Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 2, 1995 TAG: 9504030085
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune
DATELINE: CHICAGO LENGTH: Medium
The colorful pages of children's books in the last few years have taught kids about the changing nature of American families with dinosaurs talking about divorce and parades singing the praises of the ``so many groups in the family soup.''
But a new study says such lessons perpetuate a culture of divorce that harms children. The Council on Families in America report blames the breakdown of marriage as an institution for child poverty, teen pregnancy and a host of social ills.
``We as a society are simply failing to teach the next generation about the meaning, purposes and responsibilities of marriage,'' the report says. ``If this trend continues, it will constitute nothing less than an act of cultural suicide.''
Critics branded the report as thin on fact and vague in solutions, but its release Friday in New York is sure to stoke national discussion and serve as one more voice in a strident chorus developing in America against the notion that families can come in any shape and size and still work well for children.
William Pinsof, president of Evanston's Family Institute, the Midwest's oldest training center for family therapists, dismissed the study as simplistic and wrongheaded.
``It's the `Dan Quayle Was Right,' argument, blaming all the social issues of the last half of the 20th century on the high incidence of divorce,'' he said. ``The ultra-conservative movement in this country is attempting to simplistically blame the problems of families and children on the parents.''
But the problems are much more closely linked to government policies that have withdrawn support for those groups, he said.
David Popenoe, co-chairman of the Council on Families in America and a sociology professor at Rutgers University, says the group includes scholars from across the political spectrum and, if anything, ``leans to the left.''
``We hoped to make this issue something that isn't immediately branded conservative or liberal,'' he said.
The group cites recent surveys that found children from divorced families, when they become teen-agers, have two to three times more behavioral and psychological problems than children from intact homes. Of juveniles and young adults serving in long-term correctional facilities, 70 percent did not live with both parents while growing up, and broken-home backgrounds contribute to as many as three in four teen suicides and four in five psychiatric admissions, the report says.
The study cited statistics from federal sources and academic reports.
by CNB