Helping to Destroy the Family

I read Peter Ryan’s column, “Family Services”, in the November Quadrant. As usual, Peter’s dry wit served as a catalyst for thinking, like a small pebble that starts an avalanche. To continue his line of thought: the dangers, represented by the nanny state trying to fill the space left by the disintegration of the traditional family, are so numerous that I am able only to provide one illustration here.

Some years ago my wife and I were invited to a wedding. The happy couple had lived together for many years and had a son of fourteen and a daughter of sixteen. We knew them well enough to be able to ask personal questions. In response to my question, “Why now?” the beaming bride told me that they had decided to tie the formal knot “because of the children. They were sick and tired of hearing their father threatening to walk out on me every time we had a quarrel. Gives them peace of mind, you know.” I was tempted to ask the obvious question, “And what, pray, kept you from tying this particular knot, say, sixteen years ago?” but decided to keep my mouth shut. I knew the answer: money from the government.

To be counted as a single mother with two children and a single man on the dole was much better financially than formal marriage. Both parents also worked under assumed names and got paid cash in hand so as not to jeopardise their Social Security payments. Why would they want to be officially married?

The impact on their children of this parody of family life is profound. The boy learns that it is not necessary to be formally committed to a relationship, that a woman accepts this arrangement and gives a man all the comforts of family life without the reciprocal loyalty. He learns that money will be provided anyway, so there is no need to bust his guts and study or work. He learns that by exercising control of the relationship by the threat of a walkout, he avoids making this relationship a union of equals, being in charge by default. He learns that by threatening a walkout he instils the fear of abandonment in the entire household, the fear he has experienced in his own childhood, the fear he is likely to transmit to his own children. He learns to cheat and deceive the system, which was designed to help those in need. He learns to treat the law of the land with contempt, thus becoming vulnerable to criminal influences. Most importantly, he becomes a member of the underclass of underachievers, unemployable, resentful and aggressive. He becomes susceptible to conspiracy theories, believing that his bleak and unsuccessful life is the result of the actions of some mysterious malevolents, who are out to deny him the happiness he so richly deserves. He becomes part of the inflammable fuel for social discontent, the fodder for the Left’s manipulative societal strategies.

The incredible or inconvenient truth is—we have done it ourselves! We have paid for it with taxes, we have allocated budget money, we have proliferated social services to deliver it. We have done it ourselves.

His sister learns some additional, specifically female, lessons. She learns that women are not equal to men, that being encumbered by children she had better submit to her man’s behaviour to prevent his walkout. Because he is correct—there is nothing that obliges him to stay in the relationship if he does not want to. He is not legally married. This consideration affects her perception of the value of stable personal relationships. She becomes open to the idea that both can play the game and is always on the lookout for a better deal for herself and her kids. This situation has profound moral and ethical implications. Loyalty flies out the window, relationship stability is non-existent, and anxiety levels are sky high.

Sometimes, in my role as a GP for the underclass, I have asked troubled young women in de facto relationships, “Have you considered legal marriage?” The usual answer was, we do not believe in a piece of paper, it would change nothing. My rejoinder was that if it will change nothing, what’s wrong with signing this piece of paper on the dotted line? This revolutionary thought has always left them speechless.

The conclusion is inevitable: instead of help to fellow citizens in need, we have allowed Social Security to become the long-term source of the formation of the underclass with grievous future consequences by making it an attractive alternative to work. More than that, we have contributed to the continuing destruction of the traditional family unit, the bedrock of any civilised society, with similar consequences.