Thank you for your kind introduction. I also want to thank all of you for taking time out of your busy schedule to attend this forum today; it is an honor for me to be here.
Although I appreciate the flattering introduction of me, I must confess that his introduction may have exaggerated my importance just a bit. You see in Washington there’s this rule that your influence is inversely related to the length of your title. So, we call the President, “The President” – short title, big job. We call the Secretary, “The Secretary,” – short title, big job. And my title is “Assistant Secretary for Children and Families, Administration for Children and Families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.”
But there is one title that is short, and it is just about the most important title that I have, and that is the title “dad.”
Parenting is tough enough and warm memories are not the only legacy of responsible fatherhood.
We also know that children who grow up with an involved, committed and responsible father and mother in their lives are more likely to do better on almost any measure of child well-being one can imagine compared to those who do not.
And this is true among all communities – including the Hispanic community.
One of the principles that the President, the Secretary and I are committed to is responding to the concerns of Hispanic Americans.
As President Bush said, “The character of millions of Hispanic Americans makes our nation a better place. The warmth and the vitality of the Hispanic culture, the energy and faith of Hispanic men and women are great gifts to America.”
There is no doubt that President Bush understands that Hispanic Americans do indeed make a difference in our communities and in our Nation.
But, despite the contributions of your community, Hispanic families face similar challenges that other families face.
Perhaps the most important of those challenges is building healthy marriages.
President Bush understands how important healthy marriages are to the well-being of children, adults, couples, communities and our nation.
And he understands that not everyone has had the benefit of growing up in a household in which the marriage was a healthy one.
That’s why last year, he said, “We must support the institution of marriage, and help parents build stronger families.”
In fact, the President recognizes the importance of marriage so much that he has made the promotion of healthy marriage a central goal of his domestic policy.
During my time with you today, I would like to talk about the President’s Healthy Marriage Initiative.
Penguins and Miscommunication
Which brings me to a story about penguins.
There was this truck driver who had to deliver five-hundred penguins to the state zoo. As he drove his refrigerated truck through the desert, the engine conked out and his truck broke down. He was in trouble and desperate for a solution.
All of a sudden, right after his truck broke down, an empty truck that just happened to be refrigerated appeared. He waved down the driver and offered him five-thousand dollars to take the penguins to the state zoo.
The next day, the first truck driver arrived in town and saw the second truck driver crossing the road with five-hundred penguins behind him. The first truck driver jumped out of his truck and said, “What’s going on? I gave you $5,000 to take these penguins to the zoo!”
The second truck driver replied, “I did take them to the zoo. But I had a lot of money left over—so today I’m taking them to the movies.”
If you’re like me, my guess is that when you hear our critics say what they think those who support marriage are all about, you feel like that first truck driver who says one thing – only to have his statements completely misinterpreted.
For example, the critics have said:
- We want to trap people in abusive relationships;
- We want to run a federal dating service;
- We want to withdraw supports from single parent families;
- We’re part of a right wing religious plot threatening to take over America and plunge us into a new Dark Ages; and, of course, the most frequently cited criticism:
- We propose marriage as a solution for everything that ails our culture.
The Healthy Marriage Initiative
Of course, we don’t propose anything of the kind. We are not promoting marriage for the sake of marriage.
But what we do propose is to help couples achieve what they voluntarily say they want for themselves: a lifelong, healthy marriage.
In light of these criticisms, I have found it helpful to emphasize not only what government ought to do when it comes to promoting marriage, but also what it ought not to do.
1. It ought not force anyone to marry anyone.
- As your wonderful Spanish saying goes, “Mejor solo, que mal acompanado.” Which means -- Better alone, than badly accompanied. We’re not about making anyone do anything they do not want to do. Rather, this is about giving people the necessary information and tools to make good decisions about their future, which, for most, includes marriage.
2. It ought not get into the match-making business – I have no interest in running a federal dating service
3. It ought not – intentionally or otherwise – implement policies that will trap anyone in an abusive relationship
4. It ought not promote marriage by withdrawing supports for single-parent families; and
5. Finally, it ought not to promote marriage by being afraid to mention its name.
So, what should government do? Here are some basic principles I think ought to drive government involvement in the marriage arena:
- First, government ought to make it clear that it is in the business of promoting healthy marriages.
Government should make clear that it is in the marriage promotion business because it is an effective strategy for improving the well-being of children.
The fact is healthy marriages are good for children; dysfunctional, and especially abusive, marriages are not.
Hence, government, as a strategy for improving the well-being of children ought to be in the business of promoting healthy marriages.
- Second, government should not merely seek to be neutral about marriage.
Government has no business promoting one flavor of ice cream over another because there is no evidence that individuals, couples, children, families or communities benefit from the choice of one flavor of ice cream over another. Hence, government is neutral about whether you prefer vanilla to strawberry ice cream.
But government is not neutral about a lot of things – like home ownership or charitable giving – precisely because it can be shown that home ownership and charitable giving contributes to the common good.
Hence, government provides incentives – primarily in the way of tax incentives – for home ownership and charitable giving.
In much the same way, government, while not forcing anyone to marry, can – and should – provide support for healthy marriages precisely because it can be shown that healthy marriages contribute to the common good.
As such, removing disincentives for marriage is fine – but that would only achieve neutrality. Government should also provide supports for healthy marriages.
- Third, while we don’t know as much as we would like to know about how to promote healthy marriages, that shouldn’t be used as an excuse to do nothing.
Some people have argued that we don’t have perfect knowledge when it comes to knowing how to promote healthy marriages.
They’re right – we don’t have perfect knowledge. But we do know something.
We do know, for example, that what separates stable marriages from unstable ones is not the frequency of conflict, but how that couple manages conflict.
And we know that marriage education programs can increase marital couples’ happiness and long-term stability.
New research is constantly shedding more light on our path.
For example, research is dispelling the notion that low-income, unwed parents either have no relationship with one another or have no desire for marriage.
As researchers at Princeton and Columbia University have shown at the time of the birth of their children, among unmarried couples:
- 80 percent were involved in an exclusive romantic relationship; and
- half believed their chances of marrying – not some time to somebody, but to each other – were “certain” or “near certain.”
Also, two recent studies of this same population by the Center for Law and Social Policy – which is hardly a right-wing group – concluded that these couples have high hopes for their relationships, are motivated to improve their relationships and are likely to experience “positive economic effects” if they can form and sustain a healthy marriage.
And the latest CLASP study goes even farther. It shows that unwed mothers who married in the first year of their first child’s life experienced “positive economic effects” and surprisingly stable marriages (when compared to other low-income mothers).
Thus, even in situations where couples do not follow the proper order of that old playground rhyme – “first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes Susie with the baby carriage” – positive outcomes frequently result when they form and build a healthy marriage soon after the birth of their child.
So, we know a lot about marriage that may surprise some folks. And while we certainly have much, much more to learn – government ought not to be paralyzed by incomplete knowledge.
In the words of the English writer Samuel Johnson: “Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.”
The Healthy Marriage Initiative – What Government Is Doing
So, what is the government doing specifically to promote healthy marriages?
First, many of you may be are aware of the pending legislation that would reauthorize the very successful welfare reform law from 1996. It passed the House of Representatives in early 2003 and the Senate Finance Committee a year ago last September.
This proposal establishes two important programs regarding healthy marriage.
- First, it sets up a $120 million annual fund primarily to support healthy marriage demonstrations, research and technical assistance.
- Second, it establishes a separate $120 million competitive matching grant program so states, local governments and faith-based organizations can initiate new marriage programs and strengthen existing ones.
In both cases, the emphasis would be on evaluating creative innovations to determine what works. Some ideas are:
Public education campaigns
Pre-marital education programs
Marriage enrichment programs
Outreach to troubled marriages
That is what we want to do. But I work for a President and a Secretary who always are asking me, “But what can you do now?
So, rather than just sitting and waiting for Congress to legislate, we’ve undertaken a number of initiatives to promote healthy marriages using existing resources.
What ACF is Doing Now
During the past two years, for example, the Administration of Children and Families has incorporated healthy marriage “messages” into our current array of social service programs.
We have committed to spending $19 million over the next five years to integrate local marriage promotion and support services into child welfare services, ranging from family support services to family preservation services to adoption services.
We have also announced a five-year, $8 million grant program to add marriage education into the curriculums of schools of social work.
We’ve given waivers to seven states (and counting) that would like to integrate support for healthy marriages into the panoply of services currently being offered through the child-support enforcement system. One of these key states is Nampa, Idaho, which is serving a primarily Hispanic population.
Recognizing that different groups of people need different kinds of help, we have targeted funds to help particularly vulnerable populations form and sustain healthy marriages. Specifically, we are doing the following:
- Working to add marriage education to the range of social services we offer to couples who come to America as refugees;
- Adding marriage education as allowable activities under developmental disability grants that we administer.
- Launching an African-American healthy marriage initiative designed to help deal with the unique challenges facing marriages within the African-American community;
- Finally, as most of you know, we’ve launched a Hispanic-American Healthy Marriage Initiative.
Now, I would like to stress that this emphasis on marriage is not about subtraction – but addition.
This is all about adding an arrow of supports for marriage to the quiver of our publicly financed delivery system – a system that for far too long has been afraid to even speak even the word “marriage.”
The Role of Government
Of course, some critics might ask, is this really the function of the federal government? Isn’t promoting marriage too intrusive a role for government?
Good question. But here’s our even better answer: To the extent to which we are successful in promoting healthy marriages, we will be successful in preventing many of the social ills that impede the healthy development of children, families, and, indeed, our nation.
And if we are successful in preventing many of the social ills that impede the healthy development of children and families, we will also obviate the need for other more costly – and more intrusive – interventions.
We know, for example, that children who grow up in unhealthy marriages and experience family breakup are more likely to be abused and neglected.
A compassionate society doesn’t stand idly by and tolerate children being abused and neglected, so we have a child welfare system to investigate reports of abuse and neglect and a foster care system to take care of children who are abused and neglected.
But if we are successful in helping couples form and sustain healthy marriages, fewer children will be abused or neglected, and as a result, there will be less need for child welfare services in the first place.
Indeed, as Assistant Secretary for Children and Families, I oversee 65 different social programs at a cost of nearly $47 billion dollars each year, –child welfare, child support enforcement, programs for runaway youth, anti-poverty programs – the need for each of these programs is either created or exacerbated by the breakup of families and marriages.
If we are ever going to prevent the need for these services, we must begin preventing these problems from happening in the first place. One way to accomplish this is to help couples form and sustain healthy marriages.
We see the importance of this for the well-being of children. We also see how important it is to help minorities living in the United States to form and sustain such marriages. The desire to address these particular needs of minorities brought about the inception of the Hispanic Healthy Marriage Initiative.
The Hispanic Healthy Marriage Initiative
While promoting Healthy Marriage is a legitimate function of government, you may still find yourself asking the “why” question – why have we felt the need to craft such a targeted effort to strengthen marriage among Hispanics? How are Hispanic Americans different than other Americans?
The Hispanic community has such a rich, vibrant culture for which I and so many other Americans have an affinity. We see your unique contributions to our society and want to better serve your needs.
We have launched this initiative because we feel the Hispanic community has unique needs that merit special attention. This is based on several demographic realities.
First, Hispanics are the largest minority group in the United States.
- As a community of 40 million people, Hispanics comprise 13 percent of the U.S. population. The Census Bureau projects that by 2020, that percentage will rise to 20 percent of the U.S. population.
Second, Hispanics have the highest birth rate in America.
- Your community has always valued the importance of family and the gift of children. In 2000, the birth rate for Hispanics was 96 per 1,000, compared to 69 per 1,000 for African Americans and 57 per 1,000 per Whites. There is no doubt that this shows that children are at the heart of your vibrant community.
Third, not only is the Hispanic community a populous community, but it is a young community.
- The median age of Hispanics in the United States is only 25 compared to 30 for African Americans and 38 for Whites. Moreover, there are nearly 15,200,000 Hispanics in the United States that are 18 years of age or younger.
- Why is this relevant? It is relevant because we know that most of these young people will choose their spouse in the years ahead. We have an opportunity to help these young people make the best choice, and build strong marriages.
Fourth, the Hispanic community seems to be committed to marriage to a greater extent than other communities. How so?
- Hispanics as a group display a high commitment to marriage. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 1995, 61% of Hispanic women age 15-44 had been married at some point in their lives, compared with 43.1% of Black women.
- Cohabitation is also less common among Hispanics than other groups. In 1995, 73% of Hispanic women had never cohabitated, compared with 58% of White women.
These demographic trends – the growth, the youth, and the commitment of Hispanics to marriage – represent very fertile soil for an initiative that seeks to strengthen marriages in your community.
But the news isn’t all positive.
You may not know this, but unfortunately, Hispanics have the highest teen pregnancy rates in America. The teen pregnancy rate for Hispanics is 69 more per 1,000 than the national average.
We need to encourage Hispanic youth, as this Administration has done with all youth, to make the wisest decisions.
Hispanics have also had the greatest rate of increase of out-of-wedlock births since 1995. In 2002, 43.5 percent of all Hispanic births were out-of-wedlock. While the unmarried birth rate among African Americans dropped between 1995 and 2002, it grew by 3 percentage points among Hispanics during the same time period.
Finally, Hispanic families are 200 percent more likely to live in poverty than White families. In 1999, nearly one quarter of Hispanic families, roughly 23 percent lived in poverty, and 30 percent of Hispanic children aged 0-18 lived in poverty.
We know that marriage alone does not affect poverty rates. But marriage, when combined with work and other initiatives, can have a positive effect on children and families.
My friends, I know that you already may be aware of these trends. And you are committed to strengthening families for the well-being of children as much as I am. That is why you are here today – so many of you are championing stable marriages for the well-being of children.
As a popular Hispanic clergyman recently observed:
"Those of us in the Hispanic community often think of a child as being like a fragile sapling planted in the soil of society. For that sapling to have the best chance of growing up strong and healthy, it needs to be tethered to two poles or sticks, one on each side. These two poles are the parents, Mom and Dad. They are very different in many ways—indeed, opposites, at a foundational level—but they are both necessary for a child's balanced growth."
As a child psychologist, I couldn’t have expressed this better myself. It is our desire through this initiative to develop strong, fertile soil for children to grow up in – and the bedrock of this soil is a healthy two-parent married union. This initiative is a long-term strategy that will benefit so many Hispanic families, teenagers and children in this generation and the next.
Conclusion
I’d like to close by recounting a scene from the movie The Princess Bride. A character named Inigo Montoya confronts a six-fingered man who had killed his father some 20 years ago. Inigo has the six-fingered man at sword point, and says in words he has long rehearsed:
"My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."
The six-fingered man begins to plead for mercy, and Inigo Montoya says, "Offer me money."
The six-fingered man says, "Yes, yes money. I shall give you all that you want."
Montoya says, "And power too. Promise me that."
"All that I have and more," replies the six-fingered man.
"Offer me everything I ask for," says Montoya.
"Anything... anything you want I shall give to you," replies the six fingered man.
To which Inigo Montoya replies: "I want my father back."
Like Inigo Montoya, what our nation's children want is not money... or power... What our children really want is for us to find a way to bring back their fathers. The way to do this is by strengthening marriages.
President Bush knows this. During his first year in office, he said this about the need to strengthen families:
“My Administration is committed to strengthening the American family. Many one-parent families are also a source of comfort and reassurance, yet a family with a mom and dad who are committed to marriage and devote themselves to their children helps provide children a sound foundation for success. Government can support families by promoting policies that help strengthen the institution of marriage and help parents rear their children in positive and healthy environments.”
As important as the President’s Healthy Marriage Initiative is, his vision of rebuilding a marriage culture in America cannot be accomplished without your support.
His vision depends much upon people like you – people of faith, hard work and family values who share this vision and want to impart marriage skills to a new generation.
I want to assure you that you can count on the support of the Bush Administration in your efforts to strengthen marriage and the family for Hispanics.
Thank you and may God bless you. I would love now to hear your comments and insights on what more we can do to improve the lives of so many children and families within the Hispanic community. The floor is yours.
-Address delivered by Wade F. Horn, Ph.D, Assistant Secretary of the Administration for Families and Children, in Washington, DC, on October 14, 2004.