It used to be that the normal structure for a family would be a faithful married man and woman living together, with children at some point. That has been rapidly changing in the last decade. The question of redefining the definition of marriage in the United States went to the Supreme Court in March of 2013. An influential document, called the APA (American Psychological Association) brief, was cited multiple times during the case. The main claim of the brief, based on 59 studies, is that "Not a single study has found children of lesbian or gay parents to be disadvantaged in any significant respect relative to children of heterosexual parent.'' The decision of the court case was that marriage can be between two men or two women, in addition to the traditional one man and one woman. When the APA brief was reviewed, it was found to contain grievous errors of multiple natures. Studies in fact show that children with gay or lesbian parents actually are at a disadvantage to children with heterosexual parents in several respects. The research shows that the traditional family structure, mentioned earlier, is the safest and healthiest for children.
I recently watched a two-part documentary called, "The New Economic Reality: Demographic Winter." For me, it was eye-opening, saddening, and scary. It mentioned all of the negative outcomes happening currently, and that will happen in the future, because of the lack of children people are having, and the decreasing importance placed on families. It started out by describing what was called the Baby Boom, and also a book called The Population Bomb. After World War 2, some people started having more babies, and less people were dying because of advances in medicine. This led to a rapid increase in population, termed the Baby Boom by one person. About the same time, a Stanford Professor named Paul Ehrlich published a book called The Population Bomb, that foretold famine and disease outbreaks due to overpopulation, and called for humanity to work on decreasing the population by having less children. It was thought to be unethical to have many kids, because they were using up precious resources that the next generation needed. This led to people having less kids.
In the documentary, it showed how most every country, even the well established ones, are decreasing in population, or will be in the next couple of decades, because not enough people are being born to replace those who are dying. I don't think it mentioned one country that isn't in that position. It showed the damage this inflicts on the economy, because there aren't enough workers. It also affects Social Security and other such measures to take care of the elderly, because there aren't enough young workers paying to take care of them. The documentary also talked about the many reasons that family importance has decreased, including the feminist movement, birth control, and the emphasis on individualism. The documentary concluded that in order to stop the several negative effects that are happening and will happen, we need to strengthen the family as the fundamental unit of society.
All of these things that I have learned struck home for me. The family has always been very important to me because of how I was raised and my religious beliefs. It saddens me that families are becoming less important to people in general, in many cases because they are putting their careers first. Now, I want to say that I do not condemn people for pursuing their careers. Referring back to the beginning of this post, I do not hate or wish ill on those who are gay or lesbian and those that decide to have a family. I just hope that humanity learns to take care of itself, and strengthening the family is central to doing that. I love my family, and I hope that my future posts will help you strengthen yours.
