Cosmos-Liturgy-Sex

Chris over at Papa Familias linked to a recent article in the Chicago Tribune (from a Boston Globe article). This is article is frightening if these anecdotal statements are representative of this teenage population. The article surveys views of Boston area, African-American teens on their views of marriage. Based upon family experience and the view they get from the media, teens in this survey are rejecting marriage because as they see it, marriage always ending in a disaster. Here are some snipettes:

[snip]

“I’m not looking forward to marriage,” says Nakeeda Burns, a 17-year-old resident of Revere, and daughter of a single mother, “and I don’t think we [people in general] should be married because I see how other marriages ended up in my family and on television. It’s always a disaster.”

[snip]

“All of my friends who are married, they tell me not to get married,” says Anderson Felix, 17, of Dorchester. “`Wifey is going to keep you on lock.’ `Everywhere you go, she’ll call you every five minutes.’ I won’t be able to deal with that.”

[snip]

“I don’t know anyone who’s married, or anybody who is married and stayed married,” says Marshall, a 15-year-old from Dorchester. …”When I think of `married,’” Marshall adds, “[I think] `divorce,’ first word.”

[snip]

Burns admits she has come to some of her conclusions from watching television. “They’re fighting for the littlest reasons,” Burns says of the people on “Divorce Court.”

Healthy marriages are the linchpin to healthy family life and a vibrant society. It is no surprise that communities in which a small percentage of children are able grow up with both of their biological parents in a stable household, are going to experience high rates of out of wedlock births among the girls and crime among the boys.

It is no surprise that these kids are going to reject an institution that is caricatured in the media. In addition to this, they are fed a cultural message that happiness is attained by self indulgence and they intuit marriage is more about self giving, it must be the antithesis of happiness. What is going to change these kids’ minds? I believe that the message of Christian love and a Christo-centric anthropology of fulfillment through self giving is the only way out of this morass. Unfortunately, the catalyst to get most people to listen to the message often requires something of an earth shaking catastrophe. Societal implosion would seem to fit this description…