In Defense of the American Nuclear Family.

I recently read an article in the latest issue of The Atlantic entitled ‘The Nuclear Family Was a Mistake’ that left me feeling deeply incensed. The author describes how the ideal of an American Nuclear Family is a false premise predicated upon classism, racism, and American Exceptionalism. Essentially, having a father and mother in the same home with their children is not the default; normal, healthy families are a blended mix of single parents, extended family, and potentially a revolving door of multiple partners that come in and out of a child’s life. A nuclear family is unhealthy because it provides a child with a limited set of adults from which wisdom can be drawn. As such, only wealthy White people have nuclear families because it is affordable to them.

I’d love to see a precise definition of what makes someone white, but I digress.

To quote the author of the article, David Brooks:

“Conservatives have nothing to say to the kid whose dad has split, whose mom has had three other kids with different dads; “go live in a nuclear family” is really not relevant advice. If only a minority of households are traditional nuclear families, that means the majority are something else: single parents, never-married parents, blended families, grandparent-headed families, serial partnerships, and so on. Conservative ideas have not caught up with this reality.”

Therein exists the fault in the author’s assertion, though. He expects ideals and principles to follow degenerate behavior, thereby reinforcing and justifying the degeneracy. It’s essentially the equivalent of sticking your finger in a light socket and proclaiming, “Getting electrocuted is normal, everybody is doing it. If you’re not doing it, then you’re the weirdo!”

Leftist ideologues like Mr. Brooks revel in explaining away their harmful values as realistic and suited to the norms of modern society. Many families don’t have both parents in the home and that’s how it should be, as Mr. Brooks would lead you to believe. It’s not normal for children to have a mother and a father, so it must not be correct. More and more families are lacking one of the parents in the home, so that means it’s okay… right? The defamation of the nuclear family is an intellectual shrug; a relinquishment of accountability in the face of mounting societal collapse.

That’s the funny thing about objective truth, though; it remains true whether you believe it or not.

Objectively, children do better when they have their father and mother living together in the same home. Their chances of graduating high school and going on to earning a higher education spike dramatically. Accordingly, their ability to break through the poverty barrier and become self-sufficient adults also sharply rises. Single parents earn less and are less likely to have finished high school; they’re also more likely to live in poverty. Even worse, most single-parent homes are led by the mother. An absent father has a frighteningly negative impact upon a child. Fathers imbue a certain measure of masculine knowledge that both sons and daughters need to become independent, well-rounded adults. This isn’t to say that women can’t teach children valuable life lessons; they absolutely can and do. The difference is that fathers and mothers teach different lessons that neither can completely encompass alone. Without one parent, the other is left to manage the best way they can; invariably, some masculine or feminine standards and lessons are missed.

Here’s the point that I want to make – just because someone else is screwing up, that doesn’t mean you should purposefully screw up too. Don’t let the behavior of others justify your abandonment of principles and decency. Instead of having children with multiple partners and being a single parent, act responsibly and be more selective of your sexual partners. I’m not even bringing religion into this argument, either; this is far more rudimentary than lofty questions related to God, the afterlife, and spiritual morality. This is a question of common sense. Do you want your potential children to live with their father and mother? You absolutely should. Demonizing the ideal of a nuclear family doesn’t miraculously make the anti-nuclear family warranted. The nuclear family living next door isn’t to blame for your lack of personal responsibility.

I can’t help but mordantly chuckle at the sadness of this whole situation. Honestly, the lack of personal responsibility is a pervasive blight upon all corners of the American landscape; that’s a whole other book-sized can of worms I could write about.

I should also be clear -- extended family is a wonderful thing. I want every child to know and learn from their grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and so forth. The nuclear family should be at the core of a child’s existence, though; that’s a habitual fact which must be applied whenever and however possible.

As I was researching data for this article, it became glaringly apparent that the leftists at The Atlantic aren’t the only deceitful maligners pushing this anti-nuclear family agenda. All my Google web searches produced alarming headlines that took priority in the results provided.

• Do children in two-parent families do better?
• The myth of the nuclear family.
• Single moms get it done!
• Minorities should blame Whites for their dad’s being locked up.

Regrettably, this is an active agenda to divide the American populace and deconstruct the traditional family unit. Why? Because the globalist puppeteers wielding left-leaning media outlets like sabers want to bring down America. How do you do that? By imploding where the American spirit is born and cultivated – within the home. The quickest way to defeat our remarkable republic is to smother the proverbial hearth of the American family. Once the family is made obsolete, then the individual can be further eroded, too. Before long, you wind up with a dystopian society that values the state over the individual.

In essence, the reinforcement of the American Nuclear Family is a defense of liberty itself.