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Austin has described to you the current situation
surrounding the UN press into social and family policy. I come to you both as historian and
futurist, explaining how the problem occurred and suggesting a way to chart a
much better course. Curiously, in its
early years, the United Nations actually operated on remarkably strong
pro-family principles. Its shift toward
extreme gender politics and sexual radicalism came only later. How did this happen?
The dominant architects of the early U.N. documents
in the 1940's, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, were in
fact religious people: Christian Democrats and their sympathizers. Reacting to the challenges of
nazism,
fascism, and communism, this movement born in Europe gave priority to the
defense of what they called "natural social structures." These included neighborhoods, towns, and
churches; but the one given most attention was the family. The French theorist Etienne Gilson, in his
1948 book Notre Democratie, neatly summarized the point:
From…birth to…death, each [person] is involved in a
multiplicity of natural social structures outside of which he [or she] could
neither live nor achieve…full development….
Each of these groups possesses a specific organic
unity; first of all, there is the family, the child's natural place of growth.
The Christian Democrats saw these institutions as
intrinsic or innate, meaning that they would always reappear out of the very
instincts and nature of humankind. They
also pre-existed the state; that is, the law did not create families and towns;
it "found them."
Restoration of the family
meant that control of education should be returned to parents; that motherhood
should enjoy special protection, and that heads-of-households should receive a
"family wage," so that mothers might be empowered to remain home with
their young children.
The movement emphasized the rooting of human rights
in the Creation itself, in the Natural Law.
Such rights were "innate" because their fountainhead was God
Himself. Bearing a healthy suspicion of
centralized government, Christian Democrats embraced Human Rights in order to
protect "the natural rights of each individual" and of "natural
social groups" from the overweening power of the state.
The Christian Democrats of Europe would carry these
ideas into the early assemblies of the new United Nations, with important
result. This worldview had especial
influence in the Economic and Social Council, or ECOSOC, which oversaw all U.N.
work on issues of social policy and human rights, including the Commission on
Human Rights, established in 1946. The
most important individual was Charles Habib Malik of Lebanon, who became
President of ECOSOC in the critical year, 1948, and who chaired The Commission
on Human Rights. Malik was an Arab
Christian with a French education and a philosopher wholly in tune with the new
Christian Democratic currents. A rich
Christian imagery ran through his speeches and writings, above all in his view
that "there is a direct relationship between peacemaking and having the
right relationship to God--the ground of being and existence."
Another central player was the French legal scholar
Rene Cassin. He took the lead role in
producing successive drafts of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. While himself Jewish, Cassin was sympathetic
to the goals of Christian Democracy. He
emphasized the foundation derivation of the human rights idea in Holy
Scripture.
Approved by the U.N. General Assembly on December
10, 1948, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was, in one historian's
judgment, "largely identical" with the value system expressed in the
Christian Democratic worldview.
Specifically, we find in Article 16 the affirmation of
"natural" social institutions:
The family is the natural and fundamental group unit
of society and is entitled to protection by society and the state.
The word,
"natural," comes straight out of the Christian Democratic
worldview. Even the use of the word
"society" here as distinct from and prior to "the state" is
a Christian Democratic marker.
The Universal Declaration
also affirms the liberty of the family, as in Article 26:
Parents have a prior right
to choose the kind of education that shall be
given to their children.
Even the term,
"equality," subject before and later to so much mischief, finds rich
meaning in the Universal Declaration through Christian Democratic phrases such
as "the right to life" (found in Article 3) and "the dignity and
worth of the human person" (Preamble).
In short, a Judeo-Christian
worldview dominated discussion of "social policy" and "human
rights policy" during the founding years of the United Nations, 1946 to
1948, and it remained an intellectual force there for a least another
decade.
Yet by the 1960's, a rival
worldview also coming out of Europe was gaining ascendancy within the United
Nations structure: Democratic Socialism.
This idea-system first took root at the U.N. through Scandinavian
dominance of the U.N. Secretariat under the Norwegian Trygve Lie and the Swede
Dag Hammarskiold, the first two U.N. Secretary Generals. Through their influence, Democratic
Socialists disproportionately peopled the UN Bureaucracy.
Among those named to a key
post was Alva Myrdal, (the subject of my doctoral dissertation). Secretary-General Lie knew of her work in
the 1930's on Sweden's "population crisis." With husband Gunnar Myrdal, she had crafted a Socialist response
to the sharp decline in Scandinavian birth rates. In essence, the Myrdals had argued that the only way to raise
fertility to a replacement level was by socializing the costs and burdens of
childrearing; in essence, turning all children into wards of the state.
Alva Myrdal drew Lie's
attention again in 1948, through a speech at the U.N. offices in Geneva on
"The Surplus Energy of Married Women." With her own new-model-marriage to Gunnar then in trouble, Alva
Myrdal argued that child rearing and care of the home were no longer enough to
keep a modern woman content.
In late 1948, Lie named Alva
Myrdal as Deputy Assistant Secretary-General for the U.N.'s Social Commission:
"third from the top," as she would say. Her responsibilities were to manage U.N. work on women's issues,
population, welfare, and human rights.
Alva Myrdal saw this as the perfect opportunity to turn the U.N.
Secretariat into a vehicle for the spread of her version of European Social
Democratic feminism. As Alva Myrdal
wrote to her friend, Disa Västberg:
It is for me a great
pleasure to contemplate that Social Democratic feminists…now have an unhindered
opportunity to…gain influence over the U.N. Secretariat….which will
allow us to alter human society in line with our views.
What were these views? Views that might be
labeled EURO-FEMINIST,
the largest number of adherents come from Northern and Western Europe. As described my Myrdal, they include:
First, there are no moral absolutes. Morals, and most specifically traditional Christian morals, are merely the
product of historical evolution and institutional change. If large numbers of persons no longer
behaved in accord with inherited "moral standards," then those standards--rather
than the people--needed to be changed.
Second, the existing, so-called
traditional family inherited from the
past "is almost…pathological," "rootless,"
"isolated," and doomed. It
should be replaced by a new social model, where the home would be sharply
diminished in importance; where women stood beside men "as comrades"
in outside labor; where children became a governmental responsibility, where
the young, from the earliest age, are "indoctrinated" into a new
model of socialized cooperation; where marriage is stripped of its autonomy and
economic and legal significance; where the family surrenders all of its
remaining functions; where "voluntary parenthood" is assured through
liberalized abortion laws and early sex-education for children; and where
parenthood is exposed as unhealthy, as seen in this comment by Myrdal:
Much of the tiresome pathos
which defends 'individual freedom' and 'responsibility for one's family' is
based on a sadistic disposition to extend this 'freedom' to an unbound and
uncontrolled right to dominate others.
Third, in Myrdal's view, the goal
of gender equality demands the crushing of all institutions, traditions,
and cultural structures that get in its way.
Even the "great and fundamental differences" between men and
women that were created by nature--differences she said were real-- had
to be eliminated or compensated for by state intervention.
These Euro-feminist views
opened the way for extensive social engineering, at the national and
international levels. For six critical
years, Alva Myrdal shifted the U.N.'s focus away from Family Renewal and
subjects such as the suppression of prostitution, toward building a Post-Family
order. And there were real
consequences from her legacy. For
example, the "Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
Against Women" [CEDAW] is closely aligned with these views. Taken as a whole, CEDAW strips the family of
all autonomy and authority. It gives
moral legitimacy solely to the isolated, radical individual. And it grants sweeping power to the state to
regulate, restructure, and even abolish the natural family. This is the meaning, for example, of Article
5 which declares:
State parties shall take all
appropriate measures to modify the social and cultural patterns of conduct of
men and women, with a view to achieving the elimination of prejudices or
customary and all other practices which are based…on stereotyped roles for men
and women.
In related fashion, the
"Convention on the Rights of the Child"--despite some worthy
sentiments--in the end subverts the authority of parents over their children;
strips away the authority of religious faith and tradition in favor of a
radical social science; and prevents nations and peoples from sheltering their
own unique cultures. In Article 13, we
read:
[T]he child shall have the
right to freedom of expression; this right shall include the freedom to seek,
receive, and impart information of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either
orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other medium
of the child's choice.
To choose one example, the
child's declared "right" to "freedoms" of
"expression" and "information" is the polar opposite of
that found in Article 26 of the Universal Declaration (which states
"Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be
given to their children."); and it is evidence of the victory of a
post-family worldview over a pro-family one.
So what should be done? Beyond the current battles that Austin has
described, perhaps it its time to change the terms of debate, which is always
among the most effective political strategies.
Toward that end, I want to engage today in a small fantasy. I will assume that I have been asked by the
nations of the world to draft a new and more appropriate Charter of Rights for
children. It is to be called What
Children Really Need, and it is to reflect both the pro-family assumptions
of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as the freshest and most
compelling new research on this question.
In the spirit of the U.S. Bill of Rights, I have settled on Ten
Articles. Briefly explained, they are:
Article I: Each Child Has the Right to a Mother. Despite the best arguments for the view that differences between
men and women are insignificant, the modern sciences continue to reinforce what
custom and common sense also teach: on issues of human reproduction, men and
women are very different. Only women
have the gift to carry the conceptus to birth. Only women can develop the unique hormonal bonds between mother
and child mediated by that amazing organ, the placenta. And only women can provide that fountain of
nurture giving human babies exactly the nutrition they need when they need it:
namely, human milk. As the children
grow, mothers play unique roles in guiding girls and boys into psychologically
healthy development. As research
reported in The Journal of Genetic Psychology explains, having "a
recollection of the mother as available and devoted predicted less loneliness,
less depression, less anxiety, higher self esteem, and more resiliency in
dealing with life's events."[1] In these ways, mothers are vital to what
economists call long-term human capital formation.
To fulfill the Child's Right to a Mother,
governments should take all reasonable steps to treat motherhood as the most
important of vocations.
Article II: Each Child Has the Right to a Father. The evidence has now accumulated here as well: fathers are not
optional adornments in the household; they are necessary to the healthy growth
of children.
A recent article in the journal
Demography by scholars at
the Universities of North Carolina and Pennsylvania ably summarizes the
evidence. "Fathers matter,"
they write. A father's involvement in a
child's life "significantly influences [three] outcomes: economic and
educational attainment and [avoidance of] delinquency." Fathers who are "both emotionally close
and highly involved in joint activities" play a major role in a child's
maturation. Adolescents who experience
"increasing closeness" with their fathers are protected from
"delinquency and psychological distress."[2]
To fulfill the Child's Right to a Father,
governments should take all reasonable steps to protect and celebrate the
father-guided Family.
Article III: Each Child Has the Right to a Home Built
on Marriage. The research evidence on family and
children, accumulating for two decades, points to one overwhelming conclusion:
children are most likely to be healthy, happy, well-behaved, and responsible,
most likely to succeed in school and in life,
and least likely to be promiscuous, delinquent, or users of alcohol and
illegal drugs if they live with their two natural parents who, in turn, are
lawfully married. Any willed variation
from this model--due to cohabitation, legal separation, divorce, or
sole-parenting--will predictably lead to negative results for the
children.
It is the union of male and female through
marriage that produces these results.
Each partner brings gifts to the marital bond that are complementary. New research shows how this works. One unusual study reported in the journal
Criminology
found that the active bonds between wives in a neighborhood--such as
borrowing food or tools or having lunch at a neighbors home--had a strong
effect in reducing neighborhood rates of violent crime. Yet this result was not produced through the
bonds of husbands in a neighborhood. On
the other hand, the presence of "family rooted men" in the same neighborhoods
did reduce rates of out-of-wedlock births among neighborhood
teenagers. It appears that a
single-mother-home with teenage daughters present was viewed by young
neighborhood males as "an unprotected nest," because it lacks "a
man, the figure the boys are prepared to respect,…to keep them in line."[3] The lesson here is that a husband and a wife
complement each other; each marital partner brings unique talents to the
building of a home, so that it becomes greater than the sum of its parts.
To fulfill the Child's Right to a Home, responsible
governments will use all prudent means to encourage lawful marriage, discourage
divorce, and recognize the prior existence and autonomy of families.
Article IV:
Each Child Has the Right to Siblings. The
current trend, particularly strong in developed lands, is toward a
one-child-family system. For example,
if current trends in Europe continue for another fifty years, by the year 2050
a majority of the remnant European people will have no brothers or sisters, no
aunts or uncles, no cousins. A range of
anti-child impulses help explain this, including the heavy burden of taxation
on household budgets.
This trend toward a one-child family system portends
social trouble and personal loneliness.
In China, for example, where the government has ruthlessly pursued a one-child-per-couple
policy since 1977, researchers report in the journal School Psychology International
that
a Chinese child without siblings is more likely to disrupt the school classroom
than a child reared with brothers and sisters.
When compared to the latter, "only children display
considerably more behavior problems, particularly in terms of learning,
impulsivity, hyperactivity and anxiety."[4]
While having a single child may be a free choice or
a natural result, the modern problem is anti-child coercion, direct or
indirect. To secure for Children the
Right to Siblings, governments should welcome the birth of multiple children in
a family through prudent and proper means.
Article V: Each Child Has the Right to Ancestors. Children know emotional wholeness and personal security if they
see themselves as part of a great chain of family being, binding together
ancestors, their living family, and their descendants. It is this that makes sense out of death,
suffering, and sacrifice, which in turn supplies purpose or meaning to
life. Indeed, children show a great
hunger for stories about their families.
Reporting in The Journal of Marriage and Family, researchers found it
"a particular surprise" that "the younger generation told just
as many, if not more family stories than the older generation."[5]
To secure a Child's Right to Ancestors, governments
should insure that its schools and institutions appropriately honor the
struggles and positive gifts of those generations which came before.
Article VI:
Each Child Has The Right to a Posterity. Current myths hold that the population control movement
represents a rational adaptation of family size to modern conditions. While this change began in the West, it
supposedly gains strength in the Developing Nations because of its popularity.
New research shows these myths to be false. A careful history of fertility decline (by a
leading advocate for population control), appearing in Population and Development Review,
shows that neo-Malthusian propaganda against fertility--instead of
voluntary conversion--was key. The task
for these propagandists was to attack the status of families with three or more
children. Their key triumph, according
to the author, was the "rolling back of religion's grip
on…sexuality," urging persons to "ignor[e] the religious
view" of children as a gift from God.[6]
It is time to end this war on human fertility, for
the sake of children. At the dawn of
the 21st Century, it is objectively clear that depopulation
rather than overpopulation is the problem that looms before the
world. The best evidence also shows
that population growth actually stimulates economic growth.
It is natural for each person to want to create
progeny and to live into the future through them. This is each child's destiny.
Propaganda against the building of families is a direct assault on this
destiny.
To secure a Child's Right to a Posterity,
governments should take all appropriate actions to affirm the value of
fertility within marriage and to welcome larger families.
Article VII:
Each Child Has the Right to Religious Faith. Religious families better protect their children physically and
psychologically when compared to families which reject religious faith. This finding flies of the face of the
modernist bias that sees religion as resting on ignorance and repression.
Strong religious faith also protects youth from
destructive behaviors such as premature sexual activity. The Journal of Marriage and the Family
reports that while the percentage of all white American female adolescents who
were virgins fell from 51 percent in 1982 to 42 percent in 1988, the
percent who were virgins among fundamentalist Protestants rose from 45
to 61 percent over the same six years.
The authors credit this, in part, to the effect of "church sermons
and Sunday school."[7]
In short, children thrive best within families that
recognize Divine authority and seek to apply this faith in their daily lives.
To secure a Child's Right to Religious Faith,
governments shall respect families' free exercise of religion.
Article VIII:
Each Child Has the Right to Live in a Healthy Community. No good home stands alone.
Extended family members--grandparents, aunts and uncles,
cousins--properly take an interest in and help protect and rear children. In somewhat different ways, good neighbors
also provide environments which give special protection to children.
A recent article in
The Journal of Socio-Economics
examined this process. Even in the
modern nation of Sweden, for many decades under the yoke of Euro-feminism, the
researcher found that "the higher the rate of Christians in a Swedish
city, the lower the rates of divorce, abortion,…and children born out of
wedlock." Even non-Christians
living among a relatively high number of believers found themselves behaving in
ways more welcoming toward children: they too were much less likely to get
divorced, have an abortion, or beget a child outside marriage.[8]
To secure a Child's Right to Live in a Healthy
Community, governments shall not unduly interfere with the spontaneous growth
of neighborhoods and towns.
Article IX:
Each Child Has the Right to Innocence. The
word, innocence, here means the opportunity to have a true childhood, the
chance to mature normally in terms of physical, emotional, moral, and sexual
development. The research shows one
consistent protector of childhood innocence: living in an intact,
two-natural-parent family.
For instance, new articles in
Child Development and The
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology show the same amazing
result: "girls who were in single-mother homes at age 5 tend to experience
earlier puberty." This premature
onset of sexual maturity occurs because "girls from [father] deprived
homes are more likely to become exposed to the pheromones of stepfathers and
other unrelated adult males" which accelerates their physical
development. Early puberty is worrisome
because it is associated with poorer health, emotional problems such as
depression and anxiety, problem behaviors such as alcohol consumption, and
sexual promiscuity.[9]
To secure a Child's Right to Innocence, governments
shall honor and protect the institution of marriage and they shall respect and
support parental control of outside media directed at children.
Article X:
Each Child Has the Right to a Tradition. G.K. Chesterton called Tradition "the democracy of the
dead," where the living recognize the lessons of life learned, often with
great difficulty and sacrifice, by those who came before.
The
Polish Sociological Review carried a
recent article on developments in Uzbekistan during the period of Soviet
Communist rule. The author writes:
"only traditional relationships enabled the people to survive the
particularly difficult conditions which prevailed throughout the Soviet
period….[W]hile the sovietization of Central Asian society rocked the religious
and cultural foundations of the family, its basic…features were
preserved." In many cases, the task
of preservation fell to women. The
author again: "I know of families where the father was a teacher of
scientific atheism, while the wife said her prayers five times a day and
observed Ramadan, so as to (as she put it) atone for her husband's
sins." When the Communists fell,
and Uzbekistan regained its freedom, these traditions were still there, so that
the children and their parents could rebuild a nation.[10]
To secure a Child's Right to Tradition, governments
shall respect the inherited beliefs and customs of peoples as parts of their
informal or social constitutions.
So, in place of the current UN "Children's
Rights" Convention, we could call on the nations of the world to secure to
each child the Rights to a mother, a father, a home built on marriage,
siblings, ancestors, posterity, religious faith, a healthy community,
innocence, and tradition. The
scientific evidence is overwhelming: these are the qualities that are best able
to give children security, health, happiness, emotional stability, spiritual
satisfaction, material abundance, and inner peace. These are what children really need. These goals are what the governments of the
world should seek and a focus on this list of rights would return the
United Nations to its original and healthy pro family position.
Endnotes:
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