Each day we see new headlines featuring the tug and pull among public policymakers, typically searching for how to best support civic institutions. In business this week, for example, the U.S. Senate voted to overturn an EPA rule that would regulate the trucking industry and its air pollutants.

But government leaders typically miss asking themselves how to best support another vital civic institution that drives social well-being – the family.

Limits of government help 

Government can help build an environment where civic institutions can grow and thrive. But laws and regulations must be generally applicable, which means they are poor instruments for managing the inner workings of institutions.

When the state or federal government attempts to address localized problems with particular institutions, it actually ends up causing issues for similar institutions without those problems. It prevents them from managing themselves to become stronger and more impactful on society.

For example, if the government enacted a law banning the business model of a failing bank, it would restrict every bank operating similarly that wasn’t failing from using such a model for their success. But what government can do is create a general set of rules for banks to follow that instill public confidence in banking institutions, which allows the banks to manage themselves in ways that enable them to thrive and finance new businesses and jobs.

As with business, the government’s heavy involvement and micromanagement can hinder the family’s capability to flourish. If the government sought to dictate the inner workings of families – such as how parents managed bedtime for their children or how siblings interacted – in an attempt to solve family problems, it would inevitably create parenting and relationship problems for other families.

If the government wants healthy family institutions, it must develop policies that facilitate communities and public environments in which parents, as institutional leaders of families, have the freedom to learn how to help their unique family thrive (including learning through failure). It also must craft public policies that meet parents where they are rather than demanding parents serve the ideological or political interests of those in government.

For example, the Biden administration recently released an executive order that issues $600 billion toward making institutionalized, full-day child care more affordable. The intentions motivating this decision may be laudable, but the policy also neglects what most parents want – to raise their children themselves with the increased time and capacity to do so.

A personal story may augment this point. My friend Ashley is a full-time, stay-at-home mother to her three rambunctious boys. She also works a nursing shift once a week to keep her license while her husband, Mike, works full time in finance. Even though Ashley could work full time, they prefer to have one parent stay at home rather than have both parents work and pay for child care.

Ashley and Mike’s top priority is giving their children the most fertile growth environment possible – one where at least one parent can personally invest in, mentor and raise their children. Ashley and her husband recognize they are lucky to be in a situation where one parent can stay at home full time, and they hope to continue to do so in the face of an expected recession and rising living costs. For them, the Biden administration’s executive order doesn’t fit their needs, but it is a policy they will end up paying for.

A way forward 

Clearly, there need to be laws regarding some parenting and family function issues – protections against child abuse, for example. But excessive legal intrusion into family relationships and family processes can lead to ineffective and even harmful policies.

Like Goldilocks’ preferred sleeping, sitting and eating arrangements, the level of involvement needs to be just right.

This is most likely achieved when policymakers place the family institution on the same level of importance as government, business and education institutions. This means respect for the areas of life over which the family has primary responsibility and self-restraint from policymakers reflecting that respect. It also means higher economic growth, company revenues, and better educational outcomes. 

Utah is a great place for business because policy leaders have intentionally and consistently created an environment where businesses are free to thrive.

They can do the same for families.