A pro-family public policy need of the day

Lionel Wijesiri

With the sudden introduction of liberalization in late 1970s, Sri Lanka began to change in many different ways. One adverse effect was the erosion of the family values. The family, once viewed as the deepest source of affection and emotional support, increasingly came to be seen as an impediment to individual self-fulfilment.

The relationship between family values and the values of individualism and personal autonomy has become ever more tense today.

One source of the strain lies in a continuing escalation in the expectations of what a marriage can and ought to fulfil. Rising expectations have proved difficult to meet, and the result has been mounting divorce rates.

A further source of strain has been individuals’ increased desire for personal monetary fulfilment, especially the middle-class belief that happiness can be achieved only through a successful, independent career.

In every culture, the family is a microcosm of social reality. That means, a healthy society depends on vigorous families.

Evidence increasingly indicates that mothers and fathers play a vital and hard to replace role in the nurture of their children and adolescents. The care and responsiveness of extended family and community are also needed to help young people reach their full potential and to help family life flourish.

A range of trends in the present society are militating against the efforts and goodwill of parents and community members who take the nurture of the young seriously.

Poor awareness of research findings about the needs of families and young people leads to harmful cultural trends such as an increasingly sexualized media environment and complacency about marriage breakdown statistics.

Both sides of debates about such issues have sometimes fallen for the temptation of divisiveness over solutions.

Good public policy development can only take place when the hard yards of applying intellectual rigour to evidence have been done. Public policies can create structures that encourage the cultivation of even the most private of our cherished institutions.

Public policies that treat every member as integral to the entire family’s health will diffuse the destructive tendency toward self-love which is the real threat to family stability and strength. It is the proper role of government not to intervene in family life, but to make possible a healthy, strong and productive life for all families.

Good social policy

A society that places a premium on family life must give children their proper role as the custodians of our future. One out of every five of our pre-school children lives below the poverty line.

The truth is that we simply cannot afford to ignore this issue. There can be long-term effects from living in a atmosphere of poverty.

The cycle is often repeated through generations. Children often grow up believing this living style is normal and they may gravitate towards people and situations that mimic the style they were accustomed to.

A healthy relationship won’t be easily recognized because it’s foreign to someone who hasn’t lived within a close and loving atmosphere. Often drug and alcohol abuse or domestic violence is repeated, whether by a learned behaviour or an escape from behaviour that was poured upon an innocent child.

We must provide a supplemental nutrition package to the pregnant women who cannot afford a sufficient diet.

After delivery we must offer good nutrition to her infant. If we are not willing to pay for such family programs now, we will pay much later. It costs more to hospitalize a malnourished infant.

Good nutrition now for the most vulnerable of our family members will minimize future healthcare costs. Moral sensitivity and fiscal responsibility are not mutually contradictory.

Pro-family public policies will recognize that preventive medicine is good not only for our children’s bodies, but also for their minds.

A child’s education begins at birth, and half of all learning takes place before entering kindergarten.

Because one out of five of our children suffer from poverty, they need the advantage of early educational opportunities.

Global surveys have demonstrated that education is a great preventive medicine for poverty’s liabilities.

Quality early-childhood education programs that involve families reduce school dropout rates in later years, diminish welfare dependency and teenage violence, and result in lower crime rates when children grow up.

We must help keep or make possible the life-giving family connections that sustain us all.

This advocacy must mandate that every place of employment become family-sensitive by offering flexible work hours, parental leave, job sharing and on-site or nearby childcare; we cannot continue to value the family and work independently.

Family life will be strengthened by minimizing the conflict between home and job, fostering cooperation rather than competition between them.

Pro-family bill

We need a national vision that unifies the many and complex issues facing families that understands that human need always exists in the context of relationship. This vision could lead to a national agenda that makes family life the cornerstone of all domestic public policy. This is an enormous task requiring a partnership between the public and private sectors. And it will obviously cost money. But it is by the way we order our lives and spend our money that we reveal who and what we truly value.

What we urgently need today is a pro-family bill in keeping with the Article 16 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which proclaims that the family is “the natural and fundamental group unit of society,” entitled to protection by the State. It should be a law to strength the family. It should be an Act brought to bear in evaluating every governmental program and policy for its impact on the family.

Such a bill should include tax incentives for families, educational initiatives that emphasize responsible fatherhood and motherhood while steering teens toward marriage, and a requirement that government public housing projects be ‘family friendly’.

Pro-family perspectives can eventually offer expertise in a range of policy issues related to the family, children and young people.

These issues include the media, advertising, culture, community life, urban design and planning, economics, work and family balance, early childhood, adolescent development and sexuality, marriage and relationship culture and public policy. We all want to belong and feel accepted. A sense of belonging is derived from the close bond of family. Family is where our roots take hold and from there we grow. We are moulded within a unit, which prepares us for what we will experience in the world and how we react to those experiences.

Values are taught at an early age and are carried with us throughout our life. Close family bonds are important and have many benefits.

As a potter moulds clay to form a beautiful creation, so does the close bond of family and good values.

Government too has a responsibility to facilitate healthy family and community life that fosters the nurture of the next generation. A pro-family bill is a step in the right direction.