FamilyLife Culture Watch

Does Sexual Orientation Affect Parenting Quality?

2010-03-04T15:25:43-08:00

By Bob Lepine

An article published recently in the Journal of Marriage and Family claims a review of research shows that children of same-sex couples do as well as those raised by traditional couples, and that sexual preference has no bearing on the quality of a person's parenting. As was reported in USA Today:

Sociologists Stacey and Timothy Biblarz of the University of Southern California, spent five years reviewing 81 studies of one- and two-parent families, including gay, lesbian and heterosexual couples. "No research supports the widely held conviction that the gender of parents matters for child well-being," they conclude.

"Children being raised by same-gender parents, on most all of the measures that we care about, self- esteem, school performance, social adjustment and so on, seem to be doing just fine and, in most cases, are statistically indistinguishable from kids raised by married moms and dads on these measures," Biblarz says.

So you could catch the subtle jockeying of the language in the last paragraph, I included italics.

Gender and roles today seem to be like choices in cafeteria line where you grab what fits your current tastes. That is not at the heart of the research, and definitely not in the media’s reporting of the study.

What the study doesn’t measure is gender confusion in the life of a child raised in a same sex parent setting. Of course, the study doesn’t acknowledge homosexual desire as gender confusion, so that’s not a factor to those doing the study nor those reporting it. It also doesn’t measure how little girls who grow up with two daddies function as wives and mothers in a marriage years later. Or little boys who grow up with two mommies and how they function as husbands and dads. Absent a model, where do they get their pattern? Inherent in their thinking is that husband/wife roles are gender neutral. Undiscerning Egalitarian thinking is not challenged at all.

I’d want to see a longitudinal study that looks at depression rates, substance abuse rates, whether kids who grow up in same sex parent homes are more likely to experience same sex attraction than children who grow up in the general population to be.

Tiger Steps Up

2010-02-19T14:00:47-08:00

by Dave Boehi

I haven't been writing many posts lately because I've been buried helping Dennis Rainey put together a book on courageous manhood. The theme of the book is that men are called to make courageous choices to step up to their responsibilities as they go through different stages of life as men.

Today I was editing a chapter about men who actually step back instead of stepping up. They regress to adolescent behavior, following their lusts and desires, and wrapping themselves in a cocoon of self-absorption. And right in the middle of this work, a friend e-mailed me a link to watch Tiger Woods read a statement in which he took responsibility for his infidelity.

Tiger was a man who stepped back into adolescent behavior, and it was encouraging to see him apparently doing the right thing to step up and man up. His statement was full of powerful statements from a man who obviously is getting good advice about owning up to his mistakes:

"What I did is not acceptable, and I am the only person to blame..."

"I ran straight through the boundaries that a married couple should live by..."

"I thought I could do whatever I wanted to. I was wrong, I was foolish. I don’t get to play by different rules."

It's been interesting to read different media reactions to the statement. ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos called it "one of the most remarkable public apologies ever by a public figure," while a public relations expert called it a "disaster." One media host tweeted, "Tiger's apology included some of the worst acting since Ishtar."

As for me, I saw a private man who was ashamed and nervous—who wouldn't be? And I agree with Stephanopoulos: I can't think of another statement that honest or remarkable from a public figure admitting his sin.

The State of Marriage

2010-02-19T13:50:39-08:00

Since 1970, marriage has been on the decline. The number of people marrying each year has decreased by 50 percent as a portion of the population. While a lot of the decrease is because people aren't marrying at all, other factors are feeding the decline, like couples delaying marriage until their late 20s, the increase in cohabitation, and a slight decrease in the remarriage rate of divorcees.

Cohabitation has increased more than 12 times what it was in 1960. It's rapidly becoming the living arrangement of choice among those who haven't seen a good example of biblical marriage. Included are those who:

Have been divorced
Were raised in a divorce, fatherless, or discordant home
Have lower educational levels
Have lower income levels
Are less religious than their peers

An interesting trend that is developing divides Americans into the haves and have-nots when it comes to marriage and family stability. College-age women are actually marrying in higher numbers than ever before, and their divorce numbers continue to drop. They're also more likely than any other group to consider their marriages "very happy." Add to that the fact that among women who delay marriage past age 30, college-educated women are the only group more likely to have children after marriage rather than before.

Now, the have-nots. Women without a college education are experiencing a sharp rise in out-of-wedlock childbearing. One study finds that more than half of these women are having children outside marriage. That compares with just seven percent of college-educated women. Not only that, they're much more likely to cohabit than their more educated peers.

If the marriage example is likely to repeat itself in the next generation, this fork in the marriage road looks to widen quickly over the coming years. Already, more than one-fourth of all children are raised in single-parent homes, and more than 40 percent of cohabiting homes contain children.

My Favorite Snow Story

2010-02-11T11:46:04-08:00

by Dave Boehi

We've been enjoying some winter weather here in Arkansas, but it's nothing like "Snowmagaddon" back East. The Washington D.C. area is basically shut down, and I'm sure many people are getting stir-crazy. It reminds me of the year we had a three-foot snowfall in my hometown of Eugene, Ore., and the entire city shut down for a week. As a ninth-grade boy I loved it, but I'm sure my parents got tired of it pretty quick.

My favorite article or media report appeared in yesterday's Washington Post, where Kathleen Parker learned something about men during the last week. A heavy snowstorm, she writes, reveals:

Men want shovels, the bigger the better.

No sooner had the first flakes begun falling in this crippling winter smackdown than the attendant quiet was interrupted by the scrape of metal against brick.

There was Craig, festooned in a winter-defiant red jacket, battling snow with his Great Big Snow Shovel. Barely a doughnut's dusting had settled on the sidewalk, but one can never get started too soon in the battle against accumulations to come.

Lest I be accused of sexist stereotyping, let me tweak the record to reflect that many women were also out clearing sidewalks and unearthing cars no longer identifiable as such. But most women do these things because they must, while men apparently can't wait to do them.

Perhaps it is in times of hardship that men step up to do their best. Parker writes, "Man is never happier than when he is called to action, in other words. That is to say, when he is needed."

Googling for Help on Marriage

2010-01-25T14:01:35-08:00

by Dave Boehi

What can you learn about the state of many marriages today from Google's most popular searches?

Sadly, quite a bit.

To see for yourself, go to the homepage for Google and type in "My husband." Google's "auto complete" function will then provide you with a number of ways to complete that phrase, based on its most popular searches. Here's what came up on my browser:

My husband...

...is annoying

...hates me

...doesn't love me

...is a jerk

...ignores me

...cheated on me

...is an alcoholic

Type in "My marriage" and here's what happens with the Google auto complete function:

My marriage...

...is falling apart

...is in trouble

...is over

...is failing

...was a mistake

Pretty sobering.

I can't take credit for this idea. A colleague here at FamilyLife recently sent me an interesting blog post by Eyder Paralta on National Public Radio's website. "I once heard Andreas Weigend--former chief scientist for Amazon--say that Internet searches reveal our most secret desires," Paralta wrote. Taking his cue from another blogger, Paralta typed "How can I get my wife" into Google and the following suggested phrases appeared:

...to love me again

...in the mood

...to trust me again.

Here was a similar search:

How can I get my husband...

...to fall in love with me again

...to be more affectionate

...to help around the house

...to want me

...to be more romantic

...back

This is just one piece of the picture of American marriage. But it's enough to show once again that a lot of people are looking for help in their marriages and families. It's a tremendous opportunity to provide the answers found in a relationship with God and in the plan He provides in the Scriptures.

"No Greater Love": A Film About the Permanence of Marriage

2010-01-15T14:28:19-08:00

by Dave Boehi

The marriage begins to unravel after the birth of their son. Jeff is preoccupied with his career--he is driven, insensitive, selfish. Heather is depressed and disraught. She can't handle the pressure ... so she leaves. She doesn't call, and doesn't say where she's gone. As the years go by, Jeff doesn't even know if she is alive.

The events in the film No Greater Love take place 10 years later. Jeff has raised his son, Ethan, by himself. He's thinking of getting married again. And then, unexpectedly, Heather is back in their lives. Ethan is confronted with a mother he's never known, and Jeff doesn't know how to relate to a woman who is much different from the one he remembers.

I won't say any more about the plot of No Greater Love, which will be released on DVD next week, except to add that it is full of the unexpected. It is a quality film that makes a strong statement about the permanence of marriage and about the changes Christ can make in your life. But different twists in the story surprised me; this is one Christian film you cannot accuse of being predictable.

In a FamilyLife Today interview with the film's creators, Dennis Rainey predicts, "I think God is going to use this to give the Church [the] heart to once again believe Scripture and embrace what it teaches about biblical marriage, and how we need to approach permanence in marriage." That is certainly the goal of the film, which was written by Brad Silverman and produced by Russ Rice of Coram Deo Studios.

"Coram Deo means, 'living in the presence of the Lord, before the face of God,'" Rice says. "We wanted to make sure that we honored God and glorified Him in everything we did. ... If we can't do it to glorify God, we're not going to do it."

In the radio interview, both Quinn and actor Anthony Tyler Quinn (who plays the character of Jeff in the film) make some interesting comments about the difference Christ has made in their lives. You can tell that their own experiences helped shape their convictions about the importance of the message in No Greater Love.

"Seven years into our marriage I was a really rotten husband," Rice recalls. "I treated her very, very wrongly and she had a rough seven years. ... I had some success as a fundraising sales rep and was doing very well as far as financially but really our marriage was just kind of existing, unfortunately, like a lot of marriages."

He thought he was a Christian, but while meeting with a group of men studying the Bible, "I came to the realization that I was not saved. For the first time in my life I understood what it meant that I am totally depraved, [that] there is nothing good in me, and I repented of my sins ... I was saved and our marriage immediately changed."

Quinn is a veteran actor who is currently best known for his role as a teacher on the Disney Channel series, Boy Meets World. He says his family background is "riddled with divorce" and multiple marriages. "I'm the only one in my family that is still married to the same person they said their vows to," he says.

Before he was married he told his wife, "I'm scared to death because what's to change our future? I'm going to be just like them ten years down the road. Who knows when something will snap, or something will happen in my life, and I'll just either leave you or maybe I'll be a rotten husband."

Instead, both he and his wife became Christians in their mid-twenties. He says "Christ came into my life and literally defined me. He's made me the husband that I am today ... Jesus has made all the difference."

Quinn's faith has played a big part in helping him decide what roles to play roles to play in his career as an actor. He's turned down many parts becuase of the amount of sex, language, or violence in the script. "I want to make films that honor [God] and talk about His providential care in your life and His sovereignty in your life and the practical 'living out' of difficult Chrisian circumstances."

The creators of No Greater Love are hoping and praying that the film will have the same type of impact as they've seen in private screenings. Rice describes one incident in Texas that he says is typical of what they've seen. "We were down there with about 800 people showing the film. At the end, I always get up and try to recap some biblical truths in the film ... This guys grabs onto me as the credits are rolling, and he's just bawling. And he just kept saying, 'Thank you, thank you, thank you for making this movie ... I want to be a better husband. I want to be changed.'"

Order a copy of No Greater Love from FamilyLife's online store. Also, the film's website offers information on how a church can hold a special screening. And you can learn more about the film and its creators by listening to the FamilyLife Today interview.

Pixar: Studio of the Decade

2010-01-07T13:41:50-08:00

by Dave Boehi

I love movies, and I love lists. So naturally I love the "Best Movies" lists in newspapers and magazines each December. And last month provided a double dip, with "Best Movies" lists for 2009 and for the decade of 2000-2009.

Naturally, these lists are often widely divergent, reflecting the individual preferences of film critics. But as I read through the lists of favorite movies for the decade, I noticed something interesting: Many listed at least one film from Pixar, the studio that has seemingly perfected the art of storytelling through computer animation.

Finding Nemo, for example, was rated the top film of the decade by a critic at the Washington Post. Entertainment Weekly listed Wall-E at number five, and the Daily Mail in Great Britain had The Incredibles at number four. Ratatouille was ranked number two by one of the critics at atthemovies.com.

I guess this would make Pixar the Studio of the Decade. It certainly is my favorite. I can't think of another group that has put together a string of movies with more quality and creativity during the last ten years. As Chris Vognar of the Dallas Morning News, who rated Wall-E at number two for the decade, writes, "no one makes movies with more heart, wit and staggeringly perfect execution than the Pixar gang."

There are so many things I like about Pixar films: the incredible visuals, the focus on quality storytelling, the edgy cultural references, the consistent appeal to adults just as much (if not more) as to children, and the commitment to bringing a sense of wonder into their movies. Time and again I would read articles speculating that the next Pixar movie would be a bomb. How could they make a good film about monsters ... or a family of superheroes ... or French cooking ... or a robot on a planet full of trash ... or a lonely and crotchety old man ... and make it appeal to both kids and parents? But the same critics raved when they saw the final films, and each movie was a hit.

Recently I rewatched all of the Pixar films released in the last decade, and in the process I spotted another secret of the studio's success:
These guys understand human connection—the family relationships and friendships that define us. If one message comes through loud and clear in every Pixar movie, it is this: Each of us is created not for independence but for interdependence.
For example, at its heart Wall-E is about a lonely robot who finds a mate. Cars is the story of a conceited race car who learns that he needs the help of others to succeed—and in the process even realizes that true success is different from what he thought.

In The Incredibles, a father longs for adventure and respect, and in the process neglects his wife and children. Only when he thinks he has lost them does he realize his folly. "I've been a lousy father—blind to what I have, so obsessed with being undervalued that I undervalued all of you," he admits to his family after discovering they are alive. "You are my greatest adventure. And I almost missed it."

Last year's Pixar film, Up, was probably its strongest statement yet on the value of relationships. It begins with an extended and emotional sequence about a married couple going through life together. In one sense it is depressing: Carl and Ellie long for adventure, and then for children, but their hopes and dreams are crushed by infertility, by financial challenges, and finally by Ellie's death. Yet at the same time it celebrates marriage: Their love for each other brings deep joy to their lives.

As the story progresses, Carl clings to memories of Ellie by clinging to their house, even as the neighborhood gives way to modern high-rise buildings. He finally leaves on the trip to South America that he and Ellie dreamed about, only to discover a stowaway in a young boy named Russell. And by the end of the film Carl realizes that real adventure is found in his relationships. As a final note from Ellie, written before her death, says, "Thanks for the adventure—now go have a new one."

You can tell that the filmmakers at Pixar have families of their own, because their experience is reflected in th eir stories. Just watch the overprotective father in Finding Nemo, so afraid to lose his son that he keeps him from experiencing life. Or study the portrayal of the toddler "Boo" in Monsters, Inc. Can you think of another film that has done a better job of capturing the essence of a two-year-old child?

Or consider the heartbreaking sequence "When Somebody Loved Me" in Toy Story 2, about a girl growing into adolescence and forgetting about her favorite toy. You can feel the ache of parents who can't believe their children have grown up so quickly.

I'm glad the folks at Pixar have their priorities clear. Movies will always be about adventure, about self-discovery, about the "human condition." But the heart of life is our family relationships.

Experiencing Peace on Earth

2009-12-18T15:55:05-08:00

by Dave Boehi
A couple weeks ago my attention was caught by Casting Crown's powerful version of "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day." If you haven't heard it, or seen the YouTube video, it's worth your time.

I have long been interested in the words of this song, but I never liked the the melody. This new version is beautiful and powerful, and it led me to learn more about how this song was written.

As I learned in Ace Collins excellent book, Stories Behind the Best-Loved Songs of Christmas, the words were written by poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow back in 1863. At this time he was still mourning the tragic death of his wife a couple years earlier, and he was deeply discouraged by the ongoing Civil War, in which his son had been injured.

I heard the bells on Christmas day
Their old familiar carols play
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace on earth, goodwill to men.

And in despair I bowed my head.
"There is no peace on earth," I said.
"For hate is strong and mocks the song
of peace on earth, goodwill to men."

I can feel the anguish in those words. And I can imagine how many people have had the same feelings in the years since they were written. There never has been peace on earth—at least among the human race—and I would argue that there never will be until Christ returns. The selfishness and sin and hate of man is too strong.

And peace is one of those things we all desire the most. How many people are in despair because their lives are in turmoil—a broken marriage, a rebellious child, an uncertain economy? How many are mourning the loss of loved ones as Longfellow was?

The song does not end in despair, for the bells of Christmas day reminded Longfellow that God is ultimately in control:

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, not doth He sleep.
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,
With peace on earth, goodwill to men."

Those are powerful thoughts. And I think it’s good to remember that the peace God promises us is actually different many people think. When the angels declared to the shepherds, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased,” they were not speaking of peace between men as much as they were about peace between man and God. Jesus came so that this peace could be possible; there was no way for humans to earn peace with God through their own efforts.

When people experience this true peace with God—the peace that comes through the salvation He offers through Christ—they are able to build peace between themselves and others. This is the peace that softens our hard and stubborn hearts and heals our relationships.

Admitting the central problem of abortion

2009-12-10T13:35:21-08:00

by Dave Boehi
Al Mohler calls it "amazing" and says it "might be the most important article" on abortion "in recent history." I would call it astounding--I've never read such an honest look at the moral quandary of abortion written by someone who is pro-choice.
The article in question is "The Abortion Distortion: Just How Pro-Choice is America, Really?" in a recent issue of New York magazine. If writer Jennifer Senior didn't identify herself as pro-choice, you would almost think she was pro-life. She might consider that last sentence an insult, but to me it's a compliment. After decades of reading the same tired pro-choice arguments rehashed in the media, it is refreshing to read a piece that accurately reflects the moral questions many Americans are asking about this issue.
Senior writes that this is a difficult time to be pro-choice because public opinions on the issue are shifting to the pro-life side. Here are some statements I never imagined I would read in an article like this:
If forced to choose, Americans today are far more eager to label themselves "pro-life" than they were a dozen years ago.

Abortion counselors will also tell you that the stigma attached to the procedures is worse than it's been in years. "When I started as a patient advocate in Ohio in 1996," says Jeannie Ludlow, a professor at Eastern Illinois University who has written a great deal about abortion, "what I mostly saw were women who were thinking about abortion in individual ways--this is what's going on in my life, this is what I'm thinking I should do. But by the time I left in 2008, our patients wold be saying all that and 'Oh, and I know I'm going to feel bad for the rest of my life,' even if they seemed perfectly sure of their choice."

One could say, in a sense, that the pro-choice movement has always had the harder job. The choice argument is an analytical one, grounded in theories of privacy and the rights of the mother; the pro-life side has the case with instant visceral and emotional appeal: This is life we're talking about."

As fetal ultrasound technology improved during the Nineties, abortion providers, conditioned to reassure patients that the fetus was merely tissue, found it much harder to do so once their patients were staring at images that looked so lifelike.

While many of her [abortion] clinic patients are at peace with their decision, others are not, and she's got piles of loose-leaf binders containing pink hearts inscribed with messages to husbands, boyfriends, parents, God ("A lot are to God"), and the never-born that express those feelings of uncertainty.

I've barely scratched the surface of the article; you will want to read it for yourself. (I should warn you of partial nudity in the cover photo.)
This may be the first time I've seen a pro-choice writer begin to admit and address the central problem of abortion. Think about it: Why is this such a difficult issue? Why do so many women feel "uncertain" and guilty after having an abortion? Why does the abortion counselor quoted in the article feel troubled about the woman seeking an abortion primarily to please her boyfriend?
The answer is simple: Deep down inside, we all know ... even pro-choice advocates know ... that abortion is not just a "woman's issue." It's about ending human lives.

What Tiger Couldn't Control

2009-12-04T12:20:16-08:00