Family Truths

Children living with single mothers are more likely to drop out of school and to become teen parents, and are five times more likely to be poor, than children in two-parent households. And the evidence suggests that children who live with their biological mother and father do better than those who live in step-families or with cohabiting partners.

That's not simply the conclusion of the so-called 'fundamentalistic Christians' who gathered in Amsterdam recently at the Fifth World Congress of Families.

These are family truths as expressed in Barack Obama's (inspirational) book, Audacity of Hope (Crown, NY, 2006, p334).

Obama concludes: 'In the light of these facts, policies that strengthen marriage for those who choose it and that discourage unintended births outside of marriage are sensible goals to pursue.'

Yet as 700 delegates from 60 nations, including Jews, Mormons, Muslims, Hindus and Catholics, prepared to gather with academics and politicians in Amsterdam a few days ago to promote a pro-family message, activists attacked the congress office with paintbombs and sprayed slogans such as 'Christian-fundis go home!'.

Objections were raised in parliament to Dutch Vice-Premier Rouvoet's plans to address the congress. The media branded the 'ultra-conservative' event 'controversial'. The mayor of Amsterdam required the organisers to increase security four-fold, at their own expense.

Broad
At the same time, the mayor conceded that if Amsterdam could host a Gay Pride parade, as it did the weekend before, then surely the city had room for a conservative congress as well.

The protest sputtered out after the first day. The original dozen noisy demonstrators, including one member of parliament, gave way to a lone placard-bearing woman on the second.

Because of her involvement in promoting National Marriage Week in Holland, my wife registered to attend. Yes, she reported, there were a disporportionate number of very conservative American groups represented in the exhibition hall.

But the range of speakers included Holland's Chief Rabbi, the Catholic Archbishop of Utrecht, a former Australian cabinet minister, a Ghanaian prince, a Dutch professor who advises the UN on children and armed conflict, the deputy secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Family, a Hindi professor who heads the Centre for Women's Studies at Hyderabad University in India, a Morman professor from Utah, and the vice-president of the synod of the Protestant Churches of the Netherlands (among many others)-hardly 'Christian fundis'.

Goal
Of course, the range could have been much broader-to include advocates of the sixteen alternative forms of family officially recognised in Holland: two male parents, two female parents, one female parent, etc. Yet the whole point of this event was to argue that a natural family of father, mother and children was, by all standards (educational achievement, career success, income level, alcohol and drug problems), simply the best option for a child's upbringing.

The congress-preceded in earlier years by events in Prague, Geneva, Mexico City and Warsaw-underscored Article 16, paragraph 3, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states: 'the family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society, and is entitled to protection by society and the State.'

The Declaration of Amsterdam read out in the closing session (see www.worldcongress.org) affirmed that the future of nations rested on families that were spiritually grounded; and that public policy must respect that the natural family existed prior to the state.

It called for laws and policies supporting the natural institution of marriage; discouraging divorce, especially where children were involved; encouraging couples to commit themselves to the rearing of children; protecting the primary right of parents to guide their children's moral and practical education; and guarding vulnerable human life, especially at the beginning and end of the life cycle.

Which sounds like arguing for motherhood, doesn't it?

Till next week,

©YWAM Europe - Weekly Words are the personal reflections of Jeff Fountain and do not necessarily express the official position of YWAM.
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