The Nationalized Family

            Driving down I-95 recently I caught part of a conversation on talk radio on the subject of the nationalized family. The term refers to the usurpation of traditional family roles by the government. We've seen examples of this in socialist-leaning countries of Europe. Now we're seeing it at home, as we look not to the family, but to the nanny state to take care of us.

            The nationalized family  began in earnest in 1935 when Social Security was instituted under FDR. Before then, families took care of their aging parents when they were no longer able to care for themselves. That's what families did. With Social Security they didn't have to.

            Enter Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society. In 1965 the government decided that seniors and poor people needed help with their medical bills. Thus Medicare and Medicaid were born, relieving families of this burden as well. Once again the government replaced the family as primary care givers.      

            Of course it didn't stop there. Again under Lyndon Johnson, food stamps gained legal status with the Food Stamp Act. Available at first only to those with incomes of less than $30 a month, by 2011 over 46 million people received an average of $133 a month in food stamps. These people now rely on the government to put food on their table.

            And then there's welfare. Government provides aid to a variety of qualified recipients for education, housing, child care, insurance, transportation, and more in the form of subsidies, vouchers, and direct grants. Total spending for welfare programs in 2010 was $888 billion. They are projected to cost $10.3 trillion over the next 10 years.

            The trend continues. True to his promise to fundamentally change America, President Obama gave us Obamacare, which eventually will put health care under government control and is projected to subsidize health care for an additional 30 million people. And let's not forget the 37 tsars he appointed to make decisions for us without our having a say.

            I grew up in a small mill town where luxuries were unheard of. Families had fathers who were the breadwinners, and parents provided for all the necessities. And they raised their children without government subsidies and welfare programs.

            The trend is very clear: the family is  becoming less and less the basic provider. Government, the nationalized family, is replacing the traditional family unit. We now have to look to Washington bureaucrats to find out what's best for us.           

            With fathers becoming increasingly irrelevant, Is it any surprise that 46% of all births are now to unmarried women, with 70% the number for black women?  What are chances that these babies will grow up in poverty and trapped in a cycle of government dependency? How many will become social misfits in the absence of a male role model?

            Is the nationalized family truly qualified to teach our children about responsibility, morality, care giving, and self-reliance?  I think not.