The ideal family?

The news today, in the UK, is that a comprehensive survey - A Good Childhood - commissioned by the Children’s Society, has discovered that children who are brought up by loving natural parents have the best hope of a happy life. Four main styles of parenting have been identified : disciplined, authoritative, neglectful and permissive. Researchers have studied the effects of each upon the way in which children develop. They agree that the style that is loving and yet firm - now known in the jargon as authoritative - is the most effective. In this approach boundaries are explained, in the context of a warm, loving relationship.

Most children, the Report states, hate loss of contact with their fathers and often experience substantial distress, anger or self-doubt as a result. Yet, in Britain around 28% of all children whose parents have separated have no contact with their fathers three years after the separation. On present trends, it is claimed, this figure will continue to rise.

And so it goes on. To read a fuller report of the Report, go to

http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/families/article5626662.ece

You may be surprised, even shocked, and certainly saddened, by some of the other conclusions that are presented.

It probably cost tens of thousands of pounds sterling, and did take two years of research, to arrive at that amazing conclusion. Yet the written Word of God - the Bible - shows us clearly that what the report is suggesting is what God had already ordained! From the very beginning, God set the basic standard of one man and one woman (Gen.2:24). The fact that, even in the pages of the Biblical record, we find instances in which this ideal was not achieved, in no way negates the principle set down. The first of the Ten Words (the Ten Commandments) that deals with human relationships, rather than the relationship between God and humankind, is the Fifth. The core of that commandment is that children should "Honour father and mother".

In the New Testament, the teaching continues. Jesus, Himself, affirms the teaching of Gen.2:24 - see Mt.19:5; Mark 10:7; and Paul gives the same teaching (Eph.3:1). Ephesians 5 and 6 is a whole section on family relationships that, if achieved, would ensure a calm and happy home.

For decades, the liberal humanists and their like have sought, vociferously, to downgrade the whole biblical notion of 'family'. Let us hope that, by God's grace, this Report will signal a change in our society - if it is not already too late!