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PASTOR'S REPORT, June 25, 1979
Page 15
As a result of this high divorce rate, two Census Bureau analysts predict
that 45% of all children born in 1978 will become members of one-parent
families, at least for a period in thier lives, before they reach the age
of 18 years. This is a rate that already applies to black youngsters.
Then there is the increasing number of married women who have joined the
labor force and work outside the home--especially mothers with young or.
preschool children. In 1948, around 18% of the nation's mothers worked
outside the home. Today it is over 50%. Many colleges and universities,
and the feminist movement in particular, pass on the notion that the role
of wife and mother is passe, and to settle for such a role in life is to
settle for second-class citizenship.
Lack of proper family upbringing is also reflected in the following grim
statistics. The number of illegitimate births in the U.S. is over a half
million a year, half of which are terminated by abortion. Teenage preg
nancies have increased by 33% in the last five years. Of the teenagers
that marry, 50% end in divorce within five years.
Nicholi points to studies that indicate that absent or non-influential
fathers contribute to their child's low motivation for achievement,
inability to defer immediate gratification for later rewards, low self
esteem, susceptibility to group influence, juvenile delinquency, and in
some, passive effeminate or dependent sons.
Nicholi predicts as family life fractures, society will have a higher
incidence of mental illness than ever before. We can expect the assassi
nation of people in authority to be more frequent, and also violence "just
for the fun of it." As battered children (if they survive) produce
children, we can expect violence within the family to increase exponen
tially. And he says we will continue to witness changes in the expression
of sexual impulses. "As sexuality becomes more unlimited,� separated
from family and emotional commitment, the deadening effect will cause more
bizarre experimenting and widespread perversion," predicts Nicholi. He
predicts society will see much more experimenting with homosexuality.
As the home and church in society have declined in influence, child care
and training has shifted to other agencies or social groups. But, concludes
Nicholi, professional or peer relationships "can never give us the
emotional sustenance and support that the close, warm, personal relation
ships within the family ought to provide."
Never was the need for the fulfillment of Malachi 4:6 greater than today�