Ruth Institute Blog

Who are we kidding, people? Can anyone really argue that the trend toward cohabiting vs. marrying and single parenthood vs. natural two-parent biological parenthood is a good thing? What are those crazy Brits thinking? (And I’m half British, by the way.) Just like it’s a no brainer that food straight from the ground is far better for you than processed, hormone-injected, insecticide soaked food from the supermarket, marriage should be left the way nature intended. Do we really need to debate this?

Carolyn Moynihan

A report about families from Britain says forget about marriage; another report from the United States says save it. They can’t both be right.

One of the remarkable things about research on the family is that studies can start from the same data and reach quite contradictory conclusions. This makes family research a bit like climate change studies, with probably some doctoring of the evidence here and there. On the other hand, while climate data is invisible to most of us and the weather we experience is thoroughly confusing, what is happening to families is out there on the street for all to see. Read more…

So, basically Britain has given up on the traditional family. The Family and Parenting Institute’s new chief executive might as well resign and disband the institute then.

Carolyn Moynihan

Golly, it’s hard to keep up with the Brits and their reports on families and parenting. You would think that government and academics actually understood something about those subjects, but more often than not they add to the confusion.

The latest “major report” to pronounce on the fate of the family advises the government not to try to preserve the “traditional family” as it crumbles under the impact of marital breakdown and workplace pressures. The Family and Parenting Institute says the family as we knew it is no longer “the norm” and government efforts to rescue it are futile; members of the extended family — grandparents, uncles and aunts, even siblings and cousins — can make up for absent parents, says the FPI. Read more…