Is the Nuclear Family a Mistake?

you're right and saying for Catholics family as the foundation is the building block of society not the individual now dignity of the individual absolutely no question about that we don't want any reduction of the individual to some colic tivity that's why we're against socialist and communist forms but I think it is very important and eloquent what you just said it's neither the grand society nor the individual but it's the family that's the building block now what's the reason for that the Trinity ultimately welcome back to the word on fire show I'm Brandon Vaught the host and the content director at word on fire joining me still in the midst of this coronavirus pandemic from Santa Barbara is Bishop Robert Barron a shoe Baron good to see you hey Brandon always good to see you you know we were joking before the show begins about how each of us our hair is growing longer because there's no barbershop so there's no way to get your hair cut and so we might be cavemen by episode 250 yeah I get my hair cut like every I don't know five or six weeks probably and this thing happened when I was probably about due for a haircut and I actually called my barbershop a while ago and they were they were going for a time and then before I got around to it they had shut down so yeah I guess I'll just have to look a little shaggy for for awhile and I totally understand please don't write us letters that these are first world problems could not have yeah hurtin hi are doing a podcast on the Internet okay well Bishop today I wanted to talk about an article that's been making they're making its way around the internet it's become sort of a viral heavily commented on article it's by David Brooks it was recently published in the Atlantic it's a long article it's like 9,000 words roughly 40 minutes 60 minutes to read it it's titled the nuclear family was a mistake which is sort of a very provocative title for an article here's his basic gist he contends in the article and I'm quoting him here that a married couple with 2.5 kids was an anomaly for the 1950s and 1960s and that this nuclear family model is no longer working for many Americans especially those who are less privileged to address our family crisis Brooks argues we need to break out of the nuclear family is best mindset and quote thicken and broaden and quote family relationships by incorporating extended families voluntary groups living together thick relationships with friends all as better ways to raise children now you read the article I read the article I don't want to spend this whole episode dissecting it I just want to use it as a launching point to discuss the more general topic of the family and what the Catholic Church teaches and advises about the family but maybe first of all what do you think about his basic thesis that this nuclear family was a mistake well you know I I thought the article was very interesting and I appreciated the sort of historical sweep he gave us even going back to say prior to the 1950s oh go back into the you know 19th century early 20th century when the extended family was much more of the norm whether were out in the country or even in cities and I am a you know my grandmother who was born in I think 1898 she had a very I called clannish sense of the family and she Irish the Irish clan and I think when my dad was a kid my my grandmother's parents lived in the house a couple of cousins were around all the time because their family live almost right across the street and I remember going to my grandmother's house so this is now in like the 1960s I'm a little tiny kid but it was like a you know it was like a circus going on there were so many people and the family was indeed much more than just mom dad and 2.5 kids it was this kind of clannish sense and Brooks you know I think legitimately sings the praises of that way of organizing our lives there was something lovely about him I also liked a lot his almost nostalgic remembrance of the front porch culture because I also associated that with my grandmother what he means is a lot of homes I'll go back to the first part of the 20th century had porches and there wasn't air-conditioning so especially in the summertime people lived on their front porches which meant they had connection to each other and you know kids from across the street were always coming to your house and your kids going to their house and we were we were having interface on these front porches also the fact that in those days families tend to be a lot bigger I remember that distinctly when I was a little kid you come into a restaurant and it wasn't at all atypical for the father of the family to say a table for seven please table for six for table for eight that was common that families had a lot of kids and they lived in a more clannish of relationship there was something in his article that I really liked about the sort of nostalgic memory of that then his commentary that yes that kind of shifted so as I was coming of age so 60s into the 70s the more nuclear you know smaller family parents and kids but also that interesting thing about about air conditioning and the ending of the porch culture and you know the the suburban neighborhood he has an image of of the one you know young mother with a stroller walking through the sidewalks and she's the only person you can see in the whole neighborhood I I liked his reference to African friends of his who came to this country as immigrants from different countries for different reasons but they all said what struck them most about America was loneliness it seemed like a very lonely Society you know so I thought well that was an interesting analysis and then as you suggest so is there something now beyond the nuclear family from the 50s 60s and 70s this new form of social interaction we could talk about that but those are some things I liked about the article and thought were were thought-provoking I like David Brooks I mean he's an interesting fellow and usually is you know from within a moral quasi religious tradition kind of trying to look at things so I appreciated all those elements I think a lot of what drove his article was the recognition that so many nuclear families have collapsed because they're so fragile if it's just the mom and a dad and a couple of kids if something happens to the dad they're in serious trouble if the mom checks out they're in a really bad place and so he encourages thickening what he calls families of choice these ones these relationships these connections that we opted into not that we you know receive biologically but that we choose to make and I know talking about this with you you said you immediately recognized in your life the word on fire family is representing this family of choice in your life yeah and I've used that language a lot in fact one of my favorite things is in my office back in the house I've got this picture when we had the great treat last summer and we invited the whole word on fire gang from all over the country to come here and this picture was taken on my back porch of about you know 30 people most of them much younger than I I'm there in the middle of the picture and it's it's my word on fire family we had a gathering of the priests of La not long after that retreat and the retreat director in the small group said to us reflect on what really gives you life in the priesthood that's a good question you know so we know what's dragging us down a lot in the priesthood but what gives you life and right away I thought of that picture and I said generativity I say what gives me life is a sense of of having generated something having given life and it was this word on fire family now you know in one way it's a it's more of a business relationship as all people who are involved in the ministry but it's it's much more than that and I've experienced it as a as a spiritual father now these are not people now my brothers involved so there's one biological relationship but these are not people with whom I have a biological relationship but a relationship of choice that we've all decided to you know bond this way good good I have no quarrel with that I think those are good and healthy but and this maybe is where we could go next in the conversation there's something to be said for freedom and and associations that we freely enter into and something to be said for those that are given to us and what I'm a little afraid of I don't want everything turning into something that I choose and that's not given to me and I think and it will say more about it but there's something dangerous in the reduction of everything to communities that we've freely entered into I think there's a real limitation there let's go there you've talked and you've spoken often about the culture of self-invention where I create my own identity my own destiny and part of that includes creating my own deepest relationships I'm not just assigned them arbitrarily but I pick and choose who I relate to but it reminds me of a G K Chesterton quote where he said you know a wonderful social experiment would need to take any person and drop them into a random room with a collection of other random people who display all the quirks of humanity and encourage them to figure out a way to get along and he said well that's precisely what happens to all of us the moment were born it's weirder opt-in to this random collection of people each with their own you know quirks and whims and desires and interests and we have to figure out how to make it work we're not choosing them we're given that why is that a healthy thing well I'll rely here on on Paul Tillich the Protestant theologian who speculates about what he calls the ontological polarities these are polarities that that qualify or characterized being at all levels but one of them is the polarity between what he calls freedom and what he calls destiny now what's freedom that's what we're all aware of we all value it it's maybe the supreme value in our society which is I choose I decide it's my freedom it's my decision good good that's healthy that's important if you suppress people's freedom that's a terrible thing our country is born in a great outburst of energy around the issue of freedom don't tread on me life liberty and the pursuit of happiness that's all freedom language good and that's influenced modernity in a very profound way but says Paul Tillich freedom is in a healthy mind you a healthy tension with what he calls destiny destiny is what is given to us it's the foundation if you want upon which freedom operates it's this stuff with which freedom of works example you and I here speaking English because we decided when we were four years old as a Spanish French German or English I'll choose English we come on it's not a matter of choice English was given to the two of us it was a world that we were thrown into and and we were it was it was conditioning us before we could even begin to understand what freedom means right family is very much like that and now I mean my biological family I mean mom and dad in my case brother and sister that group I didn't choose them as Chesterton suggests quite rightly I didn't choose them they were there to please my desire they were the given of my life and in inescapable ways and I'll be honest you know both good and bad that's true for all of us I suppose that group of people shaped me became the matrix out of which I developed any sense of identity or freedom that I have was conditioned by this destiny now take another step so it's beyond just the psychological or sociological behind that destiny we would say as believers is God God who this is Thomas Aquinas he dot sa he gives being that's God's job God gives being he wants us to be free yes indeed I'm not saying a word against freedom but God gives us something to work with and that's what I would call following Tillich destiny the biological family I would say is something given to us by God out of which our freedom will emerge so you know this Brandon and it's gonna happen pretty soon now because some of your older kids are getting close to being teenagers right and I've watched it happen over and over and over again and it's heartbreaking for parents when your teenage kid begins to you know go his own way and have his own thoughts and make his own decisions tough on parents it always is but it's also just it's built into the process because that kid is trying to find his own you know path and good that's destiny freedom teenage years man it's when freedom bursts forth how come how come I dye my hair purple because I can I choose to you know so it's a great outburst of freedom but freedom and destiny are always in a healthily tensive relationship so that was a long-winded way of saying I am a little bit uneasy with the claim that we can somehow set aside the family given to us the biological family and now move into this wonderful world of a chosen family III love chosen families like the word on fire one but I don't want to bracket the givenness of the biological family which I think has enormous both psychological and theological importance one of the things that struck me after I converted to Catholicism and started reading the various documents of Catholic social teaching is the repeated strong emphasis on the family yes everywhere and encyclicals from john paul ii familiaris consortio all the way up to Pope Francis's amoris Laetitia there's this strong emphasis that the family is the basic unit of society and I remember thinking how odd and unique that was amidst all the other socio-economic options you know you have capitalism with their praise places of primary emphasis on the individual you have socialism on the greater community communism on the state Catholicism seems emphatic that it's the family that should be the basic cell of society what why does the Catholic Church value the family so much it's very interesting Brannon the way you put that I think is absolutely right it's very interesting because you know we often say this that there is a you know a both an equality to Catholic social teaching it doesn't fit neatly into our typical categories of left and right and that's a prime example yes for example we affirm the market we affirm the dignity of the individual all of that yet Catholic social teaching is not individualistic you know some of the I I read four years I a great reverence form William F Buckley the founder of Nash review and one of the great you know intellectual leaders of American conservatism but Buckley once characterized his approach as individualism well luckily certainly new Catholic social teaching but I I wouldn't I'm not at home with that I I don't think individualism is the way to me that that smacks more of modernity of the modern socio-economic and political model I think you're right and saying for Catholics family as the foundation is the building block of society not the individual now dignity of the individual absolutely no question about that we don't want any reduction of the individual to some Kollek tivity that's why we're against socialist and communist forms but I think it is very important and eloquent what you just said it's neither the grand society nor the individual but it's the family that's the building block now what's the reason for that the Trinity ultimately what's ultimate reality for us an individual well yeah God is one here o Israel the Lord your God has got alone no one's denying the unity of God but yet God subsists in these in this set of relationships that we call the Father Son and Holy Spirit and so something like a dynamism of relationality is ontologically basic if I can put it in desperately abstract language what's the fundamental reality it's not the unit it's not the collectivity it's something much more like the family and that's why I think you're right in saying that's the building block of society in Catholic social teaching and that's the family mind you that's given it's part of our destiny it's the biological family there's also something brand do you know very incarnation Alire let's face it your family is is a it's a physical reality if my brother walked in here right now everyone always says is he boy is he look like me or I look like him we look like my mother or we look at my dad it's built into the into our bodies that were connected to each other I'm resistant to to me it seems like a modernism it's more of a Conte and Cartesian move to say the real me is deep down inside this will or this mind that makes my own choices well who say that's the real me I mean yeah that's there of course freedom I'm for it you know I want your kids to find their freedom in their own path and so on but why is that the real me why would I say oh that's what I'm really all about and this this physical stuff and what was given to me that's all kind of you know I gotta move beyond it I never moved beyond it you know and we all know this Brandon is just when we think boy if I really found my own path I'm my own person is I realize how much like my dad I am or how much like my mother or gosh as I'm getting older I I'm feeling more and more that my father was right about these things and I'm reacting the way he would I look in the mirror and I see him you know when you're a little kid you don't always see the physical sit but now I do as I get older there's my dad I'm looking back at him well that's part of destiny that's part of what's given to me and and woe to us is my caution with the Brooks thing woe to us if we try to bracket that or see it as relatively unimportant or put my own freedom and self assertion over and against that therein Paul Tillich again a healthily tensive relationship again I'm sorry a long-winded answer but I think it's those are important philosophical clarifications one of the things that Brooks does in his article in the Atlantic is trace the demise of the nuclear family how did it crumble apart so quickly in the 20th century and he mentions the normal usual culprits things like no-fault divorce the advent of contraception but he really hones in on what he describes as marriage being primarily about adult theophil meant he quotes a couple psychologists and sociologists to make this point he says that the self-expressive marriage has become the prototype today people look to marriage increasingly for self-discovery self-esteem and personal growth marriage is no longer primarily about childbearing and child-rearing now marriage is primarily about about adult fulfillment it reminds me of a word you used earlier which is generativity you know instead of marriage being about generating new life both physical life but also the the life of love between the husband and wife and their children now marriage is more interiorly turned and it's it's what can this you know institution or structure do for me how can it help me find myself have you seen that same shift in the way we understand marriage today you know that video Brandon several years ago now I did it was based on a Time magazine cover story on the childless couple and it was is making his argument that it's been a major sociological shift in our country that many people are entering marriage with zero interest in having children and I did a video you know critical of that attitude well it's one of the most watched and commented on and probably hated on videos I've ever done because this view has taken hold of a lot of people what's basic to Christian spirituality your life is not about you and one of the forms that takes of course would be parents who give rise to children and they realize I mean III don't as a as a man without children and the biological sense I don't feel it the way you do but every father and mother I've talked to they know this in their bones that once the kids come I mean like it or not my life is not about me it just isn't and it's not about realizing my dreams now you know you're a good example Brandon I mean you're a guy with a lot of intelligence and get-up-and-go and you've achieved and accomplished lots of things good it sound like you've just become this you know this marginal figure no you you've done what you want to do nevertheless I'd be willing to bet if it came down to achieving your personal goals or making sure your children flourish it wouldn't be much of a debate right your life is not about you and I think parents get that in their bones and and that's the danger of construing marriage simply as a project of self fulfillment it's a project of values that go way beyond you and beyond your ego see and for me as a priest the version of it is my life isn't about me it's about the people I'm called to serve parish priests especially talked about that when they're assigned to a place into a people my life is about them it's not about my achieving my personal goals even as I look at my case word on fire you know which began very small it's kind of a personal mission of mine okay and it's grown and developed and great great I'm glad but my life has to be finally about the people I've been called upon to serve I would be loath ever to see that disappear and that's my fear of marriage as a project of self-realization Bishop I know quickly that when a lot of people hear us praise the family immediate objections come up well what if my family is awful what if I'm in an abusive family what if my family demeans me what about these cases then let your freedom come forth and stand up against it and resist it so you know again keep the tillich thing in mind it's a tensive relationship between freedom and destiny don't let destiny overwhelm your freedom that's the other problem right so our culture tends to hyper value freedom but you can hyper value destiny where you just become a victim of your family you can't escape from a possibly dysfunctional family if that's the case no no you know let freedom ring and assert your Liberty and stand against it so I'm by no means advocating you know which is still acquiesce to whatever no I mean every family is to some degree crazy and some are really abusive well to that degree you resist it and you find your own path so no that's again the tension is between freedom and destiny well if you want more on this I encourage you to read David Brooks article it's very stimulating and interesting again it's from the Atlantic will link to it beneath this video but it's called the nuclear family it was a mistake but don't stop there after you read that check out some of what the Catholic Church and the theologians and popes have said about the family because I think it provides a helpful counterbalance well it's time now for a question from one of our listeners today we have one from Caesar in Los Angeles Bishop Behrens own archdiocese and he's asking about Beauty here's his question hi bishop this is Cesar from Los Angeles you emphasize something you call the vehicle catalinus the way of beauty towards evangelization and that's great that's fantastic so how would you define Beauty itself what's a good concise definition and how can we prove that it is objective because well in terms of aesthetics and beautiful things there are lots of tastes so how do you reconcile that with the idea of objective beauty it's a great set of questions that we need a whole University course to address them I'll give you time as a client's definition he said the beautiful quad vision planchette that which having been seen pleases that's the beautiful quad vision planchette now why is it please further from Thomas Aquinas it pleases because there's a coming together of three elements what he called concern and Seija which means harmony integrity ties which means wholeness and Claritas which means radiance so when it's about one thing integrity ties when all the elements in it hang together harmoniously counsel Mencia and when therefore it radiates forth a sort of luminosity of formal perfection that's a fancy way of saying well that's what that's supposed to be you know when you see a beautiful golf swing and you say man that that's it that's that's a golf swing you see Notre Dame Cathedral and you say that's a church man and talk about the integrity of it the wholeness of it how all the elements cohere you read Dante's Divine Comedy so integrity House Council Nancy a Clary toss when they come together we say quod vism Plata what what I've Sene pleases okay now second part of your question how do we know it's not subjective how do you know two plus two equals four is not subjective because it knacks you in your face by its own in its own power in other words it defies you to manipulate it or run around it is when you're presented with a mathematical truth or a truth about psychology or truth about someone's life or whatever it is it defies you it stands in front of you it stands a throat your will and says try as you might you are not gonna knock me down it's that experience that convinces us I'm dealing here with something objective and not just my own fancy well the same thing is true of the beautiful and I'm talking about the truly beautiful that's something like you know you got a little you know I fancy this or I got a whim I'm gonna follow I mean when you're in the presence of Beethoven's 7th symphony when you're in the presence of Chartres Cathedral when you're reading Dante's Divine Comedy when you're looking at the Mona Lisa there's it defies your puny will to say otherwise that's why we know it's beautiful hey you know if I look at the Sistine Chapel ceiling yeah that's nice see what what would you say to that person you wouldn't say oh yeah that's it that's a good point of view you know I kind of like it but I respect your of course you wouldn't you'd say what are you an idiot that's the Sistine Chapel ceiling look at it again dummy see my point there is the beautiful if it's really beautiful has this power to it it overwhelms our petty little privatized subjectivism you know I'm saying I like spaghetti meatballs Brandon doesn't like it okay fine that's a matter of taste spaghetti meatballs is not gonna it's not gonna come into your face and challenge your your freedom but my god Chartres Cathedral does and by God Dante does and Thomas Aquinas does so that's how you know that the beautiful has an objective quality to it okay end of rant I'm sorry for ranting on that one well for the record I love spaghetti and meatballs oh yeah good objectivity false statement okay it was something you said before that's helped you've recognized that our appreciation for beauty our aesthetic sense is something that needs to be developed so use the example of two plus two equals four if I went to my three-year-old daughters Ellie and asked her what two plus two equals and she said I don't know over five you know the reason she got it wrong is not because she has a subjectively different opinion it's just because she hasn't been formed in the training of mathematics and the same with the appreciation for beauty right and the last thing you would ever do is say you know Ellie I appreciate your perspective on that thank you and I'm not going to impose my subjective view that it's four I mean but that's what we're into this position now aren't we in our culture that we're so we're so reluctant ever to violate any one sense of subjectivity that this wonderful bracing objectivity of the good and the true and the beautiful is lost and that is a cultural calamity all right well we'll end on that note thanks so much for listening to this episode again we'll link to the David Brooks article beneath the video if you want more on that also I asked you this last week in Alaska again maybe you've been listening the war on fire show for years 200 plus episodes you've enjoyed it you've benefited from these conversations if so please return the favor by taking five seconds and leaving a review of the podcast on your favorite store whether it's Apple podcast or Google Play every review you leave helps us tremendously because then those services recommend our show to new listeners so take a couple seconds leave a review and we'd really be grateful for you well thanks so much for listening we'll see you next week on the word on fire show thanks so much for watching if you enjoyed this video I encourage you to share it and be sure to subscribe to my youtube channel [Music] you

Channel: Bishop Robert Barron

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Id: 3Fx9KDRFO0U

Length: 31min 31sec (1891 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 27 2020