Three Levels of Family Strengthening
Make Sure Our Own Families are Strong
By Carol Soelberg, President, United Families International
August 28, 2007
- Live according to high standards of character. Successful families are anchored upon deeply roooted values and traditions.
- Strengthen your marriage. It is difficult to feel at peace at home and address the world's problems when one's own marriage is in trouble. Whether married, single or divorced, citizens must keep their moral standards high, work on personal flaws, improve their marital prospects, prepare youth for marriage and strengthen extended family relationships.
- Have or adopt children and raise them responsibly. The future of civilization rests in the arms of capable mothers and fathers who anchor a marriage, bear children and build their lives upon proven concepts.
Support Public Policy that Protects the Traditional Family
- Enshrine the traditional family. The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the core policy statement of the United Nations, singles out the "natural family" as the primary legal and social unit of society, deserving of support.
- Preserve traditional marriage, which is the bedrock of family and society. Marriage is the union of the sexes to form a family that creates, nurtures, mentors and sustains the next generation. Marriage should not be rendered meaningless to comfort those who are unable or unwilling to enter into it.
- Promote motherhood and fatherhood. Laws, programs, taxes and incentives that encourage women to not marry, avoid having children, terminate their unborn or abandon their young for a career are damaging to society. So are laws that encourage a father to avoid or shirk family responsibilities. Children are not autonomous beings. Each child needs and has a right to a mother and father.
- Defend the sanctity of life. The right of a human being to live is the greatest of all rights. Governments have a compelling interest in protecting innocent life. The general disregard for life is destroying families, cultures and nations.
- Protect religious exercise. Citizens and leaders must understand the positive and negative aspects of organized religion and promote free (not compulsory or state-funded) religious exercise.
Build a Positive Family Support System
- Support good governance. Elect principled leaders who will appoint judges, administrators or ambassadors respectful of society's highest values.
- Protect your family from offensive materials and intruders. Establish your own family-based activities and entertainment.
- Establish family-friendly schools. A nation depends upon educated, productive, self-disciplined youth and adults. Theodore Roosevelt said "to educate a person in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society."
- Volunteer, join or financially contribute to groups that monitor high-level appointments, cases and policy conferences and fight distant, unreported battles for you. These battles cannot be fought effectively alone. As Margaret Mead stated, "never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."
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©2001 - 2007 United Families International. All rights reserved. No content, images, or other information may be used from this site without prior written consent of United Families International or original authors.
