Tuesday, September 21, 2021

On August 10, 2021, the U.S. Senate passed a $1.2 trillion infrastructure package, known as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The proposed legislation was sent to the House of Representatives. A second $3.5 trillion proposal is also in play. These bills together are supposed to shore up America’s foundation. And regardless of your perspective on either of these bills, nearly everyone agrees that having a strong foundation is important for the stability and growth of our country.

Bridges, roads and broadband are all important to our society. But our most important asset, the infrastructure on which everything else depends, is people. Our children are the foundation of that asset, and parenting has the most important impact on that foundation.

It is every parent’s dream to have his or her child grow up into a responsible person. In fact, in my 30 years at Beech Brook, I have never met a parent who did not love or want the best for their child. I have, however, met many parents who have no idea on how to raise a child. They may wish the best for their children, but bad parenting gets in the way of achieving this.

Poor parenting can be passed from one generation to the next. There are clear links between adverse parenting experiences as a child, the parenting style that person now employs, and the likelihood of his or her own children being troubled by age 5.

The good news is that most parents are willing to break that cycle if they can get the right help. They are not oblivious to the fact that their experience is impacting the way they behave and parent today. People are raised with strong beliefs about parenting, and it’s hard to break those patterns of behavior. But they can and they do change. We know this to be true because our staff sees this often. One father called us, angry because he was about to be kicked out of parenting class due to his poor behavior. But by the end of the call, he was sobbing and acknowledging that what he really wanted was to be a better father than his own had been. He wanted his child to grow up to be the kind of parent he wished he had been. I’m glad to say that this father did successfully complete his parenting classes.

The United States invests significantly in families and children. Child-related tax provisions, support for health care, nutrition assistance, income security programs, housing policies, assistance for families who have children with special needs, and huge investments in educating our children – these are all important investments. But they are all much less effective if we do not invest in the most crucial thing that impacts children: good parenting.

Buildings, bridges, broadband, financial security and education are all important. But they are not as important as investing in the foundation upon which everything else is built. They are not more important than our human infrastructure.

At Beech Brook, along with our partners, we are investing in our future, strengthening the human foundation and infrastructure. .