Obama’s Father’s Day Speech
June 17, 2008 6 Comments
On Father’s Day Barack Obama gave a speech on the importance of fathers / parents / families. I read the speech and like so many of his speeches, it was well-written and full of optimistic rhetoric. It’s the kind of speech that you hear and it makes you want to like the guy because he seems to say all the right things. But so often his speeches create more questions than answers. Two things seem to jump out as I read through what he said on Sunday. The first was that he didn’t address one of the primary causes of the problem, the second were an under-stated solution.
In college I double-majored in anthropology and history. In one of my classes we spent a lot of time discussing the now legendary social research done on the South Side of Chicago by the University of Chicago. Throughout that semester, one thing became abundantly clear: government programs were a major contributing factor towards the failure of families in the African American community. More importantly, liberal social programs and liberal social changes compounded a problem caused initially by internal forces of migration and displacement. It is important to note that Chicago has not had a Republican mayor since 1931. Unfortunatley Chicago also did not benefit from having a bastion of Progressivism (Wisconsin) just a short drive away.
Obama did a good job of pointing out the problems facing single mothers and the challenges facing today’s fatherless youths, but he never criticized the failed liberal policies that contribute to the single-parent culture. Obama said:
We need to help all the mothers out there who are raising these kids by themselves; the mothers who drop them off at school, go to work, pick up them up in the afternoon, work another shift, get dinner, make lunches, pay the bills, fix the house, and all the other things it takes both parents to do. So many of these women are doing a heroic job, but they need support. They need another parent. Their children need another parent. That’s what keeps their foundation strong. It’s what keeps the foundation of our country strong.
Who is this other parent and how can the federal government provide it? Well the unspoken truth is that liberals believe the government is an adequate substitute for a missing parent. Obama would be happy to enact a host of new social programs that make single motherhood easier. How does this help fight the problem of ansentee fathers? It doesn’t. Social safety nets provided by Great Society legislation diminished the economic role of fathers in urban areas and actually facilitated their abandonment of their families. Liberal feminism diminished the social role of fathers.
My belief is that Progressives have an obligation to help where needed. The plight of single-parent families is certainly a place where we are needed. I am not advocating we stop helping single mothers in hope that it will somehow make fathers be responsible, but we cannot just give handouts. We have to figure out a way to succeed at the monuental task of changing cultural attitudes that have been in place for some 60 years. Obama spoke a few lines that might indicate his plan:
We should be making it easier for fathers who make responsible choices and harder for those who avoid them. We should get rid of the financial penalties we impose on married couples right now, and start making sure that every dime of child support goes directly to helping children instead of some bureaucrat. We should reward fathers who pay that child support with job training and job opportunities and a larger Earned Income Tax Credit that can help them pay the bills.
Although the government should not have to reward fathers for taking care of their responsibilities, I like the idea of incentives for those who are culturally pre-disposed to not support their children regularly. This may be a good start, but it has to go deeper. We have to keep families together in the first place. Liberal social values are not going to contribute to that kind of shift. It is going to come from the Center and the Right where the word ‘traditional’ is not laughed at. Liberals have had over 40 years to fix the problems that are epidemic in our cities and have failed. Maybe it’s time to let someone else take a crack at the problem.
“Traditional” isn’t laughed at where there’s cause not to laugh at it. “Tradition” as an excuse for bad policy does deserve to get laughed at. What liberal policies are intent on failing to unite families? I also think the link between the father’s day speech and welfare is a little disingenuous: the unspoken truth is, in fact, unspoken and more than a little leap of faith.
“Traditional” isn’t laughed at where there’s cause not to laugh at it. “Tradition” as an excuse for bad policy does deserve to get laughed at.
‘Traditional’ in the Progressive sense is meant to explain our ideas on families, the role of parents, the role of the community in celebrating families, etc. When conservatives talk about wanting to strengthen ‘traditional’ families they are ridiculed because this doesn’t included non-traditional family models or it insults feminists who don’t think a father is important.
What liberal policies are intent on failing to unite families?
What liberal policies DO unite families? For over 40 years liberals have told us that the traditional family model is dead. They have provided as many social programs as possible to facilitate an explosion of single-parent families yet they have done nothing to address the cultural attitudes that have lead to this problem.
I also think the link between the father’s day speech and welfare is a little disingenuous: the unspoken truth is, in fact, unspoken and more than a little leap of faith.
Please explain to me how liberalism has done anything to help fix this problem? Explain to me how conservatives failed the South Side of Chicago? 77 years of Democratic leadership in Chicago Ames. That’s pretty hard to refute.
Most feminists think the father is important too;they just give him a companion and coequal. Odd that that’s become so threatening. No, I have yet to meet your straw men feminists, but I hear them talked up a lot, just to rouse the rabble, I expect…
On the sokal program thing, you’re making an error of history. Liberals didn’t create the single parent family; they just realized that they existed and tried to help those in that situation. Its like saying liberals invented homosexuality, or that abortion is a modern construction. Hardly. Liberals just move more quickly to take account of and react to historical trends that were formerly tabboo to mention! Hardly very progressive at all.
And lastly, what have consetvativess done to shield the “traditional” family other than try to keep other families from coming into being? Not bloody much.
Remember, tradition is a matter of perspective, and we always romanticize the past.
On the social program thing, you’re making an error of history. Liberals didn’t create the single parent family; they just realized that they existed and tried to help those in that situation.
I didn’t say they created it, but their programs compounded the problem by providing a surrogate source of income and a new alternative for unwed mothers. Teen pregnancies were actually higher in the 1950′s than in the 1970′s but the availability of welfare meant fewer girls married the fathers or put the child up for adoption. Because child support enforcement was not a priority, fathers were released from their responsibilities. It created an atmosphere where families were no longer important.
And lastly, what have consetvativess done to shield the “traditional” family other than try to keep other families from coming into being? Not bloody much.
We have fought against the frequency of divorce, upheld the importance of a complete family and made child support enforcement a priority.
Remember, tradition is a matter of perspective, and we always romanticize the past.
I would counter by saying that while yes, conservatives tend to romanticize the past, liberals are just as guilty of romanticizing the future. The only difference is that we base our dreams on what has actually happened verses what we believe might happen.
* Ames, I’m glad you’re commenting over here. You’re opinions are very welcome.
i’m a history grad with one-class-needed to be an anthro minor. i also have a masters in sociology, with a focus on quantitative methods. to draw a direct connection between democratic mayors in chicago and the failure of southside housing projects to improve the plight of poor blacks is bold … and wrong.
first, local politics in chicago are historically peculiar … and by “peculiar,” i largely mean “corrupt.” it’s a nutty place, to say the least. i don’t think that is solely a function of some inherent flaw in the democratic party … also, chicago is a little tricky to compare to wisconsin, just on population density and ethnic heterogeneity alone.
second, chicago wasn’t the only place housing projects failed, but i think it is also important to look at the other social factors that led to their rise: the massive northern migration of southern blacks in the early 20th century and certainly post-wwII … the white populace that was already moving into the suburbs, and definitely with more rapidity once the blacks starting landing in urban centers … housing projects offered northern cities a convenient opportunity for containment of a very scary influx … and that’s not liberal or conservative …
it was, however, a liberal move to require that the government not completely IGNORE those ghettos.
i’m not going to deny that welfare policies likely contributed significantly to the entrenchment of a culture of poverty, but they aren’t the only cause.
(incidentally, there was a terrific article in the _new york review of books_ last year discussing poverty and effective social programs to treat it … it discussed how men and women handle poverty and benefits differently between gender, but similarly across cultures … i.e., men view their poverty in a similar way across cultures but in a different way than their wives … i just tried to find the article in some old issues, and of course, i cannot. i will keep looking. it is very interesting.)
bottom line: causation is extraordinarily difficult to establish in all things human, even in the most controlled experiments. you make some big leaps in going from obama’s speech to an inevitable expansion of failed welfare programs.
remember that the biggest single overhaul of welfare came under a democratic president with a bipartisan bill.
also remember that social welfare consumes very little of the entire welfare pie … much larger pieces being consumed by corporate welfare … tax breaks, subsidies, industry bail-outs for oil companies, airlines, agribusiness …
finally, i would like to hear some progressive republican plans for helping poor families remain intact and able to sustain themselves healthfully. i’ll make it easy: how about a relative rather than absolute assessment of the poverty level … how about subsidized child care … how about universal health care …
the only thing i’ve heard from republicans in the last eight years was a half-hearted push to establish a “let’s get married” education program.
i found the article … well, not the article, itself, but i can make a citation …
kristof, nicholas. “wretched of the earth.” _nyr_, may 31, 2007.
i also thought of some other things that could help in our quest for an intact black family:
we can address racial inequalities in prison sentences.
we can get rid of nclb.
here’s an excerpt from a letter commenting on the kristof article. it’s from the august 16, 2007 issue …
“… it is not clear that targeting the poor is the way to achieve optimum results (reduced income inequality and poverty). universal programs that incorporate all social groups and treat public services as entitlements can work better. universal programs benefit those below the poverty line but also the non-poor that risk joining them. more importantly, universal programs can empower the poor, making them part of society and avoiding the stigmatizing effects of targeting. … there is no better way of eliminating the damaging cultural consequences of poverty than slowly constructing more generous welfare states.”
diego sanchez anochea
lecturer in economics, institute for the study of the americas
university of london
(the parenthetical is mine.)
food for thought … and tackling poverty takes an enormous amount of it.