I once managed a well-funded federal youth employment program for the US Forest Service in the Pacific Northwest. It was the Young Adult Conservation Corps. In simple terms, young people were paid a minimum wage in return for working in the National Forests. The work was basic grunt work…piling brush, clearing trails, cleaning campgrounds, planting trees, sanding and painting picnic tables, cleaning outhouses…hardly a glamorous occupation. But it did take place in a nice environment.
I worked on the 7th floor of a large downtown Federal office building in a rat hole office that wasn’t listed on any building directory. Yet somehow young people found me, the homeless, the lost, the outcasts, the poor. Sometimes their only physical resources were the clothes they wore. In one case, a young man looking for work wore penny loafers, but had no socks.
Others had all their possession in a pack they carried with them…like “turtles” carrying a meager, substitute home. Many had no papa, no mama, no friends. All I could offer was a minimum wage job, a place to live, good meals, and contacts that might become nurturing, contacts that might help them build the support systems to propel them to a modicum of success.
Some were black, some were Indian, some were Latino, most were white. Some were female. Most were poor, but many had been raised in middle class homes.
Some were “okay.” Most were hurting. But they all had three things in common: they were young; they lacked a way to make a living; they mostly came from broken homes.
Much has been written about the social ills of American society. Interesting theories are constructed to explain the causes of increasing homosexuality, alcoholism, drug abuse, teen suicide, anti-social behavior, mental illness, criminal actions among the young, and anti-American beliefs.
After twenty-six years of intense contact with the youth of America as teacher, parent, employer and friend, I became convinced most social ills have one basic cause: deliberate, insidious undermining of the family.
Great gaps have been torn in the social fabric through attacks on the basic family unit, which in earlier times sheltered, nurtured, loved and guided the young. There is never an absolute totality in any social history. Strong families can be still be found, but I fear the number is diminishing, not growing. And it is true that even in an earlier time, not all families were healthy places for children to grow in. But most were.
Many institutions have tried to repair the gap for the children of dysfunctional families, and generally fail. Juvenile justice systems try and fail. Schools try hard and fail. Churches try hard and generally fail. The market place tries and does a bit better than everyone else. (I cite McDonald’s which it seems trained half the successful managers in the world.) Welfare systems flourish and fail miserably, chiefly because they reward failure, but that’s a story for another time.
It seems the only truly successful institution nurturing the human child is a stable family. Sadly, the family as we once knew it in American is under constant, insidious attack from elements that deliberately denigrate the values which hold families together, that simple glue which comes from the mutual respect, love, loyalty and sharing between husband and wife, the keystone of successful families.
In a very real way, the well intentioned women’s movements like NOW, and other social engines of destruction like Playboy magazine, TV soaps (in which the father is always an idiot), pornography (that hides behind freedom of speech) and now Woke, all work to undermine that most fundamental of human relationships…man and woman, husband and wife.
Our current crop of heroes represent the worst of the “me now” hedonistic, chest thumping, “selfies” ethic. And all of our children are the victims.
Rod
2024