White House’s Family Program Overlooks Importance of Marriage
Last February, President Obama announced a new initiative “designed to determine what works to help young people stay on track to reach their full potential.”
The initiative is called “My Brother’s Keeper.” Its stated goal is to create and expand opportunities for young minorities. The president’s memo, talking-points, and official report on the program all identify poverty, poor education, and other issues as problems that need to be addressed.
President Obama wrote,
“Specifically, the Task Force [for My Brother’s Keeper] shall focus on the following issues, among others: access to early childhood supports; grade school literacy; pathways to college and a career, including issues arising from school disciplinary action; access to mentoring services and support networks; and interactions with the criminal justice system and violent crime.”
Despite My Brother’s Keeper being an effort to rebuild communities and strengthen families, we could not find one instance of the word “marriage” being used anywhere in the White House’s documents on the program. The reports talk about parents, children, mothers, and fathers, but not about marriage.
Here is why that is so significant: (more…)