It is so much easier to extol the virtues of civility than to talk civilly about the virtues we need to uphold. It is here that the going gets tough. Under prodding from social conservatives and religious groups, as well as from the work of several social scientists, Americans have increasingly come to realize that all these arrangements are in disarray. But there is little agreement on how they may be mended. There is now enough evidence to convince anybody who will yield to data that children are better off, all else being equal, with their natural parents, all two of them.
Some conservatives therefore Wish to encourage or pressure women to stay home.
Liberals still argue that any combination of adults can attend to children, from aunts to day care personnel. There might be still other ways to proceed. Montesquieu put it, no wind will do for a sailboat that fails to designate a port. Without fundamental agreement about the makeup of the family, neither social mores nor public policies can be fashioned. The second element of the moral infrastructure is the schools.