Presbyterian Report on Families -
All Families
by Gloria Albrecht
[5-22-03]
The
Rev. Dr. Gloria H. Albrecht served as a consultant in the preparation of
the "Changing Family" report. She is Professor of Religious Studies and
Women's Studies at University of Detroit Mercy, and earned a PhD in
Christian Ethics from Temple University. Her latest book is entitled
Hitting Home: Feminist Ethics, Women's Work, and the Betrayal of
'Family Values' (Continuum, 2002).
As a Presbyterian, a minister, and one of the
consultants to this report, I hope that people will read it in its
entirety before making their judgements about its adequacy. Readers should
also note that the mandate given to the task force was specific - to
examine the issue of changing families, the impact of these changes on
children, and the social structures, policies, and programs that would
enable the church to support and nurture families and children. The
proposed policy and its supporting rationale focus on the contemporary
characteristics and contexts of families and then turn to biblical and
confessional guidance for relevant theological principles to shape policy
recommendations for the church's support of contemporary families. So,
yes, the document is very preoccupied with the question of family forms
and whether form is the key to family well-being.
Dr. Browning and his colleagues in the Marriage Movement
have answered this question with a resounding "yes." As he states in his
current critique, "…good family process is important, but on the whole,
intact married couples do a better job of it. Why? They are on average
more invested in both their children and each other." His use of the
phrases "on the whole" and "on average" are important in understanding a
major difference between his reading of the social science data and that
of the Presbyterian report on families. Social science researchers are in
agreement that about 90% of the children of intact (married,
two-biological parents) families do fine (score in the normal range) in
achievement and adjustment tests. About 75-80% of children who have
experienced divorce, or are in stepfamilies or single parent homes, also
do fine (score in the normal range) in these tests. There is a 10-15%
difference to be accounted for.
Here's where Browning makes a crucial error. He accuses
the report of trivializing the real suffering of the 10-15% that is not
doing fine. He draws the following analogy: "Take cigarettes: would the
authors of the report say that the majority of smokers is just fine since
only one in three smokers die?" His error is to confuse correlation with
causation. We do know how the chemicals in tobacco physically impair a
variety of body tissues and functions. Can we say the same about family
form? Can social scientists show direct causation between family form and
unhealthy outcomes for children? Or, are other factors at play?
One of the family researchers used by Browning and
others is Sara McLanahan. In fact, she is a primary source of the
statistic noted above. (See Growing Up with a Single Parent) Yet,
she argues that about 50% of this 10-15% difference is due to economic
factors - that is, the greater poverty that plagues single mother
families. One earner families, especially when that one earner is a woman,
have less income that two earner families. And poverty hurts in so many
ways - see Jonathan Kozol's book, Amazing Grace. McLanahan
attributes the rest of the difference (5-8%) to other economically related
issues such as the greater housing instability of low-income families.
How should we interpret this data? The Presbyterian
report looks at the economic factors that now require families to have two
earners in order to sustain economic well-being. Whatever happened to the
single-earner family and the belief that a 40-hour workweek should be
sufficient to support a family at a middle-income level? For low-income
workers earning poverty-level wages, does marriage eliminate the very
real, concrete, horrific circumstances they face involving adequate food,
clothing, shelter, safety, health care, education, enrichment activities,
and so forth, that middle- and upper-income families take for granted?
Today even two-earner families are facing enormous stress in balancing
employment and family demands while living with increasing economic
pressure and uncertainty.
Despite all of this, 75-80% of the children of
single-parent families and stepfamilies are doing "just fine." That is,
they test in the normal range. Therefore, the Presbyterian report refuses
to ignore or stigmatize the faithful work of these families. Obviously
they are doing something very right - despite the odds. It proposes,
instead, that they be supported in the variety of ways that they need
support - sometimes economically, sometimes in understanding different
family dynamics at play, sometimes in challenging the idea that these are
not good-enough families. Browning's charge of "elitism" is stunningly
ironic, then, in light of a report that carefully acknowledges the
privileged socioeconomic and ethnic context of most Presbyterians and then
documents the concrete differences those families in different
socioeconomic and ethnic contexts face and the different responses that
their support requires. To value these families does not in any way
devalue the good family work of intact, married couple families. What is
truly elite, then, is to suggest, as Browning and the Marriage Movement
do, that one family form fits all and should be privileged in church and
social policies.
What then of our biblical and Reformed heritages? Does
the Bible provide us with one, divinely mandated, family form? Obviously
not - unless we want to adopt the patriarchal, hierarchical, polygamous
family kin system of those ancient cultures. What the Bible does show us
is the importance of families, the cultural origins of family forms, and
the constant social temptation to give divine sanction to one family form
at the expense of doing justice for others. The prophetic concern was for
widows, orphans, and sojourners - all those outside the protection of the
dominant kin system. It was also for the poor whose families' lack of
socioeconomic status put their survival at great risk where social
resources were controlled and absorbed by a privileged family. Biblical
scholar Richard Horsely suggests that it is in response to this situation
that Jesus' strong critique of family ties can be best understood. In
place of that system of self-serving family loyalty, Jesus envisions a new
family defined not by blood or marriage but by a shared faith in God as
Father.
Many African-American, Hispanic and Latino, Asian, and
Native American congregations know quite well what it means for the church
to be family. Here all the work and concern that is required to provide
material, psychological, physical, and spiritual well-being flows
unrestricted by biological or legal connections. This is quite a different
vision of church than the vision of a gathering of self-sufficient nuclear
families. Neither vision denigrates marriage nor the church's teachings
regarding the appropriate context for sexual intimacy. But one is informed
by the realities of life lived by communities subject to racial
discrimination and economic deprivation, where every woman is every
child's "other mother" and "auntie." Which vision is more elitist?
Browning charges that the report "pits family well-being
and the Kingdom (Reign) of God against each other." That's only true if
one agrees with Browning and the Marriage Movement that family well-being
requires married-couple-with-own-biological-children families. What the
paper actually argues is that the just relations envisioned by the "Reign
of God" require a society in which families - whether intact married
couple families, single-parent families, stepfamilies, or other forms of
families (singles, adults caring for unrelated children, and so forth) -
are supported by socioeconomic conditions and policies that sustain their
efforts at being good families. And we need churches willing to challenge
the social and economic forces so destructive of that work today. This is
the truth-to-power that the Presbyterian report on families speaks. I can
only hope that there is the courage to listen.
