America Breeding Culture of Rejection

America Breeding Culture of Rejection, Index Warns
Friday, 17 December 2010 10:53 AM EST Jennifer
LeClaire News

American children are battling rejection as families are increasingly falling apart. A disturbing 55 percent of American children come from broken homes—and 55 percent of American teenagers’ parents have rejected each other, either through divorce, separation, or choosing not to marry. So says the Index of Belonging and Rejection.

Produced by Pat Fagan, Ph.D., of the Marriage and Religion Research Institute, a project of Family Research Council, the Index defines an intact family as a biological mother and father remaining legally married to each other since before or around the time of their child’s birth.

As Fagan sees it, American society is dysfunctional, characterized by a faulty understanding of the male-female relationship. The solution, he says, is a compass correction, learning again how to belong to each other when we have begotten children together.

“If we fail in this, as a nation we will continue to ‘define deviancy down,’ in the inimitable phrase of Daniel Patrick Moynihan,” Fagan says. “The merging again of the realities of father and mother with those of husband and wife will strengthen our children and lead to immeasurable benefits for children, adults and society. These include financial, educational, legislative, legal and judicial gains.”

According to the Index’s analysis of the 2008 American Community Survey, significant variations in the capacity to belong occur across regions and within different ethnic groups. For example:  FULL STORY