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You might have thought Count Leo would have settled it. You know. "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

But "Anna Karenina" was 140 years ago, and we're still fussing over the proper size, shape and roll of families.

Kvetching about other people's families doesn't help — George Pyle | The Salt Lake Tribune

" ... A family unit is built on love, something no government agency can provide.

"What if you don't want to get married? Or you do, but can't find any possibilities that don't disgust you? Or you do get married, and the bum leaves you? Or you find your soulmate, and she dies, leaving you and your children impoverished and in debt? Is the government supposed to make you marry someone, or someone else, to make sure you do your civic duty?

"No? Well, then, as a society, a culture, a government, we do what we can to help the people we have, where they are, in the households they have chosen to build, or have fallen into. No amount of kvetching over other people's choices will help. ..."

Time for a new pro-family coalition in America — David Blankenhorn | Deseret News National Edition

" ... The marriage gap is an issue tailor-made for those on the center-left. It's an inequality issue. It's a social justice issue. And because the marriage gap is an economic as well as a cultural-values challenge, addressing it seriously will require income-boosting strategies long favored by progressives and still viewed with skepticism by many on the right. If American liberals continue to ignore or dismiss the marriage gap, for fear of getting right-wing cooties, little of importance will be achieved and the problem will likely only get worse. The call to pay attention to it will be the sound of one hand clapping. ..."

When Liberals Blew It — Nicholas Kristof | The New York Times

" ... So let's learn from 50 years of mistakes. A starting point is to acknowledge the role of families in fighting poverty. That's not about being a moralistic scold, but about helping American kids."

" ... There are obvious reasons to be skeptical about affluent pundits who jump to blame society's ills on moral decadence and decay; namely, it's a convenient excuse not to spend tax dollars fixing the country's problems. That said, I think more liberals need to get comfortable acknowledging that, even if it doesn't explain the whole story, culture probably has played a role in the changes that have rocked domestic life for so much of the country. ..."

The prescience of Daniel Patrick Moynihan — George F. Will | The Washington Post

" ... This was dismaying because governments know how to alter incentives and remove barriers but not how to manipulate culture. The assumption that the condition of the poor must improve as macroeconomic conditions improve was to be refuted by a deepened understanding of the crucial role of the family as the primary transmitter of the social capital essential for self-reliance and betterment. Family structure is the primary predictor of social outcomes, as Daniel Patrick Moynihan knew in 1965. ..."

The Cost of Relativism — David Brooks | The New York Times

" ... But it's increasingly clear that sympathy is not enough. It's not only money and better policy that are missing in these circles; it's norms. The health of society is primarily determined by the habits and virtues of its citizens. In many parts of America there are no minimally agreed upon standards for what it means to be a father. There are no basic codes and rules woven into daily life, which people can absorb unconsciously and follow automatically. ..."

What David Brooks doesn't understand about poverty — Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig | The New Republic

" ... Morality should teach us how to live a good life. But to impose the easy virtue of the well-to-do on the poor is to request the most stressed and vulnerable members of society to display impossible moral heroism. To abstain from relationships, sex, and childbirth until financially secure enough to raise a child without assistance would mean, for many, a life of celibacy; to pour limited resources into education in order to score a respectable job would mean failing to make rent. If the problems plaguing poor communities persist after poverty is drastically reduced, that would seem an appropriate time to pursue the matter of a better "moral vocabulary," as Brooks calls it—and even then, the participation of low-income communities would be essential. But before that conversation can happen, the obvious solution to the "chaos" Brooks observes among poor communities is to reduce poverty, and let its moral quandaries resolve on their own."