less federal spending than their taxpayers put in. Hawaii is the only reliably Democratic state that is even in the top ten recipients of federal funds per tax dollar paid (unless you count D.C., which is obviously a special case).

[daleo]

16. "Family values" often goes along with mistreatment of women

And that results in ill effects like divorce, teenage pregnancy, etc. So this result doesn't surprise me.

In my own personal experience, the more conservative minded people generally have more strife-filled lives. Constant anger will do that.

[Quantess]

17. Not only that, but also the notion of "putting the fear of god" into children,

which often entails beating and shaming them.

[Maraya1969]

19. That reminds me of a woman I knew a long time ago who's

church taught that the man was the head honcho and the women was to be subservient. The man beat her all the time but she used the Bible as an excuse to stay with him. It was really sick and sad.

[RKP5637]

54. So true. The conservatives are always uptight about something, red faces,

blustering around, always in some fit of anger. Seldom do I see a conservative that doesn't look/act like one uptight butt-head.

[patrice]

18. Authoritarians & their sheep do not think it necessary to identify with values through the processes

of individuation. For authoritarians, values, family or otherwise, are to just be accepted and obeyed, or else.

Thus, when authoritarians and their sheeple, experience challenges to their values, they have nothing of their own with which to process their internal conflicts. What happens then is largely a matter or whether they expect to avoid or acquire the consequences, punishment or reward, respectively, dealt by authority, for violating or conforming to their values. "Self governing" authoritarian adults don't have anyone constantly standing over their lives to punish or reward their failures/successes at "family values". They are like children who have never grown up to accept their own moral responsibilities, relying too much on external controls that are too simplistic and incomplete to say the least.

individuation = identification = internalization

generalization = alienation = externalization

[BlancheSplanchnik]

25. Thanks! I enjoyed this post! n/t

[patrice]

28. Welcome and Good Morning!

:hi:

[BlancheSplanchnik]

56. ...

:D

[Mopar151]

30. No wonder the minister's kids are messed up... n/t

[patrice]

41. Often, most especially so, because "Virtue" is equated with blind acceptance of

the authority of static, religious in this instance, truth.

So, not only does value come from an external source, the more static it is, the more insituttionalized it is, the "better".

You can hear this in ravings against "moral relativism", which is mis-characterized by authoritarians as "there is no right and no wrong", when, in fact, Moral Relativism most definitely does assume that there are rights and wrongs that **INHER** within the conditions of the situation under consideration, i.e. right and wrong must be, **NEED** to be, figured out by the persons involved in that particular, relatively unique, set of circumstances, not by external entities.

If right and wrong are not identified by the persons involved, the situation just replicates itself over and over, until wrongness aggregates such systemic inertia that something essential breaks.

[JDPriestly]

43. Actually, it depends on the minister.

Liberal ministers are not authoritarian at all. And many mninisters' kids turn out great. That's a bit of an old wives' tale. People just expect more of ministers' kids.

[Mopar151]

46. You are of course, somewhat correct.

But if you've ever met one of the messed up ones, you'd know why they stick in your mind. And it's quite possible to be nominally "liberal" and have some pretty serious control issues....

[JDPriestly]

42. Very true in my experience, patrice.

[RKP5637]

55. Excellent analysis!!! n/t

[SpiralHawk]

20. Surprise (not)

So-called Family Values Republicons are THE Latter Day Pharisees.

[RainDog]

21. "family values" is code for religious right wing republicans

so the article should state: are religious right wing republicans bad for the well being of people of this nation?

stats say yes.

[Bluenorthwest]

22. The word 'family' is a weapon for many Americans

It just means 'I don't like gay people'.

[The_Commonist]

23. That's quite fascinating.

I would suggest that everyone reads the entire article.
It really sheds a light on the culture war.
And it's not nearly as judgmental as we are here.

In a nutshell: "In red America, families form adults; in blue America, adults form families."

[daleo]

47. The article was interesting, and the book would be a good read

Nonetheless, I would disagree with a few points in the article:

- "people used to marry young and grow into marriage". Sometimes perhaps, but bad marriage choices coupled with little access to divorce often produced a living hell for all concerned.

- The article doesn't really explain why there has been this geographic differentiation in attitudes regarding marriage, childbearing, etc (i.e. red state vs blue state). It seems to just be assumed.

It does give a nice explanation for the paradox of "values", though.

[pipi_k]

24. Whenever I hear the term "Family values", I want to puke

Because I know it's usually just more, "Do as we say, not as we do" crap from a bunch of moralizing assholes.

Yeah...Liberalism...the Great Danger to Society!!!! :eyes:

[salguine]

26. "I have never met anyone in whom the moral sense was superior who was not

heartless, cruel, vindictive, log-stupid, and utterly lacking in the smallest sense of humanity. Moral people, as they are termed, are simple beasts. I would rather have fifty unnatural vices than one unnatural virtue." —Oscar Wilde

[Skidmore]

29. Every other generation people forget why there was a generation

(usually their own) that rebelled and the cycle repeats. T

[Nydari]

31. Good article, thanks for posting.

[redqueen]

32. Old news really. Glad this fact is finally getting some coverage

in the so-called 'liberal media'.

K&R

[NewJeffCT]

34. I wonder if the so-called media will pick this story up?

And, even if they do, how will they "balance" it so as to appear fair?

[ck4829]

35. Letting the puritans and the government run your family can't be good for it

K&R

[MissMarple]

36. Other research on teen sexual activity has backed this up. n/t

[caseymoz]

38. Tremendous family values fail.

So, conservatives are basically much less effective at even achieving their stated social goals. Whereas liberals leave the family alone and still get much better results, even by the way conservatives measure it.

I never thought I would live to see liberal values so confirmed in so many ways and still feel miserable about it, because those very values are still suppressed and are in political defeat.

[Recursion]

39. There's a more sympathetic view to this than hypocrisy

I think a lot of these people aren't hypocrites; I think that the people who are the most worried about the dissolution of the American family are, maybe not surprisingly, living in the parts of the country where it's actually dissolving.

[Deep13]

44. The places with the lowest divorce rates are also the least religious.

The least pious places in the country are also the least violent and have the lowest rates of teen pregnancy.

[drmeow]

45. One thing I think the article/study got partially wrong

"Blue America, by contrast, was censorious. Bristol had committed the unforgivable sin of starting a family too young."

Actually, a lot of us were also censorious because Bristol committed the unforgivable sin of both being herself and being the child of a hypocrite.

[h9socialist]

48. "Doublethink" in action!

[ieoeja]

49. It could be because "politics are local".

Places that have a higher divorce rate put more effort into fighting divorce by promoting what they call family values.


But from my personal experience growing up in the bible belt, I am pretty sure the cause and effect are the other way around. One of my childhood friends has been married and divorced numerous times simply because the women he meets will not have sex out of wedlock (I think he is uncomfortable with the idea himself). So he marries them, gives them his paycheck expecting them to run the household and, aside from the sex, pretty much ignores them until they divorce him.

The single people I've known from that region who were sexually active and unmarried kept it very quiet. Most also were really good at self-denial like the gal who told a friend of mine that she would never have sex out of wedlock except when she loses control after too much to drink. Then in the very next sentence she invited him over to her place to help her down a couple bottles of vodka. He didn't go because he found the hypocrisy disgusting.

[BEZERKO]

50. This has been said many times and in many ways.

The conservative movement has been the party of death and destruction.

[Rex]

53. Family Values is code for Repukes that pretend they live life by a certain code.

Which it seems none of them do or can do. I believe it is RWingspeak for Fundamentalism.