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Pro-family Leaders at World Congress Present Specific Strategies for Promoting the Family

By Peter J. Smith

WARSAW, May 22, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Several thousand pro-family delegates gathered at the World Congress of Families IV in Warsaw shared their own strategies and experiences in promoting marriage and the family in the face of the developed world’s impending demographic decline.

According to Polish Radio, the pro-family delegates at the May 11-13, 2007 congress addressed a number of wide-ranging topics concerning the future of the natural family and its importance to the health of society

Dr. Mohammadreza Hojat, a research professor from Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia and a specialist in mother-child relationships, told delegates that the quality of motherhood is key to a child’s healthy development and introduction into society.

“There is evidence in the literature suggesting that a close, secure attachment with the mother could contribute to the child's development of pro-social behaviour and the ability to understand other people better,” said Dr. Hojat. “Physical and mental availability of the mother is very important. Mothers should be physically available, mentally available, lovingly responsive to the child's needs, on demand. Therefore, if mothers are working outside home and babies are in the day care center, that does not work as well.”

Inese Slesere, a Latvian Member of Parliament (MP) shared with delegates Latvia’s “national action plan” offering tax relief for families, child care allowances to subsidise working parents to stay at home one year with their newborn children, and its creation of a Ministry for Family and Children Affairs to raise societal appreciation for life and the family and come up with a solution to the demographic winter.

“We create family support centers, and a mediation institute to help families on the verge of breaking up to prevent divorce. And that also works,” said Slesere.

Steven Mosher, President of Population Research Institute and a delegate at the conference, however, pointed out in PRI’s weekly briefing that governments would encourage the birthrate much more if they reduced the tax burden on their citizens by income tax deductions and dependent child credits thus increasing their disposable income.

Other groups such as the US based National Association for Marriage Enhancement and the Domestic Church, an international Catholic marriage support movement, also told delegates of their work to promote or heal marriages and encourage stable families.

 “There are problems within families and we have to really take a hard look at that and not just say ‘yeah rah rah, family!’ but we also have to fix those things,” Paul Dilion of the World Development Coalition told Polish Radio. “If you look at it in so many different ways: kids that come from a stable family environment do better at school, they have better relationships, they get arrested less...Men that get married - less chance of getting a speeding ticket or being arrested, or having a drinking problem, they earn more money on average.”

Kenyan politician James Maina told the congress that Kenya too faces the problems of the developed world thanks to aggressive campaigns by the United Nations and population control groups, which sell their anti-life/anti-family policies in the guise of progress. “The stuff that is coming from the United Nations is meant to destroy the family - things like homosexuality and abortion. We are also getting a lot of that pressure to have to legalize these things,” Maina said.

Paul Mero of the Southerland Institute agreed and told Polish Radio, “Natural families do form naturally, but we have external forces, such as the state or certain ideologies that want to change the framework of family structures, influencing the break up of what forms naturally.”

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