# Social issues (family values) and the health of the economy are interrelated. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 30, 2011, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/social-issues-family-values-and-the-health-of-the-economy-are-interrelated/607835 "2011-12-30T15:26:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Indygrrl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@Indygrrl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indygrrl)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2011, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/social-issues-family-values-and-the-health-of-the-economy-are-interrelated/607835/41 "2011-12-31T23:18:36Z")
I’ve always wondered how it is that conservatives will talk all day about “family values” and how precious life is, but when it comes right down to it they won’t put their money where their mouth is. It’s hypocritical to be against abortion, but also against federal funding for affordable reproductive care, social programs like WIC and healthcare for all, and teaching sex ed in schools. Taking money away from education programs and programs that serve the poor is the exact opposite of valuing family and life. Instead of putting money into programs and services that have been proven to be effective in lowering teen pregnancy and providing access to affordable birth control, conservatives are more concerned with “personhood” amendments that basically make it a crime to have a miscarriage, and make it harder to get an abortion. That sort of thing doesn’t help anyone, and basically targets the poor and makes their already precarious situation downright desperate. People with money will always be able to hire a private doctor for their own abortions, but most people don’t have that option. I’d like for someone to tell me how this relates to conservative fiscal issues. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2011, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/social-issues-family-values-and-the-health-of-the-economy-are-interrelated/607835/42 "2011-12-31T23:35:48Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > I think that you misinterpret the argument. Nobody is saying that by forcing women to stay at home or by forcing kids to recite prayers in schools that a light switch would turn on and cause a paradise on earth. > > The argument stems from the idea that people as a whole and on their own accord and not through force of law must return to traditional values for the positives to happen. I’m also oversimplifying the position of the prohibitionist. But really, not much has changed in these discussions over the course of recorded history - except, perhaps, the media in which the discussions are now held. If we expect people on their own and not through the force of law to “return” to traditional values that have NEVER been universally held or practiced - that’s as likely as flipping a light switch will cause paradise on earth. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2012, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/social-issues-family-values-and-the-health-of-the-economy-are-interrelated/607835/43 "2012-01-01T00:13:46Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > Fair enough, but I do see their point. But from the Family Values POV it doesn’t have to be the mother that stays at home, but that there is Someone At Home. It could be a (great-)grandparent or babysitter or neighbour. From their POV the aim is a contented family unit. Is this not happening today? I’m from the original latchkey kid generation. We went to school with our keys hung around our necks from shoe strings, almost proudly. Forgot the key? Oops! Guess you’ll have to pee behind the bushes and play in the front yard until Daddy gets home! I guess you won’t do THAT again! We don’t hear about latchkey kids anymore. At least, I don’t. We hear plenty about helicopter parenting, over-scheduled kids, and kids watching too much TV and playing too many video games. I know my nieces have a childhood vastly more supervised than mine was. There’s is a world where their mother knows all their teachers’ names and their class schedules. I cannot imagine my mother knowing a fraction of that. Aren’t old folks always talking about how they roamed the streets freely as youngsters? Playing kick the can and riding bikes all over creation, just like Wally and the Beav did? If this is even half-way true, then what is the value of having a stay-at-home parent? It’s like there are two conflicting messages out there: 1) Kids today are big wusses who have been coddled and over-pampered and 2) Kids today are lacking good mothering and fathering and are being short-shrifted by not having a parent at their beck and call at all hours of the day. I’m trying to untangle the knot here. ---
**Author:** ![Bloodless\_Turnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@Bloodless\_Turnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bloodless_Turnip)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2012, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/social-issues-family-values-and-the-health-of-the-economy-are-interrelated/607835/44 "2012-01-01T00:50:33Z")
Our kids don’t roam, they don’t hang out with friends down the street, they don’t walk a few miles to the skating rink. They don’t walk home from school, they don’t walk to after school things. They don’t ride their bikes to those places either. Matter of fact, if you even suggest it in front of other parent, they think you’re crazy. Like we have kids getting snatched from the streets daily, like kids aren’t smart enough to learn how to cross busy roads. We had tons of freedom growing up, our kids have little. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2012, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/social-issues-family-values-and-the-health-of-the-economy-are-interrelated/607835/45 "2012-01-01T01:04:57Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > Has anyone made any claims that the gay are ruining the economy? There have been claims that homosexuality or the tolerance of it causes hurricanes & earthquakes. Those are bad for the economy in themselves; and given the lunacy of claiming that homosexuality causes natural disasters I’m sure that some of the Right have claimed that homosexuality hurts the economy because God Is Punishing Us. These are the same kind of people who responded to our economic probles by praying in front of gas pumps, or even better [in front of the Golden Bull](http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/10/wheres_charlton_heston_when_yo.php) on Wall Street. “Where’s Charlton Heston when you need him?”, indeed. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2012, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/social-issues-family-values-and-the-health-of-the-economy-are-interrelated/607835/46 "2012-01-01T01:32:13Z")
> [@Revenant\_Threshold](#): > > I’d guess you’d need to look at proportionate figures for overall income on areas of spending. Assuredly, we have things like mobile phones, the internet, and so on that in terms of “communication costs” (though there’s obvious overlap, into work most obviously) that didn’t factor into our communication costs 50 years ago. But I wonder what’s the difference in average spending on such things in each area with the disparity in incomes taken into account? Compared to 1950’s Me, if I go out and buy myself a car, which will certainly have many more advances than 1950’s Me will be able to choose from, to what extent would I be spending out of my income as compared to him, with other variables like lifetime of use such as you bring up taken into account? > > I mean, **SA** treats the matter as though advances necessarily mean a greater spend, but things like fridge-freezers or microwaves, while appearing to be a greater spend due to the one-time cost, are actually over time very cost-effective purchases. Right. The Internet can cost money, but it also allows you to save money by rapidly comparing prices, and makes the economy efficient as a whole by driving prices down. I used to spend a lot of gas money wandering from mall to mall in search of certain Christmas presents - now a few clicks does it. I bought a lot of books as a kid - and none of them were discounted like I can get from Amazon today. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2012, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/social-issues-family-values-and-the-health-of-the-economy-are-interrelated/607835/47 "2012-01-01T01:46:01Z")
> [@Bloodless\_Turnip](#): > > Matter of fact, if you even suggest it in front of other parent, they think you’re crazy. Like we have kids getting snatched from the streets daily, like kids aren’t smart enough to learn how to cross busy roads. > > We had tons of freedom growing up, our kids have little. Speaking of the glorious days of the past, when we got back from Africa in 1962 my mother got a job and I was a “latchkey” child starting in 6th grade and my brother was in 4th. We weren’t the only ones. I don’t know if the streets were safer then, but some guy tried to get me to go in the car with him smack in the middle of the 1950s. This stuff might have seemed rarer since the schools would never send out notices warning parents, and this kind of thing didn’t get on TV. ETA: by the way, I lived in a very safe tree-lined neighborhood, not the middle of the slums or anything. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2012, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/social-issues-family-values-and-the-health-of-the-economy-are-interrelated/607835/48 "2012-01-01T01:58:32Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > I think that you misinterpret the argument. Nobody is saying that by forcing women to stay at home or by forcing kids to recite prayers in schools that a light switch would turn on and cause a paradise on earth. > > The argument stems from the idea that people as a whole and on their own accord and not through force of law must return to traditional values for the positives to happen. And that very argument is stupid. We might as well bemoan the need for police since if everyone would just obey the law we could have them spend all their time on traffic duty. The difference between now and then was not that men were all so much better, but that today a woman whose husband is beating her or otherwise abusing here is more likely to do something about it. People are more likely to do things to improve their happiness; conservatives think this is bad since they are not supposed to be unhappy in a traditional marriage (unless your name in Gingrich.) Sure some women were happy being SAHMs, but as we see here in the Dope, some women would hate it - and no doubt did hate it when society pushed them to do it. When society approves of more women getting real careers outside the home, they are going to be more independent and more able to leave bad marriages. They go together. Conservatives could better spend their time figuring out solutions for people as they are, and not fantasizing about the perfect society withing their view. But you have to ask: are conservatives really foolish enough to think that human nature can be changed, or are they actually pushing for an idealized view of society which they can force into being through restrictions on freedom? ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2012, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/social-issues-family-values-and-the-health-of-the-economy-are-interrelated/607835/49 "2012-01-01T05:41:29Z")
> [@Bloodless\_Turnip](#): > > Our kids don’t roam, they don’t hang out with friends down the street, they don’t walk a few miles to the skating rink. They don’t walk home from school, they don’t walk to after school things. They don’t ride their bikes to those places either. > > Matter of fact, if you even suggest it in front of other parent, they think you’re crazy. Like we have kids getting snatched from the streets daily, like kids aren’t smart enough to learn how to cross busy roads. > > We had tons of freedom growing up, our kids have little. Mine do all those things - well they don’t walk home from school - its ten miles away. But they do walk up to the skating rink, down to the corner store, hang out with friend unsupervised at the park - (by the way WITH their unsupervised friends). For several years now, I drop my son off at the ski slopes with his friends and one of his friend’s moms picks them up eight or ten hours later (sometimes I pick up and someone else drops off.) I’ve met a few overprotective parents, but the VAST majority of my kid’s friends have as much freedom as I did. And the one overprotective parent I know well watched his brother die when his brother was six and playing unsupervised. That sort of skews your risk analysis. And even he started send his girls off to sleep away camp at ten. ---
**Author:** ![DianaG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ab992/32.png) [@DianaG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DianaG)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2012, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/social-issues-family-values-and-the-health-of-the-economy-are-interrelated/607835/50 "2012-01-01T15:29:44Z")
From the time my daughter was eleven, she had a key, a bike, a bus/subway pass, and a rule to be home by 6:00 or let me know why she wouldn’t be. Apparently that’s an idyllic childhood if mum is sitting home while the child wanders, but if mum is at work (let alone, god forbid, not married), that same child is practically guaranteed a life of petty crime and poverty. What. The fuck. Ever. ---
**Author:** ![fumster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9c0ed/32.png) [@fumster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fumster)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2012, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/social-issues-family-values-and-the-health-of-the-economy-are-interrelated/607835/51 "2012-01-01T17:22:29Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > First, I don’t agree with it, but I’ve heard the argument, so please keep the gunfire somewhat modest. > > The idea is that if you go back to traditional Judeo-Christian values where sex is reserved for heterosexual marriage, and God is acknowledged in the school system, the other values that flow from that come to fruition. Those sound more like fundamentalist Muslim values. They’ll stone you (the woman anyway) for adultery, lock away women once they reach puberty, and have Madrasas where they study the Koran all day. I for one will not put up with conservatives who promote Muslim values. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2012, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/social-issues-family-values-and-the-health-of-the-economy-are-interrelated/607835/52 "2012-01-01T17:24:44Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Pretty much this. As it is now, this country is full of people who create a drain on the economy. This group is made up of unwed mothers, generations of latchkey kids raised with poor values and poor educations who, even if they manage to aviod prison, often need public assistance to get by for most if not all of their lives, and of people even from middle class homes whose quality of education won’t provide for a self-sufficient income. And if public assistance were taken away, the drain on the economy would drop to zero? As if poverty, unemployability, un-education were not evils in themselves, but only become so when we try to remedy them on a large scale? Bull cookies. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2012, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/social-issues-family-values-and-the-health-of-the-economy-are-interrelated/607835/53 "2012-01-01T18:25:30Z")
After reading that excerpt from **SA** that **Beware** posted, I’m realizing that conservatives with this mindset are not only wrong, but they are dangerously wrong. This is what I have distilled from them: Institutions have no role in creating or perpetuating poverty. Governmental policies and economic structures are completely neutral when it comes to people’s life outcomes. If we fix people’s morality, you see, then everything trickles up. And we don’t want to focus on the morality of society’s powerbrokers. No, we will focus on the morality of the “least of these”, because they are who are dragging everything down. If you’ve been unemployed for the last two years, it’s because you came from a single-parent home and listened to too much Madonna instead of Amy Grant. Since you didn’t begin the school day with prayer and a recitation of a New Testament scripture, your education wasn’t sufficient enough for you to get a good job. Your economic failings represent you and your family’s moral failings. Oh yeah, and that hippity-hop you have on your mp3 player doesn’t help, either. This is what Job was told, wasn’t it? That he had done something wrong to piss off God. That he needed to make atonement for his sins and get on the right side of God and things would go back to normal. Well, as much as I hated Sunday School, at least they taught me that Job’s “friends” were full of it. Maybe **SA** will come back and defend this horrible and sickening argument. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2012, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/social-issues-family-values-and-the-health-of-the-economy-are-interrelated/607835/54 "2012-01-01T18:29:15Z")
> [@sh1bu1](#): > > Those sound more like fundamentalist Muslim values. They aren’t nearly as different as many people like to pretend. The most important difference between fundie Christians and fundie Muslims is that there are more places where the Muslim fundies get to impose their dogma on the general populace. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2012, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/social-issues-family-values-and-the-health-of-the-economy-are-interrelated/607835/55 "2012-01-01T19:21:36Z")
I’m not sure how to respond to the variety of responses, but I’ll give it a shot. First, I don’t know of anyone who wants to mandate a return to the 1950s in that we outlaw females working, or mandate one car per family, or require prayer in schools, or anything of the sort. And the claims of legalizing segregation or domestic violence are simply absurd. Nobody claims that. It’s akin to saying that since we didn’t have a Polio vaccine in the early 50s that conservatives want to outlaw Polio vaccines. Nobody is arguing for that (that I know of) and nobody is claiming that 1955 was a paradise and that there were no problems in society and AFAIK nobody is saying that if we return to traditional family values that all modern problems will vanish. The argument is simply that it is a positive influence to have a parental figure at home when a kid gets home from school. It is a positive influence to go to church and learn to not kill, steal, lie, and do unto others as you would have them do unto you. It’s positive to learn not to fuck everyone you meet because you could have an unwanted child, and that those feelings and actions are to be saved for your future spouse. (Again, not that I subscribe, but that’s got to be a positive for society if less people are having unwanted pregnancies). Nobody I know who makes this argument thinks that the world is going to hell because kids in the 1980s listened to Madonna. The people do say that it would have been better for impressionable youths to not be listening to songs such as “Like a Virgin” without a parental figure explaining what sex was supposed to be. (And no, nobody wants to make Madonna illegal). It seems that in the zeal to promote modern liberal/progressive ideas that posters want to reflexively toss away anything traditional because they feel that somehow, somebody will enact these laws. And I still contend that it comes from massive misunderstandings. Did I understand one poster to say that waiting for sex until marriage and daily prayers were Muslim only beliefs?!? That shocks me as this poster has certainly not listened to any mainstream Christian pastor. Is the traditional way the only way? Perhaps not, but it was proven for all of its faults, to work far better than today’s way in terms of social problems. And those social problems, while arguably a small part of our economic problems, certainly don’t help when you add more children and single women to the welfare rolls, drug addicts who don’t contribute, and a society with little moral character. Fire away. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2012, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/social-issues-family-values-and-the-health-of-the-economy-are-interrelated/607835/56 "2012-01-01T19:42:28Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > The argument is simply that it is a positive influence to have a parental figure at home when a kid gets home from school. It is a positive influence to go to church and learn to not kill, steal, lie, and do unto others as you would have them do unto you. It’s positive to learn not to fuck everyone you meet because you could have an unwanted child, and that those feelings and actions are to be saved for your future spouse. (Again, not that I subscribe, but that’s got to be a positive for society if less people are having unwanted pregnancies). Whether I buy this argument or not, it still doesn’t explain how people voluntarily adopting these values is going to improve the _economy_,not society. Maybe a small number fewer on the welfare rolls - but that’s not going to make a difference. In fact, there may be more people on the welfare rolls soon- unless unemployment benefits are extended again. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2012, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/social-issues-family-values-and-the-health-of-the-economy-are-interrelated/607835/57 "2012-01-01T19:46:20Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > Is the traditional way the only way? Perhaps not, but it was proven for all of its faults, to work far better than today’s way in terms of social problems. > Fire away. And this is why people bring up domestic violence and segregation. You remind me of a former supervisor , who used to go on and on about how wonderful life was in the fifties. Until I reminded him that he was a white, middle-class, heterosexual man, and the fifties might not have been so great if any one of those attributes had been different. ---
**Author:** ![PigArcher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bcef8e/32.png) [@PigArcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PigArcher)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2012, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/social-issues-family-values-and-the-health-of-the-economy-are-interrelated/607835/58 "2012-01-01T19:53:13Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > Did I understand one poster to say that waiting for sex until marriage and daily prayers were Muslim only beliefs?!? That shocks me as this poster has certainly not listened to any mainstream Christian pastor. There’s so much fail in that post it’s hard to decide where to begin, but let’s try here. Who said this? ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2012, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/social-issues-family-values-and-the-health-of-the-economy-are-interrelated/607835/59 "2012-01-01T22:09:35Z")
> [@kenetic](#): > > There’s so much fail in that post it’s hard to decide where to begin, but let’s try here. Who said this? Post #51. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![PigArcher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bcef8e/32.png) [@PigArcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PigArcher)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2012, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/social-issues-family-values-and-the-health-of-the-economy-are-interrelated/607835/60 "2012-01-01T22:22:30Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Post #51. > > Regards, > Shodan It doesn’t say those are “Muslim only beliefs”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/social-issues-family-values-and-the-health-of-the-economy-are-interrelated/607835.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/social-issues-family-values-and-the-health-of-the-economy-are-interrelated/607835.md?page=4)