Family and Generational Wellbeing

Raj Chetty is an economist with a difference. He studies macro-data. That is to say, he looks at the megatrends across hundreds of studies. He tries to get the view from 30 000 feet.

One of his findings is that family is the best predictor of social mobility – the ability to move upwards in life. Conversely, children without a father are likelier to end up incarcerated, expelled, or commit violent criminal activity.

If this is the case, why is our culture not more pro-family? Why is family a taboo topic? In part, this is because of expressive individualism. The idea that I will be my best and find the most joy when I do me. This idea reigns; rather than the notion that I am part of the family, we all thrive when we put each other first and make sacrifices for one another. In family, people love me and stick by me through thick and thin, when I am at my best and worst. There are people who forgive and don’t cancel.

At this point, some will be nervous. What about DV and abuse? I am not suggesting that separation is never an option. Perhaps it ought to be viewed as the best of a bunch of bad options. In any case, Raj Chetty’s meta-studies inform us, where possible, it’s good to be pro-marriage.

I am not hopeful for a U-turn in popular culture anytime soon. But there is an opportunity for the church. One way to be salt and light is to invest in family, in sickness and in health, in good and bad times – to love and think of others first. The best families are not ones that never have a crisis. It’s how they deal with it and how they bounce back that marks a healthy family.

By Rev. David Rietveld