Platform : What Are Family Values?

HELEN COHEN

Business manager, Burbank

I think it’s easy to answer “what are family values?” by saying what are not family values. What are not family values are what we’ve all been raised with traditionally--that there is a Mom and a Dad, 2 1/2 kids and two dogs. It really comes down to where can a child find the nurturing? There is a wonderful legend about an infant who is actually nursed and raised by two wolves. That’s a perfect example. This child got what it needed. It needed warmth and protection. It needed to know its source of food and its source of holding. I think that’s a basic need of every child. The essence is to have a sense of self. We have to look at the reality of where we are politically in the ‘90s--single families, unmarried parents. That’s why gay parenting has proven successful. That’s why you have successful adoptions. You now have (the Michigan adoption) case as a perfect example of the court’s mandating that the biological environment is the one and only proper way for the child to grow up. We’ve seen by evidence that it’s not true.

BILL PRESS

California Democratic Party Chair, KCOP news commentator and KFI-radio talk show host

Nothing is more important than family values. But--like flag, faith and freedom--family values has to be more than just a buzz word. It’s time to stop talking about family values and start putting value on families. That’s a responsibility of both government and business, of both elected officials and employers. The most important thing we can do to support families is to turn this economy around. Without a steady job, or maybe two, there is no family. But just a job is not enough. With every good job must come health benefits for parents and children; child care, so mothers especially can join the work force; family leave, enabling both parents to spend quality time with newborn babies or sick children. Good families also depend primarily on good schools. We must restore our commitment to public schools. And every kid in American must have the opportunity to get a college education. That will build good jobs and good families. And what’s a good family without security? Safe streets for grown-ups to work and shop in, safe parks for kids to play in. Now there’s a real family value! Any real agenda for family values must include jobs, health care, family leave, public schools and colleges, and more police officers in the street. Anybody who talks “family values,” but who’s unwilling to work or vote for that agenda, doesn’t really believe in families. They’re just trying to use the issue for political gain.

PIERRETTE HONDAGNEU-SOTELO

Assistant professor, USC Department of Sociology, and author of forthcoming book on Mexican immigrants

Popular use of the term “family values” reflects a very strong tradition in the United States of blaming social problems on individual moral character. This line of thinking says that people who are defined as “social problems” have problems because they lack family values. If we really want to rebuild cities like Los Angeles, that’s going to require investing in and supporting real families. Recently with the recession/depression, we’ve seen another flurry of anti-immigrant activity and legislative measures. I’d like to point out how very short-sighted this is. Latino immigrants are an important resource for the 21st Century. Most of them are here to stay. When I go to Griffith Park on Sunday afternoon with my small children, I’m always struck when I look around me to see who’s picnicking with their families, who’s at the pony rides or at the train with their kids. It’s predominantly Latino families. What we have in place is a natural support system, a group of hard-working people with a reverence for family values that’s already there. It would be a natural step to really look after those children so they don’t slip through the cracks. If we want to support family values, let’s begin by supporting the parks, schools and libraries that our families use.

TOM CAMPBELL

Stanford University professor, former Republican Congressman, Silicon Valley

We measure out love, patience and responsibility largely as they were measured out to us in our families while growing up. Lessons of tolerance and sharing not learned in the family are not learned at all, and our society becomes bigoted, grasping. Children not loved by their parents often don’t love their own, and the cycle of abandonment, either actual or practical, repeats. Families teach us how to trust and how to be honest. Take that away in our social lives and everything becomes “Give it to me first,” or “What’s in it for me?” The goals that my party can best contribute to the topic of “family values” are these: Caring, involved parents with secure employment and time to take full part in the moral education of their children; safe neighborhoods where children can take the time to grow up rather than be rushed into the pseudo-adult culture of drugs and crime, and parents sharing their religion with their children without interference from government on one side or the other of what are essentially religious questions. The moral upbringing of our children is so important that we must not leave the job to the government.

DONNA DONALD

Office manager, CPA firm, Sepulveda

To me, family is a unit of people who care about each other and take care of each other. It doesn’t really matter if it’s two parents or one. It’s definitely harder in a single-family household because you still have to have the same kind of balance. The children’s values in a family come from the parents and the parents’ support system--other members of the family like grandparents, aunts and uncles. In my case, it’s also from church. It’s important to bring up children in a faith environment and know that they will have something to depend on and have some obligation to church and community. I don’t think schools can teach family values, but they should encourage the ones that parents instill in their children. The one thing your children need more than providing shelter, food and clothes is to know that you, as a parent, are always there for them. If you’re not here, they’re going to find someone else who is. Maybe it’s friends; that’s how a lot of kids get involved in gangs because that’s their family. They get support, acknowledgment and status in the gang because they don’t get that in their family. Gangs promote hate. The family promotes love.

CARY QUASHEN

Co-Founder of ACTION, a parenting support program, Van Nuys

I think when you talk about family values and you hear the politicians doing it, they’re talking about what I would call movie or TV family life. The family stays together, prays together and does things together all the time. That’s not really the way it is today. Dad goes out and brings home some money, Mom goes out and brings home (some money). If the family gets to have dinner together twice a week they’re lucky. One of the reasons we started ACTION is to give a place for families to come in and do things together. There’s not a lot of time for that anymore. (How we provide for family values) starts in each individual home.