Good News About The Family
This week in Parliament, I took part in a debate on a Bill (planned to making every social change include a study on how this would impact family life). Many people get caught up in the ideas that the traditional family as we know it is fast dying. We acknowledge that, but we must not allow several distressing facts blind us to the fact that the traditional family in Australia is alive and well. I said in my speech:
“The traditional family, whether possessing one or two parents is under increasing pressure these days. Some silly press reporters who do not know the statistics or the trends, write about the demise of the family as if it were a fact. There are more than four million families in Australia, of which 85% are couple families and a further 13% are sole parent families. 65% have dependent children. These are families.Certainly, distressing issues concerning divorce, family poverty, family violence, conflict in blended families, children’s fears of parental separation, the number of de facto relationships, and so on, encourage the media to sensationalise the issue of family life.
Is there any good news about family life? The facts about family life are as follows.
If 40% of marriages end in divorce, 60% of all marriages will last a lifetime.
60% of remarriages last ‘until death do us part.’
90% of unmarried people say they ‘expect to marry’. . Only 4% of unmarried people say they ‘never’ want to have children.
Two thirds of all children say they are happy with the interest their parents show in them.
Only 11 per cent of stepfamilies could be characterised as ‘high conflict’ families.
Only 5% of one-parent families, found ‘high conflict’ whereas 7% of intact families experienced conflict.
In only a quarter of the one-parent families did the child ‘never’ see the absent parent.
The intact family unit is still the most important one for children in Australian society.This view of the state of Australia’s families is healthier than many imagine. This is not to deny that many marriages come to an end, many families live in poverty, resulting in many children suffering trauma. But it is saying that marriage and family life in Australia is in good heart and resilient.
This reminds us that ‘the family’ is the most radical of all social units successfully resisting through the ages the attacks of powerful ideologies. It resisted the Church’s attempt to promote celibacy and virginity ahead of the family. It resisted the onslaughts of Marxist-Leninism which demanded the State’s interests take precedence. It resists the criticisms of radical feminist ideologies which see the family as the major source of oppression for women. The family survives!
Families are a powerful force which cannot be denied. They are “the most vital crucible of both competence and change, in which ordinary human beings work out their own goals and responses to changing social conditions. We must avoid over-stating the amount of turmoil, real as it is, in family life.”
This is GORDON MOYES.
