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.htmlThe 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
