Wednesday, April 11, 2007

An Interesting Oprah Experience!

When you hear you might get to be on the Oprah show, that's a pretty exciting idea for any organization or entity trying to "get the word out"! It all began when our PR partners noticed that the Oprah show had a page on their website looking for people to comment on the recent statistic that stated for the first time in history more women in the U.S. are not married than are married. This led to a discussion with the producers by our publicst about marriage, so we were invited down to be part of the studio audience. Our publicist and I headed down to the show hoping to talk about thinkmarriage.org and some of the ramifications of what that statistic meant. After arriving, we realized that even though we were back stage in a special guest area, she was the only one who might speak....(The clue? Going to hair and make-up and recieving a microphone cleverly hidden in a lapel!) We then found out, she was really there as a person who had an opinion on marriage, and was not free to mention anything about our organization. That meant it was up to me to hopefully be called on when people were able to comment. The show which aired 4/6/07 was really on a wide variety of subjects...marriage being a very small portion of the discussion. When our publicist was called on and said that she felt marriage was very important, and was concerned about single parenting and the bad example celebrity marriages often set, the tone was totally changed to an attitude of: "Women finally have realized they can live without a man if they want to...they don't have to feel that they have to be married, that marriage makes them complete...you can be empowered to raise a child by yourself" etc. I of course was breaking my arm trying to get called on to comment on the fact that the statistic was a sad one, the breakdown of marriage and the family greatly affect children...and there are a world of statistics showing that children from broken homes live in circumstances that often lead to poverty, are 14 times more likely to suffer abuse, do poorly in school, use drugs and get pregnant as teenagers...and they are 22 times more likely to end up in jail. Does that mean everyone? Of course not...the point is we don't see marriage as the gold standard anymore and the best way to raise children, with a mother and father in the home, working on a healthy marriage. We're applauding the opposite and not realizing the price we are paying in social ills. Read an excellent article that I would like Oprah to explore on our website....www.thinkmarriage.org, click on research and articles http://www.foundationformarriage.org/html/articles.html
The article entitled The Black Family, 40 years of Lies is written by Kay S. Hymowitz who wrote a book called; Marriage and Caste in America. It's time to look at the facts and be careful what we celebrate. What do you think?
Posted by : Michele Olson

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Doesn't it seem strange that what once was taboo is now a matter of "empowerment"? Gay rights, pre-marital sex, single parent families...all things that at one point in our history were things that were looked down upon. And as we progress, we find a way to discuss these issues and create a market for them. Toleration is certainly important, but our culture seems to take it from toleration to an insane extreme which almost makes it hip. Now it's cool to be gay, or to avoid marriage. It's as if, in our minds, we make it the "cool thing" now to "make up" for the years were we left the topics alone and didn't discuss them. I find it all very strange.

thinkmarriage.org said...

Thanks for blogging Mr. Pickle.
I would add that the one thing we never seem to look at is what happens from the choices we make. Explore our website at www.thinkmarriage.org
We embrace so many choices without thinking of long term consequences..Me, myself and I forgot to think about Them,they and espcially the children. The rights of the individual have taken over the "righteous" ideal of what should be honored, cherished and guarded. Keep those thoughts coming...we want the conversation to spread throughout our state! The best thing we can do is to stay on target with the topic...and not let side discussions about other hot topics stear us away from what we want to be shouting from the roof tops...
prepare...protect and pass on a great marriage!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the Blog Michele,

There is a wide misconception that marriage is always easy and just flows along without any work. As we all know, this usually isn't the case. A lot of people that buy into this fairytale run the minute things get rocky.

It seems that there is always tons of information in magazines and on TV about bad marriage and how to get out of one, or how to live without getting married. You don't see much on on how to stay married.
I guess it's just not as sensational and doesn't get the ratings, but it sure is needed.

Thanks for your website and its excellent information. Keep up the great work! I look forward to reading your blog. Maybe Oprah will read this and get you on the show!

Boomergirl

thinkmarriage.org said...

Boomergirl!
Good points! That's why we're here...we want to start everyone talking about what we can do to encourage healthy marriages...you're right...the other message is already being heard loud and clear!
Thanks for joining in the cause and the conversation...we look forward to hearing from you again...
Yours fellow Boomergirl!