Rooted in Family Values

Chapter 8 - Little Book of Big Reasons to Love America

Chapter 7 is a sneak peek of my book Little Book of Big Reasons to Love America. If you’d like to start from the beginning, click here and read Chapter 1.

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"The true strength of America lies in its families, who foster the values and aspirations that drive our nation forward." - Denzel Washington

The unique place of the family unit at the core of American society is an understated ingredient of the American success story. Although the family unit in modern Western societies tends to be weaker than in developing countries, America is historically rooted in family and community in ways other cultures are not. The origin story of a nation formed by settlers, pioneers, and several waves of immigrants seems to point to how this came to be.

When family, community, traditions, and hierarchies are established for centuries, they become tightly enmeshed and resistant to change. Immigrants coming to America planted themselves in the fertile soil of a young nation without centuries of enmeshed societal structures. Without the constraints or protection of their original structures, immigrants had to rely on close-knit family networks for support, guidance, and adaptation to a new culture. This heavy reliance on networks of family units persisted as a way to navigate the rapid changes that came with urbanization and the Industrial Revolution. The family provided emotional support, childcare, and a sense of belonging in bustling urban environments. The American dream of upward social and economic mobility was often pursued through family efforts. Families instilled values of education, hard work, and perseverance, with each generation aiming for better opportunities and a brighter future.

The emphasis on individual autonomy and pluralism allowed families to create their own traditions that departed from centuries of established ways in their countries of origin. Acceptance of other races and cultures slowly paved the way for families that crossed cultural, racial, and socio-economic barriers. The upward mobility of a thriving middle class created generational wealth, with some family businesses that started with humble beginnings becoming corporate empires.

Christian values were also a key organizing force around the strengthening of the family in American society.

Christian Values

Christian values had a profound impact on shaping the family unit in America, emphasizing the sanctity of marriage as a lifelong commitment between a man and a woman. Societal norms and legal frameworks surrounding marriage were rooted in Christian values, which placed a strong emphasis on family cohesion, unity, and mutual support. Concepts like love, forgiveness, compassion, and honesty integral to Christian ethics and shaped family dynamics and interactions. Parental authority in guiding and nurturing children was firmly established as the norm. Families were often expected to participate in church activities, religious education programs, and community service initiatives, fostering a sense of belonging.

What happened behind closed doors often offered a different picture from the ideal. Even though family dysfunctions, unhealthy dynamics, and destructive patterns were ever present, the family unit became essential to the success of the American experiment. The connection is well documented, showing a direct correlation between healthy families and cultural continuity, economic outcomes, intergenerational transmission of wealth, and social well-being. This is yet another example of how Christian faith can have a direct and measurable impact on helping a nation thrive.

In contrast, the opposite is true of cultures in the Soviet bloc, where faith was systematically dismantled for over half a century. Studies have shown the breakdown of traditional family structures and values, caused by the violent suppression of religion and oppressive social engineering, had a massive negative effect on social trust, support networks, and individual well-being. This ultimately contributed to the economic and moral collapse of the USSR. Decades after the fall of the Soviet bloc, studies measuring the happiness index of countries still show the nations of the former Soviet bloc as the least happy people in Europe.

This contrast is also true for me personally as someone who grew up in a Marxist household.

Breaking the Cycle

By my mid-twenties, I had self-sabotaged every relationship I've been in. The latest breakup was particularly painful because it involved my daughter Diana. The realization that she would grow up in a broken home just like I did crushed me as I became painfully aware I was ill-equipped to build a happy family. This weakness was not just personal but also systemic. When a culture is not infused with family values as the source of long-term success in life, families fail at a much higher rate. Governments don't build strong nations; people do. I believe humans are built for family, and no amount of social engineering can change that. The only way to have stronger people is to have stronger families.

It is telling that after witnessing a military coup in Chile, a civil war in Mozambique, and the fall of the USSR, the one event that traumatized me the most was the divorce of my parents. I had developed the ability to adapt to hardship and tolerate risk, but losing the foundational source of love and security was unbearable to me.

I got the healing I needed in the church. Bit by bit, the mosaic of healthy romance, marriage, and parenting came together through a newfound spiritual lifestyle and guidance from my mentors. Coming from three generations of broken homes, I was determined to break that cycle. I was ready when I met my wife Deb at a Christian conference in Los Angeles. I spoke and performed at the conference, and Deb was one of the organizers. At a mixer in the Upside-Down Club in Hollywood, she approached me with a clipboard asking for biographical facts to be used later that week as they introduced me during a show at the legendary Pantages Theater. I can only describe my instant attraction to her as a revelation.

We went on a date to Universal Studios and talked for hours. Deb was a theater major, had worked for MTV and Universal/Motown, and we both spoke Portuguese. We came from two different worlds and yet had so much in common.

First Date at Universal Studios

Deb dropped me off at the airport and gave me one of those hugs that lingered a second or two longer than usual. I could not stop thinking about her my whole flight to New York, where I was going next to visit my sister. I had taken footage of her during the weekend and watched it until my battery ran out. I called her every day from New York and then emailed her every day until she moved to Moscow. We were married ten months after we met in front of 1,800 of our closest friends and members of the press. Our first kiss was onstage on our wedding day. We keep a box of around 300 printed emails and read some of them to each other every anniversary.

A miracle happened as we learned that Deb was pregnant with our first daughter, Violetta. My oldest daughter, Diana, came back into my life after six long years. My youngest, Isabella, was born in Kyiv, Ukraine, a couple of years after Violetta. All three have grown to become extraordinary young women. A quarter of a century later, our marriage is stronger than ever, and our love for each other has grown deeper. Our family has sustained us through hard times, big moves, and entrepreneurial adventures. We went from unlikely to succeed in family life to deliriously happy and have mentored other couples for many years. The cycle has been broken, I pray, for generations to come.

When I coach business and non-profit leaders, I help them get their houses in order before they build their next big thing. I argue that a strong family is foundational to any real success in life. Professional success is meaningless if the cost is a failed marriage or a strained relationship with your children. True success in life starts with success in the source of all other success - love.

Environments that nurture strong families flourish. When families are weakened, trouble is around the corner. There are some unsettling trends in America today that spell trouble for the most prosperous nation on earth. We should pay attention to them.

The Weakening of Family

Few people would contest that the corrosion of the family unit weakens society as a whole. Of particular concern is how technology can be weaponized to accelerate this process by delivering unhealthy and ideologically charged content to children.

While some dismiss the term cultural Marxism as a conspiracy theory, those of us who ingested Marxist propaganda from birth and lived in countries where mass brainwashing was the norm can smell it a mile away. Like a virus, Marxism has mutated from its original form to explicitly undermine the core elements of what makes a family strong. From the most blatant calls for the abolition of the nuclear family to the not less subtle critique of family as an oppressive patriarchal construct, these ideas have moved from the fringes to becoming mainstream. Never in human history have ideas on life, sexuality, and marriage been delivered directly to children, bypassing parents so effectively through technology engineered by a small group of entities with near zero accountability.

Decades before big tech, much of the influence of cultural Marxism came through universities. The natural places to question and debate ideas, many if not most higher education institutions have gradually become dominated by Marxist-inspired ideologies that displaced the search for truth in favor of dogmatic rigidity. Young people who retain this worldview enter the marketplace and eventually occupy positions of influence, shaping business, culture, and policy. Unthinkable in the West until recently, several European countries and states in the US have laws that allow underage children to get access to "gender-affirming" hormone therapy without parental consent, in some cases, a gender-altering surgery through a court order. Legislation has been introduced or is being actively debated in several Western countries, criminalizing quoting Scripture in defense of Biblical marriage and views on sexuality as hate speech. Efforts of the state to interfere with freedom of religion and speech seem to persist. They may broadly succeed in a foundational shift in American society with massive negative repercussions.

It is heartbreaking for those who have seen how this story ends to see a core source of a strong nation being intentionally undermined before our very eyes. It is also evident to anyone who takes the time to study this that infiltrating core institutions has been in the Marxist playbook since the beginning. Adversarial forces have been actively using this strategy in America for decades and are now reaping a plentiful harvest. As with other threats, I believe America, of all other countries in the West, has enough antibodies to recognize and repel this deliberate assault on the family as the source of this nation's strength.

Jane Fonda: "If we as a nation are to break the cycle of poverty, crime, and family dysfunction, we must begin by strengthening the family."

Stephen Covey: "The American Dream flourishes in homes where integrity, responsibility, and love are taught and practiced."

Michael J. Fox: "In America, the family is the foundation of our freedom and prosperity. It's where we find the strength to succeed."

Dr. Phil McGraw: "America's greatness is built on the bedrock of strong families who teach the values of love, respect, and hard work."

Tom Hanks: "The American way of life is grounded in the family, where we find the love and support that propels us to achieve great things."

J.K. Rowling: "The enduring success of America is anchored in its families, where the principles of hard work, compassion, and resilience are cultivated."

Pope John Paul II: "As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we live."

Rick Warren: "A stable family is the foundation for a stable society."

Condoleezza Rice: "There's no greater gift than family. It's the bedrock of our country's success."

Maya Angelou: "The heart of American culture beats strongest within its families, where our values and traditions are passed down."