Last updated on June 4th, 2021 at 12:34 pm
This may well be the most perilous time ever for children. Those who make it past the global scourge of abortion to breathe the breath of life enter a world fraught with dangerous and sometimes deadly hazards. Australian Professor Philip Darbyshire observed,
Imagine our children and young people being valued, nurtured, cared for, heard, protected, educated, housed, employed, safe and loved. What we have instead today is some dystopian childhood nightmare, a man-made (and I choose that term deliberately) landscape of real world and virtual abuse, violence, sexploitation, trafficking, starvation, armed conflict, mental health crises, poverty and yet more abuse and violence, all directed at children and young people and so much of it unleashed and perpetrated by the very adults that children often rely on for protection.
In such a world, blessed indeed are those children fortunate enough to be welcomed and raised by parents who provide what the United Nations calls for in its Declaration of the Rights of the Child: “special protection” and “love and understanding… in an atmosphere of affection” to allow children to “develop physically, mentally, morally, spiritually and socially in a healthy and normal manner and in conditions of freedom and dignity.”
A vivid description of such a family was presented to the UN General Assembly by US representative Wade Horn at the 10th anniversary of the International Year of the Family: “As the cradle of life and love for each new generation, the family is the primary source of personal identity, self-esteem, and support for children. It is also the first and foremost school of life, uniquely suited to teach children integrity, character, morals, responsibility, service, and wisdom.”
And the foundation for such a family, says IOF founder Dr. Allan Carlson, is “the conjugal bond built on fidelity, mutual duty, and respect” in which husband and wife “emerge into their full potential” and “become as their Creator intended, a being complete.” From this “natural union flows new human life” as the parents “find their love transformed into a living child” and become “the child’s first teachers” and “guides and guardians.”
Unfortunately, too many children are raised in circumstances less than ideal. According to Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, “Single-parent and blended families can be heroic examples of love. But a vast amount of research shows what, in a saner age, would be obvious. Families with two biological parents who remain married—i.e., a loving mother and father—produce the best outcomes for their children.” No wonder the Universal Declaration of Human Rights unequivocally acknowledges the natural family to be the “fundamental group unit of society.”
To create an ideal society for the protection of children is the hope expressed by Australian Professor Fiona Stanley, the 2003 Australian of the Year and author of the book Children of the Lucky Country?: How Australian Society Has Turned Its Back on Children and Why Children Matter.
All of us would continually and automatically think about our actions and decisions in terms of what they meant for children and young people. All federal, state and territory legislation introduced would have been checked as to how it might impact, negatively or positively, on our children’s developmental chances…. Australia would become a country internationally recognized as one which not only produces gold medal-winning swimmers but is a great place for all children to grow up.
In celebration of the 2021 Global Day of Parents on June 1, we at IOF:
- Applaud all parents who selflessly and sacrificially provide their children with the protection, love, and physical and spiritual nourishment they need and deserve.
- Urge leaders and policymakers to encourage and enable the conditions that will allow, as expressed in the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, every child, “wherever possible, [to] grow up in the care and under the responsibility of his [or her] parents.”
- Declare that “the family, a universal community based on the marital union of a man and a woman, is the bedrock of society, the strength of our nations, and the hope of humanity.”
- Call for “a culture that honors and enables faithful, fulfilling, and resilient marriages” and “that recognizes and protects the uniquely valuable contributions of both mothers and fathers to the lives of their children.”
- Urge all nations and individuals to honor the timeless truth proclaimed in the Declaration of the Rights of the Child: “Mankind owes to the child the best it has to give.”
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