We the People; The Family?150 years and counting

Were family said that it was Johnson's landscape since before it became a state 150 years ago. We the People Wisconsin 150 years and counting. Well the face of families has changed over the news. They continue to thrive as we drive towards the next 150 news challenges. We the People Wisconsin presidents 150 years and counting. The family. Tonight show is sponsored by Wisconsin Education Association Council. Miller Brewing company Blue Cross and Blue Shield United of Wisconsin Wisconsin Power Light

Foundation and the Pew Center for civic journalism Washington D.C.. We the People Wisconsin is a co-production of Wisconsin Public Television the Wisconsin State Journal. Wood Communications Group. Wisconsin Public Radio. And TV three Madison. I'm Katie and I'm Dave Iverson of Wisconsin Public Television. Welcome to a new series We the people special. Tonight we're broadcasting from the Wisconsin Historical Society. As we begin a yearlong exploration of Wisconsin's past present and future. In anticipation of the next year we're going to look at where we've been and where we're going and we're going to start with where all the family. We'll talk about the stress of modern life. What was a family like 150 years ago to help us understand how we got here. From there we asked to profile family life. One hundred and

fifty years ago. The. Across the Wisconsin countryside in small out-of-the-way cemeteries you can find the final resting places of pioneers. Just think what it must have been like for families back then how tough it must have been here's one right here. The Henry family Mary's dead December 1st 1849 at the age of 23. The next day her 21 year old brother Moses is gone. A few months later the family loses 16 year old John and four years after that Elizabeth Henery passes away in 1854. She's also 16 years old. To understand the environment into which new settlers arrived we must remember this was still American frontier my home to Native Americans.

Lumberjacks miners I know them. And descendants of French voyagers and fur trappers. It is into this mix landless European peasants came to make a fresh start. They came from places like Ireland Wales Germany Poland Switzerland and Norway and there weren't any jobs and people were so hungry. And a man came from Norway to Wisconsin. And while he was here he wrote a book. And he said Wisconsin's got good land it's cheap dollar twenty five an acre and old world Wisconsin in Eagle. Young people are learning about their heritage. The. Links to our past have been brought here from around the state it was in 1845 Norwegian noot Faso brekky and his wife Gertrude built this cabin and carved a farm from the Rock County wilderness.

The bigger your family. The better workforce you had to tell these kids you get up in the morning and you start working. You worked and you worked. And if you really did a good job you got to eat that night right. And they learned to find uses for everything even hand softening lanolin you know in a dirty sheep's wool. In fact the farmers in the wintertime would just sit around because their hands of be so rough and dry they would sit around and just roll this in their hands at night. Mom would spin new clothes and in the morning after chores you would walk or ski sometimes many miles to school and a lot of times of year not a boy sitting behind you or the girls with their long hair might find their hair defend the welts. Some days only one student would make it to the schoolhouse and there were never more than 14. The first through eighth graders were often huddled around the wood burning stove on chilly mornings.

They never kept them after school. There was no homework much to learn to learn within these four walls. I had too many choices to do when you got home. The girls would have to churn butter. The boys would have to be mending fences and taking care of the animals cleaning the barn and that type of thing. On Sundays came one of the few chances to socialize and the gathering place was the church for the young people it's probably where they met their future husband or their future wife because certainly they would be marrying within their own faith during those years as well. Wisconsin would become home to more foreign born farmers than any other state in the nation. They created a vast patchwork quilt of distinct ethnicity across what had been American frontier. Time has weathered they're resting places but not their legacy. API sees. Joel Despain just as sometimes we may be guilty of romanticising what

family life once was we sometimes still create idealized images of what family life is like. Still today and as art Hakka reports next the image of family is something that's still the subject of both modern debate and modern motion pictures. 150 years after Wisconsin became a state. Family is a word we love to invoke. For the families of Wisconsin this is truly your budget family budget and it's a word we love to debate. That's with the Milwaukee Common Council debated recently who among city workers should be eligible for family benefits like health insurance and funeral leave married men and women gay and lesbian couples who come out to to. Spencer. Women that live together. Who can. You know one may work for the city and one may you know be at home and not working how do you relate to that kind of relationship.

Where does one's definition of family come from the most obvious answer is from our own experience what kind of family did we grow up in. But the extent to which we consider our own family to be typical depends on the type of family the popular culture chooses to enshrine. You know. What. Do you do. You win the family you grew up with the family you always we've You had the Cleavers shaped a generation and now 40 years after the Cleaver family first appeared on TV they're back in a movie. If you can't find the ideal family living next door you can at least find them at your nearest mall multiplex. There was like a perfect family. You know America's perfect family vacuuming and I don't. Know if that was. The mother doing the rugs and her pearls wasn't exactly typical but there certainly were 40 to 50 percent of American families that consisted of a breadwinner a homemaker and some children still at home

if the Cleavers of the 1950s TV show were treated as the norm. A family like the Cleavers in the 90s would stand out and today how many families like the Cleavers are there. Well the breadwinner homemaker and any children still at home is a little less than 15 percent. 15 percent 15 percent a little less than 15 percent. But the change in the family over the past 40 years is more than just a story of relative numbers. Several of the staff members at the east town budget cinema picked up on something else that it changed the cleaver mystique is like it was in the US. You know you love or. Love my wife used to worry about what was. Going on making dinner the perfect relationship that you never saw by sociologist Burt Adams says it's harder for families today to hang together in stressful situations because they feel they don't have to. They

can make it on their own. You and I have been raised to be complete human beings not to be male or female human beings but to be complete. OK if two complete human beings happen to be Parrott up and some upheaval comes in the relationship we look at each other and we say you know what I don't have to put up with this I can I can make it by myself. I guess. Looking back at the Cleavers Adams says you could fault them for being dependent upon each other. Some might consider that a sign of vulnerability. Adam says it also happened to be the glue that held families together. As we approach the end of the 90s Adams says the replacement for that glue has yet to be discovered. Report about some of the images and myths we carry around about families both in times past and times present so it's time to get a bit of a reality check from our live town hall group here assembled at the state's Historical Society stand if you would please and tell me what it is that you're most concerned about in terms of modern family life.

I guess I'm most concerned that we all are able to. Fulfill the commitments that we've made to each other as families. And that probably means making time and finding ways to make that time and still fulfill our other obligations like being good breadwinners and making a good home. OK so balancing time and work so that there is time for both of those crucial activity balances very good work ok balance and for you what's what's crucial to you about family. My name is Randy brink and I'm from Madison. And my biggest concern is. If. My children have any sort of a future ahead of them it seems like no matter how hard I work. All my energy is consumed just in the day to day existence. So it's a matter of survival. Very much so. All right thank you Katie. Of all the pressures facing families what would you identify as a key pressure that you've seen an 18 stoner from delight I think cohesiveness is a very critical thing. The family as a support unit. The families don't eat together a lot of these days. At one time one eats it another that's something that didn't happen a generation ago. They

have different time schedules different kind of conflicts in time they're scattered they don't have the cohesiveness and consequently they don't have a support unit. So just a simple as the family bonds. Thank you. And sir Kitty Jackson Madison Wisconsin as a member of the gay and lesbian community in the state. You know our issues are legal and financial benefits and safety for gay and lesbian children in the state in our IN THE PARENTS. So the acceptance of alternative families. Yes. Thank you. Sir and you know some but what you'd like people around our state to hear tonight is they think about why family still matters. I'm Barbara Hickman from Beloit and I think it's all of the pressures that are exerted on family and spending quality time with their children and some of those pressures would be jobs work. And how do you go about day by day balancing gal's balance. OK. And you sir what about what are some of the things that you want people to focus on tonight. I think it's important to focus on the isolation of families and the need

for rebuilding our communities and all of the relationships that make families possible. The. Used to be that a lot of families were extended families and had a lot more human resources to pay to depend on and I think it's important to rebuild those in some form in our local communities. All right some of the issues that we're already starting to hear and what we're going to do throughout our program this evening is construct a kind of laundry list which we're going to call a citizens charter which will list all of these concerns will build on it throughout the hour and present it to you as we conclude our broadcast this evening and one of the concerns we're already hearing a lot about Katie is how to balance and maintain family life and particularly the question of time. Of course families enjoy spending time together but often just finding the time can be hard to do with both parents working and kids and daycare and activities family life these days can be hectic. Here's what it looks like from a younger perspective. Brother and my youngest sister and my brother some soccer I mean soccer

America's hockey. And my parents work. My mom and dad have different work hours. My dad. During the week and my mom was softer in the week and you know just. And just to have grannies get together in the New Year. So obviously time is a little short. Well generally how are all of us doing finding family time these days. Here's a little quiz. How much time do parents spend with their kids today compared to the 1960s. Is it about the same about. 10 to 12 hours or more per week or 10 to 12 hours less per week. How much time are parents spending with their kids today. It was super got a couple you feel like guessing or do you think we spend more time with kids today or less time or about the same as in 1960.

We spend less with ours because they're not home anymore. You know you ask an obvious. And you get an obvious answer. What do you think generally in society are people spending more time or less. The our children are spending less time with their grandchildren because the grandchildren are in daycare and this is a very great concern of mine because that's where you form the family bond is when the kids are tiny. They should be home with mother and father I don't and it's for them to do better and it's very much tougher because there are so many pressures. Of what is important anymore. I mean. It's. The priorities have changed. OK. When we were young. We'll get back to that if I might because we want to give the answer to our question hang on just a moment. Well is there anyone who believes that parents are spending about the same amount of time or even more time today. Let me come around to hang on. And why do you feel that way. If you would stand please. Yes I well I feel that perhaps spending as much time as the young lady and young gentleman spoke on TV. They're doing more things. They're involved in more activities. Now that

gives the parent more opportunity to perhaps participate with their children. Question however though watching a soccer game is not quality time. Watching your son or daughter do something is time spent but it's not quality time so if you asked a question are they spending more quality time I would say perhaps less quality time even though they may be spending more time. All right so perhaps as much time these days as 960. Well I kind of set you up sir. Here is the correct answer. The correct answer is parents are actually spending 10 to 12 fewer hours per week with their children compared to 1960 and it sounds like most of you probably aren't surprised by that answer and it's because so many of you have multiple demands on your time. Let's talk about how you find family time together and the challenges facing your family when you do that. Jed I understand that's really a concern with your family.

I know that I've seen a change in them employers for both myself and my wife expect us to spend more time at work than they do at home. And a lot of times it's intimidating just for us to get time to even ask for time off. You seem like you're it's a bother to your employer to ask for time off just to spend time with your family or to get time with your family if a child is sick or you have to have something that you must take care. A lot of times your employer like frowns on you for doing that. So you feel less likely to ask and spend more of that time with your employer than you do with your family. OK. Thank you sir. Robin Okay that map with university extension I just wanted to mention the Family Medical Leave was such a political football that would follow up. Jeb's comment. President Bush vetoed it. President Clinton signed it and it became sort of the hallmark of his first administration so it it was an important national issue and I don't think the problem is totally solved but there was some progress there. So we're moving in the right direction very very slight long way to go. You know right now the concerns about time.

Well I'm just quote from Bill White and I think time is something that a parent makes a commitment to their children and to their spouse. And we all have the choice to make and it's whether or not we make it or not we all have other activities children and adults that we used to maybe not have but it comes down to do we want to make this so imma So are you saying before we point fingers we need to look in the mirror a little bit. Yes. All right. Who who would disagree with that I mean who feels like it. Sure it's fine to say I'd like to look in the mirror but it's not necessarily always that easy because of other pressures in your life. Hi I'm Tammy much from Madison. And I think that when parents are low wage jobs for instance and they have to work more than one full time job and that's no choice of their own that you know it detracts from the time they're able to spend with their family. So there's a connection between time and money and the economy. Absolutely. I know a parent who he's a single parent with two kids and he works as an LTE at the University and his children both of them

have medical problems which take them and him away from work quite a bit and he doesn't get full paychecks then because he has no benefits to fall back. So as we're building this the citizens agenda that we're going to construct tonight and that will present as we proceed throughout the sesquicentennial project of you are ours to government and other institutions. What should be on that list. To you what should be on the list in terms of time that our institutions need to respond to. Well I think one thing that's very important for working parents is to be able to have flexible work hours. And I don't think that it would have to hurt the employers or businesses. I think people basically want to see their workplaces succeed but they want to be able to succeed with their families as well. OK. Thank you Jane Grundy from Madison has a different take on this whole time issue J. Well. I grew up in a family of six kids and my husband with seven kids and I think of the time that my parents spent with with me one on one I think we spend more time with our kids on a one on one and we do creative kinds of things and we have business trips the whole family goes or we the drive

time is which is we hit the chauffeuring. It's a good quality time talking in and story time at night. We really try to make time for those kinds of things and I think a lot of parents do. J When I hear you saying is that maybe this whole thing is overblown. You know we're all complaining that we're so busy we're running around we don't have time for our kids. And maybe we do have just as much time today perhaps more than your parents did with you. Does anyone disagree with James. Yeah I take exception to that. I'm in a situation where I work one shift and my wife works on the third shift and she only has one week in and six off. So that means there's very almost no time that we can actually be all together as a family. Yes. How do how do we go about changing this what kinds of things again can we expect from our institutions including businesses and employers to be supportive of workers you've heard some of the concerns that people have how would you respond to that as an employer.

Well I think especially in Madison we do a disservice by suggesting that businesses are not family friendly. In this economy today and if you look in the newspaper of all the jobs that are going begging. Businesses today are very competitive and offering packages for families with flex time time away in order to take care of things for the family. And in order to how would you advise this this young man across the way here in terms of his his real situation. Yeah well I think you know as someone suggested on here life is a lot of choices. Maybe they're in a situation where they don't have any options for other employment. Or other options for different kinds of jobs education is a key in this and to get some education along the way is critical in order to move up in the workforce. Technologies can be driving things more and more than ever before. To get those skills and technology is going to be critical. And then to search out with what time you might have to find employers that you believe are really family friendly. Madison Wisconsin would not get the ranking they got

without family friendly business. We hear a lot about business right now. Are there other ways that neighbors community leaders lawmakers can take the pressure off. My name is Jean Schmidt's and I'm from Madison and I just want to say that I think there's a lot that we can do for one another. One institution that I'd like to see perhaps be a little more flexible is the schools there's compulsory education for children who are ages 6 through 18 and that school schedule imposes a lot on the family life I believe. So I'd like to take a look at that as well as work. And something I'm looking forward to for my children as they're teenagers is that I want them to have a good education. So I'm working so that they will eventually go to college to get that good job to have the flexibility that I desire in my time with them so in their future they would have the same. So schools need a bit of flex time as well as I would appreciate not not just employers. Yes. OK. All right. Ma'am. Tara Johnson from Beloit going on what Randy had said in his concern about not being able to spend time with his family. Perhaps each of our families is as individuals in his family

corps need to redefine what a family unit means to us and as far as what quality time means to that family and maybe for your family. It's the seventh weekend when you and your wife are together and that is your important weekend for your family. And I think it's and that I think is a part we don't gloss over and generalize everyone's family is the same. Situation. Are you speaking as a mom. I'm speaking as a mother I'm also speaking as a funder and the director of our community foundation. And I certainly see the responsibility leaving government and coming back to the communities and that's a tremendous concern for me. The responsibility of us as a community and as individuals. Comment from a universe it was kinds of sociologist Burt Adams who we heard from earlier you have some thoughts about not only the amount of time but how we spend it. Yeah I was I was not surprised to hear the 10 to 12 hours less but I'm curious about the content of the time that we do spend I I have this uneasy feeling although I've never seen the data that it's quite possible that the time we do spend together we very often spend all facing the same direction at the square box that's probably inside people are

watching right now by the way. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Anyway now I'm concerned about the time we do spend together not just how much it is but what we do during that time. OK. Thoughts on how we spend time. To end cancer. Yes. I'm also with the University of Wisconsin. Research on the effect of television on the family is very interesting. Professor Adams is correct that we're spending a lot more time that we spent together watching television. An interesting thing. Also if you look longitudinally what has happened over time we're watching more television than we did 20 years ago and we're not necessarily spending less time together. But what we have given up is socializing with other families and making those connections which other people have talked about. They could be very helpful in helping our communities be strong. And that's what that gentleman mentioned earlier that we may be together but what are we doing together.

I'm Dave Miller I'm from Madison. I think we should have more quality time like the professor was saying. I think we should spend more time supporting our family looking at ways to celebrate our family ways to enrich our family doing things together perhaps projects. We should also reflect on our family and think about the rewards of the commitment of the family the family is beautiful and when I look at the picture the early flicks of early Wisconsin I think back when my grandfather Dzhokhar ners from Appleton Wisconsin and the post-prison back there covered when the family bought two oxen and mentioned when these two ox were purchased how it was shared within the community of ATA gamey County. Well that's family and I think perhaps we're not putting enough emphasis on our families today. We're going to move on and thank you very much we're going to move on in just a moment to the next segment of our discussion but some closing thoughts about time and what we want our institutions in our society to do about that again as we begin to construct this list of how we want our institutions to respond to families any thoughts on what we would like our institutions to do him in.

And Jancee a sign from Madison thinking about the problem is people were talking. I believe that technology's been going to continue to impact the family and one of the things I think about is it's so simple to take a 10 or 20 minute walk with your children. Like right now walk around the block in Madison I live on the west side and see the beautiful leaves and appreciate the nature that's right out there even though we live in the city. I don't think we do that. I see my grandchildren sometimes sitting down at a computer playing games instead when they should be outside. And I think that's going to be a continuing problem for us that we're going to have to work with from the time our children are very small. All right thank you very much. As we've mentioned a couple of times now in our program throughout our hour we're going to construct this what we're calling a citizens charter a list of the kinds of concerns we have in our state as we approach our hundred 50th birthday and we've asked Neil Hein and CTV to take notes during this first part of our discussion

and feedback to us now some of what he's been hearing so that we can begin to build our citizens charter. Well Dave I think there's three issues that we'll put on there right away one is is the availability of time and that seems to be businesses and schools as we heard talking about flexible time availability of time is first the quality of time. Other families need to talk about how they use the time that they have and if it's really meeting the needs of the whole family and then as we heard from from Julie and from Jeff and from from several others it's the idea of making time. And that seems to have a bit of a personal responsibility bent to it. The notion that parents probably need some some tools to help them make decisions about how to make more time with families. Thanks Neal. I will keep building that list that charter as the show goes on and at the end will bring back to you the thoughts that we've gathered throughout this hour. Unlike children of 1847 today's kids are bombarded by a variety of influences. Parents find themselves competing with noise from television

computers music and movies. Just some sort of superman can also play Nintendo. I'm a lot of family. Welcome to my dad. Sometimes when you pray friends and. Parents are concerned about about how to control influences Sometimes they went out as you just heard from that young man and there is a new national study out which looked at the most effective way that parents could influence their children's behavior so here's a question about that. What's more likely to prevent kids from engaging in negative behaviors like substance abuse and violence. Is it the amount of time parents spend with their

child the child feeling connected with their parents. Or no easy access to guns alcohol and drugs. So is it just a question of time. Is that the way in which parents and children are connected. Or is it a question of access to all of those things that we're going to try to get a few people to guess again how would you like to how would you respond to that question what makes the most difference in terms of how we control influences in kids. Shawn Senate from Madison I think it's twofold both Access is a problem but also again the quality time that parents spend it's the connectedness that children have with their parents as well as access to OK effectors Let's get another guess over here. My name is Buck Prime I'm a fourth generation Wisconsin citizen from Portage Wisconsin. I think the correct answer is B I agree with the gentleman on the other side of the room very very definitely as being connected to your children. I work in the juvenile justice system and we see lots of parents who are not connected to their children. And it is a function of them in their inability to relate and get along together. Anyone disagree with that anyone think it's access or time.

Well my name's Mary German from Cambridge and I have a slightly different view than all three of those and I think that what children really need is to have healthy parents that they need to be healthy individuals that have healthy self-esteem can promote the emotional needs of their kids and if they get together then warding off those influences like alcoholism and teen pregnancy and so on will be much easier for those children they need to have hope for their future and to know that they're confident and they can handle things in the world. Thanks Mary. All right. In fact all of our answers are correct but some answers are more correct than others and B is the most correct of all in other words if kids feel connected to their parents that is they feel warmth love and caring. Our study found that they're less likely to be involved in drugs or alcohol less likely to be involved in violent crime or to commit suicide spending time of course is important but parents need to establish those feelings of love and caring in the time they spend with their kids. Just monitoring activities in other words are not enough. All right let's begin our larger discussion now about influences

and the kinds of things that you worry about in terms of how they influence and affect family life. You have a comment over here let me just jog around and get to you. What worries you about what influences families and children today. John Angel of Madison the examples that are set for them from the parents as you mentioned that are not connected to the politicians that get away with things. I won't mention any specific examples. Everybody probably has three or four in mind. OK but again it's look you're saying start by looking in the mirror. Start by looking in the mirror. All right other concerns about influences man what would you say is a concern to you about what influences are in family and children today. I would say probably the media and things that are the events that i happening and trendsetting things and kids watching the kinds of things that you think have a negative influence on them. Yes. OK. Thank you Katie. But you can't isolate kids can you. I mean this is reality this is the world and they are going to be influenced by all these different factors. Any thoughts.

Well you know I think. You can't isolate them but you can do some things to to try to provide support for them to try to put them in a situation where they're going to be more successful. I want to. Things I think that. We didn't quite touch on but we kind of danced around is providing for families support. Oftentimes is not an extended family in the situation. So we need to work towards providing natural supports to help the family to deal with problems and situations that may come up. So having the family be perhaps the strongest influence to outweigh all the other influences. Oh definitely our kids are being bombarded by. A myriad of things that can steer him in the wrong direction. We need to provide some positive things that are going to help them to make some positive choices and go in right direction. Thank you sir. You mention that you work in a juvenile justice system do you find that kids end up there because of bad influences. I think all young people are at risk of making bad decisions and ending up in the juvenile justice system. Parents play a very important role in. Staying connected and

serving as role models so that when kids do make mistakes they learn from those mistakes and continuing to sort of go on and make more mistakes. One of the things that hasn't been mentioned that I'm very concerned about is the rapid pace of technological change that's going on in our lives. Kids today know so much more than their parents about what's going on in terms of technology that parents sometimes lose their sense of authority or usefulness with kids. And this translates also back to grandparents and then if they don't stay current They're going to lose it as they go into the vocational world so the pace of change is a very big challenge for families today. All right. Pace of change technology television what else. All of that all of this. One thing I want to mention is the fact that I'm sick and tired of hearing that every time a crime is committed by a black person or an alleged blackmail blackmail is put in front of their name. But if it's a white male male or alleged person they don't say well so that's something that the media could do in terms of how those things are let's presume that's over and over and over

repetition that our children are hearing and they're saying well you know all crimes are committed by black males or all white kids are hearing it and interpreting it. Crimes are committed by black males. Why did I come back to tell you why you think about that. What else bothers people here about about influences you all had a very spirited discussion downstairs before our program began and spoke with great passion about the influences on our children Go ahead Katie and I'll go back over here but what bugs people the most about about what's influencing family today. Yeah. Well Marlene Pearson from Madison Wisconsin I would agree with some of the folks over here that that still family and community are probably our major sort of counterpoints to some of the forces that we don't like in the culture out there and yet we have to confront the fact that there's been a wholesale breakdown in private partnerships I mean the couple real race relationship which is really the cornerstone of family has broken down and a lot of our attempts to strengthen and to support families really

don't deal very directly with helping people whether they are single parents whether they are married divorced whether they are gay or they are straight to maintain their couple relationship which is the cornerstone of family and it's a major crisis to be an effective influence on your kids you have to be a functional couple a research paper the research is really pretty clear the quality and stability of parental partnerships dramatically affects child well-being and the parent's ability to nurture their child. Thanks Molly. Go ahead. Hi I'm Irene Weisenthal from Sun Prairie. I have raised 11 children. I am really tired of the parents who say I can't do this or that or something else. You are responsible for your children. You are responsible for the decisions you make. It is a mindset that happens the day they're born. Whether this person is the most important person in your life or not if they are you will make the means to. Bring them up. The best way you know how and remember always you are the

example. If you take a lot of pills it doesn't matter. It could be aspirin. Then they are going to. So parents today are too whiny In other words. I think so. They don't they don't take responsibility for themselves or their children. As well as we did when we were young. All right let's get a response from a young person over here and then I'll come back to you sir go ahead. My name is Kid Greer from Milwaukee and I believe in this frame that says if you train up a child and the way they're supposed when they grow old they won't depart from me. And I believe the family is the strongest influence. And sure enough when we go out every day there's other influences of peers and media whatever. But if the child knows that when they come home they're going to have a strong family support. They won't be so easily influenced by everything. How's THAT HAPPEN FOR YOU. What if your mom and dad done for you the people who are important to you in your life to provide that kind of influence for you. They've always like in my time survived if I'm struggling they're always

there to help me or whatever is just is that I know they set examples they haven't just told me Don't do this and don't do that. But they show me what to do and what to not do more than words but more actions. All right thank you very much. What I'm hearing over and over again is that family is the critical influence and can outweigh all these other influences but how can these other institutions shore up family so they can do that job. Bev is doing that as an individual because what you're doing but what we have a small business we own a bakery and one of the things that we have done because it was done for us 30 years ago we were first married is that everybody that announces their wedding in the paper will send a book it's kind of. A book on marriage and how to make a marriage more stable and of the hundreds and hundreds of thank you letters we've gotten. Nobody has complained nobody has ever said how dare you you know interrupt and get you involved in our lives. So you send gifts to people you don't know total strangers just anybody in the Stoughton Cambridge community that gets married or announces

an engagement we send a book and something about the ethic of helping to stabilize marriages. Right. Good job thanks. All right we're going to have a bit of a conversation here. You were saying that parents whine too much right that they don't take enough responsibility. I maybe some say whine but they don't take it I said bot's ability it's all right and your response. I think that our choices as parents and working parents these days are more and more limited. For instance even two people with entry level jobs cannot afford to buy a home in the city you know and I've heard it suggested in past comments that maybe one of us should think about switching jobs. Well that means going back to entry level most times. And I think the choice that I had to make is in my going to provide a home a stable environment for my child children. Or am I going to choose to have a less stable home. So you may you may not have quite as many choices as we're lucky we're talking about. It's a question of time spent with them versus providing for them economically.

Yeah but. The main things are food shelter and clothes and not very many people in this day and age go back to that basic. I mean everybody's got a television everybody costs. I mean TVs cost money every. Day. There's a lot of activities you can do that don't cost money and not very many people to do them. All right I'm going to let you to continue to talk if you're right across the table from each other. Go ahead Katie. We're actually running out of time on this issue but he wanted to join the discussion but he doesn't want to learn any totals here only about how long I've been assuming I was just well I actually just regress into forest Wisconsin actually. Well first of all I got a couple of points I'm going to go next up here. First of all this gentleman back you were mentioned as far as the families being bombarded with all sorts of negative. I don't know stuff but I guess one of the things that I'd like to know is why are people asking why that's happening. I mean OK we see it happening but I think as far as the ask the question why then you can more readily attack it.

Or at least. I don't mow it over and then you can talk to your children about it we get that across to them and be able to get answers to. And yet and yet as he was listening to that debate he said but now I want to get in on that. But I will give you the chance Whose side are you on there. Well I guess as far as you know. I'm kind of on both. I think that this. Home over here. Something else to. Make make room for this gentleman and help keep talking with me. And I will get back to that later. That pretty much wraps up my discussion about influences for Rick. Quick recap now let's go to Bill Barth the editor of the Beloit Daily News to add to our citizens charter bill. OK what I'm hearing is that the. People of today the families the children feel great pressure from everything from economics and trying to get by with two earner families to the mixed messages they hear from the media demands on their time in various ways. And the example they feel

from peers and their parents and other people but what seems to be most clear in this discussion is that what people really care about is taking personal responsibility for the family and for making it work and hoping the government other institutions plug in and pro-family ways but the primary personal responsibility is the issue. All right Bill Barr thank you we'll continue to build our laundry list and get back to it again at the end of the hour. Meanwhile our conversation still continuing over here we'll have an update on that too in just a few moments. We want to turn now though to the subject of commitment because in the end that's what all of this comes down to what kind of commitment do we have as a society and as families to each other because that's what binds families together and the promises that adults make to their children is a concept that kids understand they understand by way of action as this young woman spoke to earlier so some comments now from children about the nature of commitment. They can't come.

When something happened when I last met before on this. Thanks. Commitment is clearly important to young people but there's a sense of people just aren't as committed today as they have been in the past. Is this true or is it just a perception. Let's take a look at the divorce rate as an indicator of commitment. Do you think the divorce rate is higher or lower in the United States today than it was in 1979. That is the quiz question we proposed to you. As one indicator of the level of commitment in our society today here's the question again. Do you think the divorce rate in the United States is higher or lower than it was in 1979.

All right let's get a couple of guesses over here do you think the divorce rate is higher or lower than in 1979. I believe it's higher same. I think it's higher. I think it's lower. And. And. I think I ask you again. It has to be higher I would think. But let's not confuse that with a lack of commitment. Why do you say it has to be higher. Oh excuse me. Maybe it doesn't have to be higher but from statistics I've seen that it would appear to be higher. Well here's the answer. The answer to that question is the divorce rate is actually lower one divorce under those divorce rate peaked in the United States in 1979 I was just a little bit later. It is that surprising. Is that surprising to many of you and why is it so surprising to you. Yes well real quickly please. Well it seems to me that every time you turn around some of your best friends are getting divorced so it's got to be higher.

Yes sir. Yes I would agree with that comment. You look at the newspapers never get a divorce rate you would think that you know every week somebody's going to divorce. So you would think would be higher than it was in 1979 which probably leads to the perception that we are less committed as a society real quick here. I think it's because we focus a lot of attention on the negatives instead of the strengths of families. So perhaps the media's overplaying was a comment again over here. I will say that it's not surprising because. There are not a lot of people getting married. There's a lot of kids man born out of wedlock. So it's not surprising to me that people are going to voice their does not get married. All right thank you. What can we do to strengthen the commitment that we have not only to each other as families but society to families what can government do employers do. Schools do to recommit to the notion of family ideas again as we begin to complete our citizens charter on the family. Go ahead man stand up. I would like to suggest that we look at the government influence on the family. I feel there's a

lot of taxation that we endure as families and it keeps us from being able to commit the time that we'd really like to have with each other because we're making money to pay our taxes so we can live in our houses. That's one area I would also like to suggest that a commitment that when we make a commitment to a community when we buy a house when we live in an apartment building that those are our neighbors they're the people that we are committed to that we care about and want to help take care of. So it's a family in a larger sense the neighborhood his family as well. Exactly. OK thank you. Can we can we come back to the workplace as well. But is John Greenleaf or Madison I. I think the values in our society have really been skewed. I think relationships which have been talked about here tonight should be the priority and that work should compliments that instead of work being the primary focus and then everything is a reaction to to our work situation. You know one or two parents or working 40 hours or 60 hours

a week with their relationships among people should be primary and that that the workplace should honor that number one. So perhaps we're committing ourselves in the wrong arena and we should maybe redirect that. All right. Go ahead my pen evolved from Stoughton. I don't think there's a pair in this room that doesn't wish for their own children to have happiness in their marriage. And I have done nothing but think of the last two hours since this meeting started about what does it take. And as I think about my friends and my neighbors and the people who I look at. For reassurance of what they're doing right because I look at their children and I look at their relationships. I think that's one of the the strongest things I can say is to look at people that are having success in their relationships. And follow the lead. OK thank you. I want to broaden the whole debate about commitment and talk about the commitment that

corporations have to their employees commitment that government has to the people that come in the commitment that cities say have to to their citizens because all of that is under fire too and makes it very difficult for families to function when they are getting commitment from all of those kinds of places. All right. It well I would like to see. I think there's a lot we can do in terms of prevention and I think there's a number of institutions that could play a role in this. There is research. There are programs that are based on the insights and the skills for having better relationships the point is not to tighten up divorce laws but to help prevent and to maintain satisfying relationships in schools and workplaces. And HMO is reaching young people and particularly new parents I think is a really important thing we could do. Thank you. Yes I'm curious or a psychologist of the Madison area. I do a lot of work with children adolescents and families. And I wanted to make two comments. One having to do with commitment. Which I really think would it would it

boils down to is commitment to what is most important to us and it seems to me that the society has become increasingly a consumer society where self-worth and happiness has been translated into what we own. What we have parked in our garages and what our income is it's actually very you know discriminatory society with regard to how much money you have and what kind of worth you have and I think that that. It is really underlying a lot of problems with regard to where people spend their time and what's a priority to them and I think it's a confusing message to kids to see dad or mom work 70 hours a week and complain about not having enough quality time. So where would you start. Where we're to pull back then from from that consumer base society of you're describing that sets a different kind of sets out a different kind of message for children. Well I do think part of it is really having the time and interrupted time to explore with your partner or good friends or you know your faith community or your therapist or whoever it might be. What really is at the base of your

value system and how you're making decisions day to day to make those values real in the way you live your life. And so I think it is a lot about that. All right thank you. I'm going to come back to our employer because even though sir you've advocated that businesses are out there supporting families the feeling generally seems to be that they're not. Well maybe being a pro-business as a minority today but. I think as you look around the community. If you are going to attract. Train and retain quality employees you're going to have to do a lot of things right to keep those people. Do you think companies for the most part are doing those things already. Absolutely because otherwise we would have a high turnover rate of people would be leaving. And what's happening if we're going to keep those kind of people in our employment if you're a valued employee they're going to work very hard to keep you. Whether it's family or education or improving yourself.

But that's not really a lot of what we're hearing would most of you agree with what this gentleman says. I see a lot of a lot of heads shaking let me just get one quick comment over here sir. Yeah I think it's more of the fact that we can't afford to leave once we're in those jobs like this gentleman said over here we're in those jobs. We work so hard to get to that position whatever pays we're stuck there. We have sure we have the opportunity to change but change takes time we don't have time for our families. We don't have that opportunity now where we're going to get it in order to get to those jobs that offer all these benefits and all these companies that offer all these good things for families. I just don't see it. Would you like to see businesses be more committed. For the most part many of you or do you think they're doing enough. OK let's I'll get some answers here while that gentleman goes ahead. We have just a few minutes remaining in our program before we start summing everything up so I'd like everyone to focus their thoughts if they would on on what again we would like to see on our list our big list that we're creating for the state of Wisconsin as we look ahead towards our sesquicentennial year. What kinds of things do we need to pay attention to to support

families in our state. Well I think the family begins with a couple perhaps a couple maybe considered a seedling family. And I know in California you can't get married in Modesto unless you take a course on marriage preparation and this is true and Louisiana and Mississippi. I think perhaps we don't have to look at Universal marriage preparation but we can perhaps offer courses on. How to get along on commitment intimacy and communication things like this to everybody not just people at church organizations but to everybody who is considering venturing into the family be prepared. Thank you. Yes. I think a couple of really important things for helping families succeed with a commitment from business would be flexible work schedules and at least living wages for the families so they don't have to be so stressed out trying to meet the very needs of their family. OK we're just going to get a couple of quick comments and then Katie's got one more across the way.

Well I think the government plays an integral part in all this I mean I think you can attack. Employers as such when the government makes deals like now after and other things that impact not only those people in those foreign countries but our own workers here. So government policies play a role as well and finally Robin Duff. Yeah I just like you and if you wish. I just like to talk a little bit about looking at commitment to time and encourage people to think about investing their time like they invest their money and I think that it's a new mindset that we need to come to and looking at what our needs are for our families outside of the basic consumption needs. All right thank you Katie. Unfortunately we're running out of time here and it is time to leave our discussion on commitment right there. Tom still associate editor of the Wisconsin State Journal joins us now to summarize what he's been hearing on the topic of commitment and add to our citizens charter. Tom Wright I think we heard a lot tonight both in this discussion and earlier in our town hall about three main points. The first I guess I would summarize is the three R's of

commitment responsibility respect. And in relationships and the notion of trying to build relationships and work on them. I think we heard another point around putting family first ahead of work ahead of consumerism and even ahead of play. It may not be necessary for Junior to be on three soccer teams maybe just one would do. And finally than those in the society must recommit itself at all levels to the family. That means government perhaps through tax policies. It means business through or through doing things that produce happy productive workers. It means the service and volunteer sector. That means communities of faith. But most of all it means families themselves because it really does all start at home. All right Tom thank you. We need to begin to wrap up our hour but we want to leave you with a little bit of information for you we put together a family a cool cat. We're going to make available to people we can. It contains a laundry list of information and

resources available to families so if you'd like to get a copy of that you can call the 800 number that's on your screen it's 1 800 8:07 1 7 1 7 6. And you could also call that number if you'd like to participate in our future we the people projects focusing on Wisconsin sesquicentennial Haiti. And there's certainly plenty more to discuss in Wisconsin Public Radio will continue to this discussion tomorrow afternoon at 4:00 p.m.. You can join host Ben marrons for a discussion on family and Wisconsin Public Radio. All right and we want to conclude now by giving you some sense of our People's Charter and the kinds of things that people are saying around our state that we've brought together today as we begin to make this list for our workplaces our schools and our governmental institutions. Here's what we've said in our program this evening in terms of our citizens charter first of all the availability of time and quality of time and making time that all of those issues are crucial to the citizens of our state. And then we talked about economic pressures on to it from two wage families the

mixed messages from the media. When we talk about influences and then to counter those influences neighborhood and institutional support to shore up the family so the family can become the strongest influence on kids. And finally some of the issues that Tom was just going over in terms of commitment that it's an issue of responsibility and respect and relationship that we need to put families first. And that society itself must recommit to family just as all of you have in our discussion this evening which we all appreciate. Jeff or conclude your debate by the way where you can continue after the program. OK. We've heard from a lot of voices this evening about family and we're going to conclude by hearing from some people at the younger end of that age. Yes we talk to future parents about their hopes. We asked some 9 year olds from Madison what they want for their families and their children. And we leave you tonight with their thoughts. Good night. Thanks for watching either. It's a hard question.

Oh I can't handle a major occasion. When I'm with you. Want to spend time with. Us. And I get sometimes afraid of them and I'm not at all which I'm hoping to get a lot of time to spend to have a good time to have a good job. I would want them to be happy. To be. Tonight. The people of Wisconsin presentation has been brought to you by Wisconsin Education Association Council. Miller Brewing Company. Blue Cross and Blue Shield United of Wisconsin. Wisconsin Power and Light Foundation. And the Pew Center for civic journalism Washington D.C..

The people Wisconsin is a co-production of Wisconsin Public Television.