Family values. I hate that term. Whenever someone uses it, the listener is supposed to automatically know what is being discussed. It’s one of those feel-good terms that is basically meaningless because, well, it has no meaning.
How can any intelligent person expect to coin a phrase like “family values” and expect it to fit all families? I think it’s just a propaganda term churned out by the radical right/religious fundamentalists to further their cause against us Commie liberals who believe a woman should have a right to say what happens to her body, that all people should have the right to marry, and that legalized murder in the form of the death penalty is still murder. There is an inherent meaning to the phrase that implies there is just one model of family, that in which the male is supreme and the female inferior.
If there is a hell, then surely it exists here on earth, in a family where the woman is relegated to expectations deemed appropriate by her husband. Where does that leave the more than 12 million single-parent families (85 percent of which were headed by women in 2000, a percentage that is possibly higher today)? How can a woman who solely raises her family be expected to embrace such “family values” when clearly, they don’t apply to or include her? And—what’s worse—they are built on an inherent assumption that she has somehow departed from her “proper” sphere because she is not married, has children, and is active in public ways that may not include religion.
How did we ever come to this? The religious right would have us believe that Christianity has always been profamily, but that is far from true. Early Christian (until around the 16th century) history shows us that at best, the religion took an ambivalent stance on the subject of marriage; the ideal Christian was single, celibate, and childless. And when it comes to family types, there has never been one “ideal” family structure. The Bible is full of various types of families (not all of them exactly morally outstanding, I might add). And not one of them was a model for the modern “family values” family unit: Abraham banished one of his kids to the desert and willingly agreed to kill another. Noah got drunk and damned one of his sons. Adam and Eve had a son who murdered his brother, while Solomon and David had more wives and concubines than a Texas brothel has clients. Even Jesus was no model of family values—broke his curfew at the age of twelve and was kind of mouthy toward his mother. Then there’s Luke 14:25-26, in which Jesus says, “If anyone comes to me and can not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brother and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” Pretty strong words, whether you interpret them literally or not. Fact is, Jesus was vocal about a variety of his viewpoints that could be construed as antifamily.
I’m not bashing Jesus, so please don’t flood my Inbox with emails about how my soul is eternally damned. My point is, there is no such things as “family values.” They don’t exist, and to have organized religions or political leaders try to force all families into the confines of this social construct (and blame them for all of society’s ills when they don’t fit) is not only ridiculous, but counterproductive. And insult is added to injury when we’re instructed to believe that these “family values” are “supposed” to be the cornerstone of a healthy society.
I don’t know about you, but for me, any concept that demands the subordination of one sex to another (in this case, women to men) in the name of God or anything else simply doesn’t feel right. It does not speak to me. Any concept that tells me I’m antifamily because—among other things—I will not judge the value of love based on a person’s sexuality is just hateful. And hate is not a family value, at least, not in my family.
The family is not a religious symbol, though this is not due to the lack of efforts to make it such by the political and religious leaders in power today. The family—your family—is sacred in that it is worthy of dedication, respect, and protection. And that very sacredness is exactly why we should never allow anyone to dictate to us the validity or righteousness of our values.
Families, all of them, are flawed. That’s what makes them yours.