The Need for (Proper) Standards

Standards for life determine how people live, for good or bad. Who sets them?  What are they?

 In America the answer traditionally was the family which guarded the offspring and, with assistance from various societal forces including religious bodies, educational institutions and other entities forming the mores of the community.

 In today's America, such traditional influences are no longer active for many, if not most.

 The former sources for setting and upholding standards have largely abdicated that task. That is not to say that such moral elites have forsaken their personal beliefs in the rightness of certain guidelines of life hope (although certainly some have). Instead, it is that they have lost faith in the rightness of their doing so. In these terms the attitude is prevalent that no one should insist or suggest that others conform to standards of behavior followed seemingly since the dawn of time.

 It is as if the consensus of former moral leaders is that despite the manner of their conduct, they believe that it is presumptuous to offer guidance to others.

 Yet despite such reluctance the simple fact is that standards of behavior will be set. The void will be filled, although not to the benefit of society necessarily.

Social science studies make clear that certain behaviors lead to personal well-being while others do not.

The prescription for individual success can be summarized in chronological order: (One) get an education, (Two) get a job, (Three) get married, (Four) have children.  The order matters.  Obtaining a decent job presupposes adequate schooling; being self-supporting, for men, makes one eligible to attract a spouse and successful child raising is best accomplished within a marriage.  Abundant research has established that these are not debatable assertions.

 Of the four, the last is the most important (although its status flows from the  preceding three). Children, as the true but hackneyed phrase instructs, are the future. Their proper upbringing (including the inculcation of moral and life virtues) should be the paramount focus of society

 [Interestingly as cohabitation has increased and marriage numbers have dropped, child welfare has declined. On one level, the well-established fact makes no sense. Why should the fact that mom and dad are not married but living together affect a child's well-being or outcome? But it does. Perhaps, viewed from a different perspective, the lack of the relationship’s legal permanence – marriage – impacts the parents’ treatment of the off-spring.  Perhaps the “looseness” of the relationship shapes the parents’ commitment to the child (which he or she absorbs).]

 (Based on my experience, some very thoughtful people would say this explanation applies more to men than women.  Mothers tend to stick to their kids through thick and thin.  A mother’s commitment to the child would increase, not decrease, if she and her partner weren’t married.)