Why is the U.S. the land of "family values?"?

[Gaulish Bard]

Dutchwomen work less and are happier: http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/d...dutch.html

French children are better trained and are happier: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424...e=timeline

So, all rhetoric aside, with all of this in mind, why do many people consider the U.S. the land of "family values," when so much of our law and custom seems intent on diminishing the happiness of women and children?

[Crazybreakfast676]

Is it ?

[jodi_mailbox]

I think that's code for "traditional values" or "Bible values", from the land of Quakers and Puritans. It's really not about women and children. You're taking it too literally. But it's a cute way to make a point, if that's what you're trying to do.

[DynamicMaster498]

Well I can agree that there's some horrible stuff going on here, but think about it this way.

In a comparative sense, it's good compared to all other continents but Europe...

People are still stoned in the middle east.

Many people live in such poverty in areas of Africa and South America that having a family in itself is a liability.

The US is by no means perfect, or even moral at times. But we have what you'd call first world problems compared to other countries.

[DynamicMaster498]

Probably because the politicos and the churches (organized religion) have been instrumental
in propagating that "lie". Give anyone a financial incentive, and they will work to attain the $$$
even if it is contrary to their belief system and contrary to the beliefs and wants and needs of the vast majority.

[J M]

It isn't and it never has been. That is a term coined by Republicans to justify their philosophy of turning back the clock. They think every American family was like Father knows best and Leave it to Beaver.

Most civilized nations are much more family friendly than the US. They are more interested in accomodating families, providing health care. And they also have a lot more in terms of vacation time, because they recognize that families are more important than working at the office.

Americans work longer hours and have far less security than the other industrialized nations. Women risk losing their jobs if they go on maternity leave. Men are not supposed to need time off to care for children.

So what exactly are these family values?

[mommanuke]

We pretty much have Dan Quayle to thank. He was the first to use the term in a political context in 1992 after he outraged so many people by his comments on Murphy Brown. Since then, it has been used as a wedge issue, as if people who do not share your political beliefs have no family values. Look at how it was used in the anti-Obama campaigns, accusing him of not having traditional American family values because he spent several years abroad as a child, regardless of the fact that his current life shows a traditional American family of married parents of children, who maintain their lifestyle by work, attend church(whether or not you approve of the church they attend), and hold pretty much every other American value.

Real family values in the US vary as much as the number of families. The things you mentioned from abroad are the result of societal values, not family ones. It's the political structure of their societies that produces the results.

[who is #1?]

Stems from the Feminist Mistake in the 60s. (that's a play on the title of a famous book "Feminine Mystique" of that era which I claim credit for inventing)
"Equal Rights for women" is good and necessary. But it has had undesirable side effects. Women don't need men any more. Men are now an option. At the same time Americans were propagandized into thinking the "nuclear family" was a good idea. Prior to that multi-generational family structure was prevalent. All has to do with LBJ's "Great Society" Welfare State.

The root of all this is of course Soviet infiltration. Destroy the family structure and a culture is more easily taken down. Why else do you think all the commies infested our universities? And media, and now the courts, and now the White House is crawling with them, and 60s Marxist revolutionaries. (Well, actually not Marxists, more like Leninists and Maoists...)

"Family Values" is a term which plays to the "religious right". But how many of them have put grandma in "the home", an institution, instead of having her teach the children as she should be doing?

Our society is unhealthy and government craving ultimate power is making it worse.

I think women are still respected in Texas. As they should be.

[PastorsRUs]

When I first saw your question, my mind saw a huge question mark! I see the US as in moral decline with society moving farther away from God and His way of life and love. Society's standards conflict with God's standards, especially sexually.

I am probably going to receive a lot of hate email for this, but things were better with single-income families with the man providing for the family and the woman seeing to the needs of the children and the household. Kids had clear examples of men and women's roles. This concept in no way diminishes women's capabilities. One has but to look at Proverbs 31 to see a woman who was involved in providing for the needs of her household while being socially responsible and active in addition to conducting a profitable venture.

[Leslie Goudy]

There is a core group of people in the United States that were brought up believing in the US Constitution and the freedom it was supposed to protect. Many of us still go to Church and if not, instill our Children with the value of being the best you can be. We were the land of family values before the 1960s hit. Not just because of Feminism but the resultant explosion of freedom of any type of pornography there is and the freedom to make love to whomever you wanted and other such Liberal Views, It's very difficult to radiate Family Values after an onslaught like that from Hollywood and all the Designer Drugs that come with it. I feel we have opened the door for the most unsavory to manipulate us and our culture for their gain. And that is what I think is happening right now,

There was still some control in the 1950s but that Liberal Explosion in the 1960s did the big cities in at least. I live in a small rural Conservative City now that the 1960's passed right on by. And the family values here are true to the American Way. I'm sure other countries have family Values also. Especially in European Cultures. And they don't have the idea that you are never going to be happy unless you are getting ahead in a land of consumerism. There is just no time to live when we let that rule. And that's the gift from the Right.