It Takes a Village

Former speech writer for W, Michael Gerson is channeling Hillary Clinton. His piece in the Washington Post this morning about the importance of the role of community in influencing teenage behavior is vintage Hillary:

When the statistics on teen sexuality are controlled for social and economic factors, conservative Protestant teens first have sex at about the same time as their peers -- the average is midway through their 16th year. That is hardly comforting to conservative Protestant parents, who would expect more bang for the bucks they spend funding Sunday schools -- well, actually, less bang.

But these numbers shift when controlled for religious intensity. For those who attend church often, sexual activity is delayed until nearly 17, while nominal evangelicals begin at 16.2 years, earlier than the national average.

This trend is more pronounced in other measures of sexual behavior. Only 1 percent of conservative Protestants who attend church weekly cohabit, compared with 10 percent of all adults. (On this statistic, nominal evangelicals almost exactly mirror the nation.) Twelve percent of churchgoing evangelicals have children out of wedlock, compared with 33 percent of all mothers.

These facts, according to Wilcox, support some liberal claims and some conservative ones. Liberals are correct that economic and cultural factors matter greatly, sometimes more than individual belief. Teens with good life prospects and a strong sense of the future -- kids with economic and educational ambitions -- tend to avoid risky behavior such as drugs and early sex. Without those prospects, the temptation to live for the moment is strong.

The facts also support a basic conservative belief: that it is difficult for teens to be moral alone. Wilcox argues that teen sexual behavior can be influenced -- that teenagers can be more than the sum of their hormones. But responsible behavior requires both "norms" and "networks." An intellectual belief in right and wrong is not sufficient. Teens require a community that supports their good choices, especially in times of testing and personal crisis. "Kids who are embedded in a social network with shared norms," he concludes, "are more likely to abide by them."

Sociologist Peter Berger calls these networks "plausibility structures" -- sources of authority that do more than lecture or shame; they define the meaning of common sense. When institutions such as religious groups, families, government and the media send a strong and consistent message -- smoking is stupid, driving under the influence is criminal, teen pregnancy is self-destructive -- we have sometimes seen dramatic changes in behavior. Teen pregnancy and birth rates in the United States, for example, have declined by about one-third since the early 1990s.

These messages of responsibility are often reinforced by tightknit religious communities, but they are not owned by them. Wilcox notes that American liberal elites often "talk left and walk right, living disciplined lives and expecting their children to do the same, even when they hold liberal social views." Divorce rates among college-educated Americans, he points out, have fallen since the 1980s, as it became more evident that casual divorce did not serve the long-term interests of their children.

The decisive role of authoritative communities in determining individual behavior should not surprise conservatives. Conservatism teaches that individuals are not inherently good and so must be carefully civilized. They need social structures and networks that foster duty and discipline and define those commitments as common sense. In "The Quest for Community," Robert Nisbet warned: "Release man from the contexts of community and you get not freedom and rights but intolerable aloneness and subjection to demoniac fears and passions."

It would be nice if teen sexual behavior could be automatically changed by an abstinence lecture or a sermon. Setting those norms and expectations, however, is a small part of a larger cultural task. Moral men and women need moral communities.

What is particularly interesting about Gerson's piece is his attempt to claim a basic liberal value as conservative: "it is difficult for teens to be moral alone." The classic American conservative myth is of the lone ranger, who is fully self-sufficient and doesn't need the help of community or government. (This is what Ronald Reagan embodied and why he was such a conservative hero.) At best he or she has a strong family but that is all it takes to be healthy and happy. That conservative myth plays itself out in conservative economics. Get the government out of the way; private schools, private Social Security accounts, no government regulations for things like pollution or workplace safety (no nanny state), and most importantly of all - no using the tax system to redistribute wealth from those who have made it successfully on their own and deserve their money to those who are too lazy or undisciplined to make it all by themselves. It's survival of the fittest.

It is a classic American liberal value to argue that it is difficult for anyone to be moral alone. We need a strong community that includes families and faith communities and neighborhoods and schools and government all working together to create both the moral and economic climate that makes it possible for teens to thrive. Gerson even quotes a liberal scholar, Peter Berger, in support of this supposedly conservative value.

Strong families and faith communities are important, but they are not enough. It really does take a village to raise a child. And sometimes, apparently, it takes having a teenager to finally realize this.