Columbus Day: Assessing our way of life

So when we think of America, we think of a broad tapestry of perspectives, united by the common belief in freedom, liberty and the pursuit of happiness under God.

With this liberty, however, comes a special responsibility. Here, the government does not hammer its values into the youth. It does not fabricate principles and indoctrinate the young in a rigid pattern of being. Here, in America, we are given so much liberty that the heroic task of instilling a value system is left to each individual family.

This is an extraordinary act of faith. With our notions of liberty, we leave it to each parent to demonstrate to their children the ideas of compassion, human goodness and love. With our sense of self-government, we leave it to each individual family to instill in their children a sense of individual striving and personal responsibility.

For this reason, we must never allow ourselves to be lulled into indifference when it comes to family values. So it saddens me when I read that marriage rates have plummeted to a 40-year low, or that divorce rates continue to hover just above 50 percent. It worries me when I read that parents now spend less time with their children, or that the children of dual-income families are left largely to raise themselves. Each day these children come home, they cook their own dinner, and decide whether to do homework while gazing at the television. It is indeed a worrisome thing when the symbols of our materialism, like televisions, DVRs and video games, become the surrogates for our children.

As we take this Columbus Day occasion to assess the way of life that we love, I think it is critical that we understand just how basic and fundamental what we call "family values" are to our way of life. It is crucial that we not forget that in a self-governing society like ours, the strength of the nation resides in the strength of the family.

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