But again, where do we first learn to trust? From government regulators? No. Trust is first created within and then nurtured by healthy families. The seedbed of the social trust that forms healthy societies is the confidence and trust a child has in her parents. A child's experience of trustworthy parents in her formative years not only influences her ability to establish trusting relationships in adulthood, it will also act as a basic glue within her own eventual family. This is one of the reasons for concern about the widespread breakdown of the family in America: for too many children, family disharmony and divorce shatters their self-confidence. When the primary social bonds between parent and child are broken, trust forever after is almost always hard-won.
Trustworthy parents are basic glue. I like that.
