What's Happening at Your House?

Barbara Bush was First Lady in 1990 when she addressed the graduates of Wellesley College and made the bold statement, "Your success as a family ... our success as a society ... depends not on what happens at the White House, but on what happens inside your house."

Since then, this quote has taken on a life of its own and has been frequently repeated and published. It can be presumed that millions of Americans "buy in" to the concept Barbara Bush was attempting to convey to the graduates of Wellesley College. However, since 1990, we have witnessed a continuation in the breakdown of the family as the fundamental building block of a free and successful society. Statistics continue to reflect the devastation and loss of human potential resulting from increased violence, crime, divorce, homelessness, drug abuse, pornography, teen pregnancy, and on and on.

If Americans are impressed with the truth that solutions to the multitude of problems faced by our society can best be addressed within the structure of individual families, then why are we facing a continual increase in social problems? This is the country whose ideals brought down Hitler, Communism and the Berlin Wall. This is the country that produced innovators like Abraham Lincoln, Florence Nightingale, Henry Ford and Bill Gates. It wasn’t easy for us to eradicate polio, harness electricity or produce a magnificent system of mass communications. This is the country that identifies problems and then goes about solving them. Then why not now?

I suppose in our present culture, it’s just easier for Americans to transfer responsibility for the health and well-being of the country to the people in the White House than to consider what’s happening in our own houses and accept the challenge to change.