Ruth Institute Blog

Meet our ITAF Gala keynote speaker, Tim Clemente. Tim will be discussing the state of Love in Hollywood! More info on our site, here.

by Patrick F. Fagan

Family, church, and school are the three basic people-forming institutions, and they produce the best results when they cooperate.

Even if all the market reforms of the Washington think tanks, the Wall Street Journal, and Forbes Magazine were enacted, we’d still need to kiss the Great American Economy goodbye. Below the level of economic policy lies a society that is producing fewer people capable of hard work, especially married men with children. As the retreat from marriage continues apace, there are fewer and fewer of these men, resulting in a slowly, permanently decelerating economy. Read more…

by Tamara Rajakariar

At the dinner table with my family, one of my sisters has started a little game. We are forced to go around the table and tell everyone our “highlight of the day”. While at first we were reluctant to take part in such a corny activity, I must admit that it’s become a bit of a ritual. And as it turns out, this kind of interaction is beneficial for health. Read more…

by Clare Horsfall

The Sydney Morning Herald recently reported that “less than 2 per cent of Australian women have six or more children.” Well, I must know so many of that two per cent.

I know families of 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and a few with an even dozen. Whenever there is a movie about big families you always see children hanging from fans, piles of horrible food and a mum on the edge of a breakdown. Perhaps that’s why the general public feel they can be so rude to those with a brood. I come from a family of six and my Mum was often asked by strangers: “Why didn’t you buy a television?”, “How do you remember their names?” , or just told “You poor thing!” Read more…

Our very own Jennifer Thieme was on the Taylor Baldwin show yesterday! The show was broadcast live from the San Diego Union Tribune television studios. Jennifer represented the pro-marriage side, and gay activist Sean Sala represented the gay marriage side.

Jennifer led off by asking a few questions:

what is marriage?
what purpose does marriage serve in society?
why did marriage arise in the first place?

She pointed out that what is at stake amounts to a “quid pro quo transaction”–in other words, a trade–between allowing gays to marry, and the fundamental presumption that children are entitled to a mother and a father. Read more…

by Carolyn Moynihan

It’s the “end of men” theme again, but this time with a new diagnosis. The story so far. Feminist Hanna Rosin says men are sinking in the workforce because they are just not as adaptable as women to the demands of a changing workforce for more education. Conservative Charles Murray says men have given up the commitment to working because the welfare state has sapped their motivation. Read more…

by Carolyn Moynihan

The World Family Map — a final report, in which we find that 80 percent of adults in Spain support the idea of a woman deciding to have a child on her own, while 78 percent think a child is happiest with a mother and a father. Go figure.

Here is my last report on the World Family Map — on family culture, which covers attitudes to voluntary singe motherhood, working mothers, children’s need for both a mother and a father, and family trust. The findings are based on the World Values Survey1981-2008. Read more…

A healthy society needs fathers. Men, therefore, need to embrace their manhood and recognize the important role they play as husbands and fathers in a family, Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse advised Friday in a panel on the problem of fatherlessness at the Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Md. Read more…

by Carolyn Moynihan

In addition to family structure and economics, the World Family Map project is looking at family “processes” such as adult satisfaction with their family life, agreement or otherwise about household work, family discussions on social issues and family meals. It is also looking at family culture — attitudes towards single motherhood, working mothers, children’s need for a mother and a father, and trust within families.

On these measures the richest societies are not necessarily top performers. Read more…

By Hayley Lindly

This article was first posted at iowastatedaily.com on February 19, 2013.