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Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
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Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 30, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Secret to Immortality
Caroline B. Glick Silencing dissent in America
Oct. 29, 2009
Lini S. Kadaba: Do tactics avert flu or reduce humanity?
JWisdom.com We Must Revamp our Religious Vocabulary With Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 28, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Atheists in Bubbleland
JWisdom.com Why what we wear impacts who we are With Rabbis Mordechai Becher, Menachem Golberger and Aliza Bulow ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 27, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The United Nations Is Outraged Again, Or: Department of Mideast Static
JWisdom.com The Science of Love With Rabbi Jonathan Rietti ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 26, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Damaging disclosures with a twist
JWisdom.com Wisdom and Wonks With Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 23, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Are you ready for the ultimate pleasure?
JWisdom.com Watermark and oneness with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick Stop using limited powers in a way that expands our enemies' advantages over us
Oct. 22, 2009
Steven Emerson: Terror Cases Share Desire to Kill Americans
JWisdom.com No More More Family Fights --- Really? By Sarah Chana Radcliffe ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 21, 2009
Tonya Alanez: Holocaust denier sues survivor, calling Auschwitz memoir 'vicious lies'
JWisdom.com Meditating Jewishly: A Panacea for Success by Sarah Yoheved Rigler ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 20, 2009
Dennis Prager: Obama and Dalai Lama: Why Israel Worries about U.S. President
JWisdom.com Abraham was not religious By Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer ( 6 minutes)
Oct. 19, 2009
JWisdom.comWhy Good People Do Bad Things By Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 16, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Perfect Number
JWisdom.com Hearing Voices By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick How Turkey was lost
Oct. 15, 2009
Jeff Jacoby: Peace vs. the 'peace process'
JWisdom.com: Former MTV producer and stand-up comedian Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff: Taming a Control Freak (A VERY fast 15 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review Dec. 16, 2008 / 19 Kislev 5769

The Good Obama Can Do

By Mona Charen


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | At the Early Reading First Project of the University of Illinois, they are hoping that Barack Obama will publicize the titles of the books he reads to his daughters. Such is the fascination with the new first family, the program's leaders tell the Chicago Tribune, that they can imagine children's books flying off the shelves, Oprah-like, with each Obama endorsement.


In fact, Barack Obama is in a position to affect far more than book purchases. He could have an effect on the culture of marriage in America.


The data are familiar. More than one-third of American children are born out of wedlock (two-thirds for black kids) and divorce plays havoc with children's security. Some 40 percent will spend some time in a cohabiting family arrangement before their 16th birthdays. Stepfamilies, as medieval fables suggested, are not as safe or secure for children as the nuclear family of two married parents. Rates of child abuse and neglect are far higher in stepfamilies than in nuclear families. Children born out of wedlock and children of divorce fare far worse on a range of social indicators than children raised in intact families. They have higher rates of school failure, drug use, depression, teen pregnancy, trouble with the law, violence, and poor health than do children raised by two parents. The really high-achieving kids in our society — like those who attend top colleges — are very disproportionately from intact families. Kay Hymowitz's book "Marriage and Caste in America" describes in detail the growing "marriage gap" in America. Upper middle and upper class women wait until marriage to start their families. The out of wedlock birth rate for college-educated women is only about 4 percent. On the other hand, poor women are having more and more children without husbands and they are also divorcing at much higher rates.


Thirty-six percent of female-headed families live below the poverty line. Only about 6 percent of married-couple families are poor — and many of those are recent immigrants, whose poverty may be temporary.


So Michelle and Barack Obama, just by modeling good parenting, have the capacity to set a great example. A report from the Chicago Tribune suggests it has started already. "Seven-year-old Ava Childers will soon be responsible for making her own bed every day. … Ava's mother, Danita, got the idea after hearing that the soon-to-be first daughters ... are required to make their beds in the morning."


Obama has not shrunk from lecturing his audiences about parenting. Back in May, at a campaign stop in Gary, Ind., the future president gave his audience a pretty good harangue:


"Parents, if you don't parent, we can't improve our schools. You've got to parent. You've got to turn off the television set in your house once in a while. You've got to put the video game away once in a while. You should meet with the teacher and find out what the homework is and help that child with the homework. And if you don't know how to do the homework, don't be embarrassed, find someone to help you."


Obama is setting a fine example. And good for him. His father walked out on him. Rather than repeat that destructive pattern, he is doing the opposite. Is it a total stretch to imagine him lecturing young people about the need to get married before having babies?


But he can do more than that. He has said that he will continue some of the faith-based programs that President Bush initiated. He should also maintain and expand the marriage promotion policies that began under the current administration. The family, as Jack Kemp has always said, is the best department of Health and Human Services you can possibly devise. In hard times, this is more critical than ever. An increased child dependent tax credit (limited to married parents) would be one step toward the goal of strengthening families. But the overarching change must be a cultural one — an unapologetic, unflinching dedication to forming and maintaining married parent families as the best and most desirable norm for a healthy society.


If Obama is able to achieve that cultural shift, it would be the most important and far-reaching thing he does.

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