THE FAMILY: FOUNDATION OF PUBLIC HEALTH
Humility, the anchor of the 4 cardinal virtues, is foundational for an ordered society.
Humility should be taught in the family, for it is here that our primal nourishment, both literally and figuratively, comes from. The logic stems from the idea that the family gives the individual a sense of purpose and direction. It conveys a set of values, which we are free to discard or build on; the family becomes the launching pad from which we are propelled into life.
Successful launches often depend on whether some kind of noble understanding of virtue have been taught in youth. However, most sociologists conclude that family breakdowns impede these teachings, clearly shaking the fabric of society, destabilizing it right at its core. Sociologists and psychologists now argue that America and many other Western societies are gradually eroding their foundations as evidenced by the growing numbers of individuals who are leading troubled existences. An estimated 31.1% of American adults will suffer from anxiety at some point during their lifetime, according to the National Comorbidity Study Replication (NCS-R) (Harvard Medical School, 2017). This is roughly 71.5 million American adults suffering from anxiety disorders (Harvard Medical School, 2017). Moreover, the Adolescent Supplement (NCS-A) reported that 31.9% of adolescents experience all types of anxiety (Harvard Medical School, 2017). Their unsettled souls, often afflicted by the devastating consequences of family breakups, now litter the American and European landscapes. The U.S. Census Bureau reported in 2005 that between 50-52% of first marriages in the U.S., end in separation or divorce. The 2002 census reported that 31% of children under eighteen were not living with both parents (Divorce magazine, 2004). This scenario breeds instability and some level of brokenness that can potentially disturb the affective lives of the children and their sense of emotional equilibrium (Regnerus, 2013). At the root, family breakdown is a disturbance in a social structure, critical to life’s processes, pivotal in defining life’s purpose. If the family is the feeding trough for nutritious meals, it also ought to feed the children wisdom, love, understanding, and the desire to thrive for virtue. There are fundamental questions that need answers and values that need to be extolled so that our children do not fall prey to the deviant murmurs of our time. Nutrition is a metaphor that reflects the values, beliefs, spirituality, and attitudes we hold dear. It is particularly interesting to note that just as we line up to purchase fast food, junk food, and snack food in abundance, so, likewise, we also get in line to feed our intellect and emotional lives with garbage in the form of media hype, bad novels, video games, social media, bad movies, and reality TV; we fail, however, to properly nourish our souls with the foods that quiet the anxieties.