Make America Great Again, one family at a time

By Cathy Keim

Honour thy father and thy mother, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee; that thy days may be prolonged, and that it may go well with thee, in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

Deuteronomy 5:16 KJV

The political climate in our nation continues to be poisonous seven weeks after President Trump was inaugurated. The headlines, comedians, politicians, and protestors roil the country with venomous attacks including a postcard avalanche.

Trump supporters respond with their own postcards and hold rallies to support their man in the White House.

I do not have a problem with postcard avalanches or rallies.  Going to townhall meetings, writing opinion letters to newspapers, and calling your Congressman and Senators are all valid ways to participate in our political system.

However, if you really want to make a long-term difference in our nation you should start in the home. Our nation is built upon the foundation of our families, for they serve as the basic unit that everything else depends upon. It is glaringly apparent to me that the collapse of our families is resulting in the collapse of our societal structure.

The attack on the family has been going on for years. No-fault divorce was introduced in California in 1970 and spread throughout the country. Suddenly, one spouse could abrogate their marriage vows for any reason and the other spouse had no defense. Divorce was transformed from a failure and a tragedy for all involved, most especially the children, and became considered to be a liberating, good metamorphosis for all.

Unfortunately, the lives wrecked in the shattered marriages were not so easily put back together again. Once marriages were devalued we then moved to co-habitation. After all, why bother with getting married when either partner can abrogate the contract at will?

Then came the final blow: same-sex marriage. What had been a cultural institution for raising children conceived by the union of male and female as man and wife was now redefined as the joining of any two people that loved each other, thus completing the separation of marriage from its understood purpose of bearing and raising of children.

It is increasingly hard to “honor thy father and mother” (as is written in Ephesians 6:2 KJV) when you don’t know them since they divorced and moved on without you, or perhaps they never married in the first place, or now the child may not even have a father and mother but instead has two mothers or two fathers.

The family is the place where children learn how to behave, and they often model their parents’ behavior. The parents are the best people to teach their children how to live. Etiquette training in the home is the oil that smooths the rough spots of social interactions so that we can work and play together without coming to blows.

God ordained the family as the building block of society and He entrusted the parents with the responsibility to “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” (Proverbs 22:6 KJV)  The child will honor their parents if they’ve learned the rudiments of manners from their parents.

This concept extends beyond the family when the child understands how authority works. As he honors his parents, so he is to honor those in authority over him such as his teachers, his employer, or the policeman.

The child learns his place in society by living under the authority structure in a loving home with parents that guide him with age-appropriate boundaries.

The breakdown of the family is shockingly evident in the students at our universities that are unwilling to listen to any ideas conflicting with their own. My guess is that their parents did not teach these students that they are not the center of the universe, but that God is. (Chances are these parents were brought up in the same worldly manner.)

Men and women are afraid to trust one another, knowing that their pledge to love each other until death do us part has become, in modern practice, only until one of us gets bored. What woman wants to leave her career to raise children and risk being left impoverished if her husband decides to leave? What man wants to invest in a family if his wife can send him packing and refuse to let him see his children?

More government “help” is not what we need. No-fault divorce laws and welfare benefits removing the need for men to be fathers and providers have done enough damage. Instead, the great need is for people to choose to commit to their families no matter what the government tries to foist upon us.

The old Ozzie and Harriet model is widely derided as unworkable and undesirable. One can never promise perfection in human relationships, but we can present the model that has worked for cultures all over the world since the beginning of civilization: one man and one woman joining together – and staying together – to raise their children to grow up and become civilized adults that can repeat the cycle thus ensuring children that are able to live together in society.

This concept is quite revolutionary! It’s a concept along the lines of believing that our Constitution is an important document that is to be followed, not reinterpreted to say whatever the current batch of politicians wants it to say.

The Women’s March on the day after President Trump’s inauguration exposed the ridiculous positions that these silly women think are important, mainly the right to kill your own offspring before birth. How much more appealing is the idea of a woman who loves and nurtures her children?

And what is more masculine than a man that desires to care for the mother of his children and to love her for a lifetime?

This is not a quick fix, but it is something that everybody can support by nurturing their own families, by promoting family values, by helping their extended family members, and honoring their own parents as an example to their children of how life is to be lived.

We will not Make America Great Again without making our families strong again. So, send your postcards, attend your townhalls, and make your voice heard loud and clear about defunding Planned Parenthood and refusing “Death with Dignity” bills – as the Maryland General Assembly thankfully did this year – but work for the long-range goal of strengthening your family as your most important contribution to America.

P.S. For those families that have been broken and are hurting, know that God is the great healer. God will forgive and heal our families if we only ask for his help.

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