From Our Readers

• Jurisdiction: Colorado,United States
• Citation: Vol. 22 No. 6 Pg. 1214
• Pages: 1214
• Publication year: 1993

22 Colo.Law. 1214 Colorado Lawyer 1993.

1993, June, Pg. 1214. From Our Readers

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1214

Vol. 22, No. 6, Pg. 1214

From Our Readers

Dear Editor:

This is in response to the featured article, "Cultural Diversity and Family Values" by Jo Ann Viola Salazar and Sandra L. Shwayder in your May 1993 issue [at page 941].

The article is helpful in many ways, both practical and legal. It is important, at times critical, for the Courts and other interested parties to know and appreciate the culture in which the children have been reared.

However, there is a paragraph which is troubling. I refer to the one immediately under the headnote [subhead]: Family Values in the Extended Ethnic Family. The statement that other types of families can (emphasis added) be as viable and healthy for children as the stereotypical American family is misleading. It is misleading because Courts have to deal in probabilities, not in possibilities. The paragraph also suggests that there is no difference in the parenting prospects, for example, between an extended family and a family with single parents.

These other types of families are indeed and unfortunately (at least for the children involved) "becoming more common societal alternatives of the American family."

The fact that it is more common does not mean it is good, or that we as a society should be seeking to encourage more of them at the expense of a traditional family defined as one with both mother and father in the household. I would refer readers of The Colorado Lawyer and the authors of the article to the April 1993 issue of the Atlantic Magazine with the headline...