Here’s a little food for thought about gender – a quote from a long article in Prospect magazine in which philosopher Roger Scruton reviews three books contributing to the nature-nurture debate. Read more…
by Robert W. Patterson
Published at philly.com on February 5, 2012.
During the last few weeks, the Inquirer and Daily News have had a field day with the journal I edit, The Family in America, deploying scorn, ridicule, and caricature to depict me as an “extremist” unworthy of a political appointment at the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare (DPW). It’s time to tell the other side of the story. Read more…
It’s difficult today to say anything in favour of the intact, married family without putting somebody’s nose out of joint. Last week it was a blogger at the LBGT site ThinkProgress who took umbrage at a comment by Focus on the Family’s Glenn Stanton. I’ll let Mr Stanton tell you how from his post on NRO’s Home Front blog: Read more…
Review of Mitch Pearlstein’s From Family Collapse to America’s Decline: The Educational, Economic, and Social Costs of Family Fragmentation (ISI, Aug 2011) ISBN: 978- 1607093626. Paperback, 165 pages; $24.95. Read more…
In the last post on the new State of Our Unions (SOU) report from the National Marriage Project we read that “the benefits of generosity were particularly pronounced among couples with children”. Parents who were very generous with each other were more likely to be very happy as well. But there’s more. Generosity in having children is also part of the happiness equation. Read more…
In the eyes of children, is it paramount that they were “planned” and “wanted”? Or does the family structure of their home matter more?
These are two of the many thought-provoking questions about donor-conceived children and “diverse” family forms in a report released Thursday from the Commission on Parenthood’s Future at the Institute of American Values (IAV). Read more…
by Charles Capps, Stanford alumnus and co-founder of the Anscombe Society at Stanford University
November 9, 2011
Last weekend, a group of students and young professionals converged on Provo, Utah, for the second annual Strengthening the Family conference, put on by Students for the Family. The conference planners selected a timely theme—“Engaging Issues with Courage and Civility.” Anyone who reads the news knows that, when it comes to current debates about marriage and the family, civility is in short supply. This makes courage in speaking the truth about these issues difficult but crucial. [Editor's note: The Ruth Institute was one of the sponsors for this conference.] Read more…
Family minded people often complain, with reason, about the United Nations approach to family issues. Watch this video, though, and listen to a UN officer who seems to hit all the right notes. Read more…
by rnewman
I’d like to start off by thanking Elizabeth for inviting me to be a guest blogger. For those who don’t know me (most of you) my name is Rickard Newman, I’m a recent transplant to New York and I’m engaged to Alana S. Since I met Alana I went from knowing nothing about the fertility industry to being knee-deep in near constant immersion in the topic. A year ago I didn’t even know there was such a thing as a fertility “industry”. Today I’m making my own documentary about it. Thank you for letting me share some of my thoughts with you. Read more…
In the last section of the Sustainable Demographic Development report Laurie deRose surveys global statistical evidence on international family strcuture, children’s trends, family culture, and family economic wellbeing. Here MercatorNet reproduces his findings on family culture, which are generally positive. The third and last in this series. Read more…
In the central part of the Sustained Demographic Development report, The Empty Cradle, Phillip Longman and others track in detail the patterns of demographic decline globally and their causes. At the end, the authors propose 10 key policies for reversing this decline and reinvigorating the economy. MercatorNet reproduces those policies here, in the second of three excerpts from the report. Read more…
by Leila Miller
October 21, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A few months back, I told my readers on my blog how to raise eight children without even trying. Today, I’m going to tell you why I never should have had eight children in the first place: had I listened to the devil and modern conventional wisdom, that is. Read more…
Editor’s Note: Last week my daughter, Moriah Mosher, who is 18 years old, traveled to Rhodes, Greece, where she addressed the Rhodes Youth Forum on the subject of “Traditional Family Values.” The Forum is an annual meeting of young people from all over the world who are devoted to the search for the common good. My daughter told the group that the common good is to be found not in the discovery of new principles for living, but in the rediscovery of God-given truths about the importance of faith, life and family. She is right, of course.
Steven W. Mosher Read more…
Based on projections from the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), world population will reach seven billion by the end of this month. According to Hania Zlotnik, director of DESA’s Population Division, “It is very important for the future of humanity that the young people of today have on average fewer children than their parents did.” Read more…
Most couples who marry, even today, probably intend to have one or two children at least. Marriage and the baby carriage (as family scholar Brad Wilcox likes to pair them) have always gone together. But this is not what is meant by the new catch-phrase “intentional parenthood”. Read more…
Have you read the latest on the Greek bailout? Last I heard people who were lucky enough to have government jobs are on strike because they are about to lose them, thanks to austerity measures being forced on the country by the EU and the IMF. Read more…
An urban high school teacher in Connecticut talks about unwed motherhood, fatherlessness, and how it affects the kids in his classroom.
…Here’s my prediction: the money, the reforms, the gleaming porcelain, the hopeful rhetoric about saving our children—all of it will have a limited impact, at best, on most city schoolchildren. Urban teachers face an intractable problem, one that we cannot spend or even teach our way out of: teen pregnancy. This year, all of my favorite girls are pregnant, four in all, future unwed mothers every one. There will be no innovation in this quarter, no race to the top. Personal moral accountability is the electrified rail that no politician wants to touch… Read more…
Back in July, the California legislature passed SB 48. It mandates that all public schools must include positive discussions of the sexual orientations of transgender, bisexual, and gay Americans when teaching their contributions to history. This includes rewriting text books and using supplemental discussion materials. Read more…
by Patrick F. Fagan, Ph.D. and Scott Talkington, Ph.D.
Dr. Fagan is senior fellow and director of the Marriage and Religion Research Institute (MARRI) at Family Research Council.
The 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth shows that students who now worship weekly and who grew up with two married parents are most likely to have received a high school degree. Read more…
The State should support families and better enable them to survive and thrive. California, however, is once again making it difficult-to-impossible for families to care for their own members in their own homes. AB 889 is expected to soon be on Governor Brown‘s desk.
If you hire someone to care for your children in your home while you work, or care for an elderly parent, or care for someone who is sick or handicapped, AB 889 (Domestic Work Employees) would require you to provide rest breaks every two hours, carry Workers’ Comp insurance, issue paychecks with itemized pay stubs, etc. It also allows for lawsuits and penalties if “employers” (aka Mom and Dad) fail to know and follow all of the labyrinthine requirements:
AB 889: “Adventures in Babysitting” Bill Is Making Its Way to the Governor’s Desk
How will parents react when they find out they will be expected to provide workers’ compensation benefits, rest and meal breaks and paid vacation time for…babysitters? Dinner and a movie night may soon become much more complicated.
Assembly Bill 889 (authored by Assemblymember Tom Ammiano of San Francisco) will require these protections for all “domestic employees,” including nannies, housekeepers and caregivers. The bill has already passed the Assembly and is quickly moving through the Senate with blanket support from the Democrat members that control both houses of the Legislature – and without the support of a single Republican member. Assuming the bill will easily clear its last couple of legislative hurdles, AB 889 will soon be on its way to the Governor’s desk. Read more…
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