Thanksgiving was not formally made a federal holiday until 1941. However, it has been celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November annually since President Abraham Lincoln delivered the address below in 1863. Happy Thanksgiving from all of us at The Heritage Foundation. The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added which are of so …
“Optimism is important for anything in life-to realize that our condition is never final.” [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLEJ-HyIMcM[/youtube] With unbridled and infectious optimism, Jack Kemp (1935-2009) championed hope, growth, and enterprise to overcome poverty and social breakdown in America and around the world. In his roles as U.S. Congressman, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and passionate proponent of the free market, Kemp’s efforts highlighted the powerful combination of great ideas joined with the good works of neighborhood leaders. Jeff Kemp, son of the late Jack Kemp and President of Stronger Families, pays tribute …
Is the US merely tagging behind its European neighbors on a road to a thoroughly secular, social democracy? As the Obama Administration stretches its fingers into education, health care and failing companies, the question lingers ominously. But columnist Cheryl Wetzstein notes that, when it comes to faith and family, we’re not quite there yet. She supports her point with research highlighted at our Oct. 29th conference, Religious Practice and the Family. Wetzstein’s column in today’s Washington Times reads: Earlier this year, American Enterprise Institute scholar Charles Murray wrote a warning …
Generation Y is widely defined as the 77 million Americans born between 1977 and 1997 — and as any good demographic sample would, it’s being analyzed. A Denver Post blogger opines on why Gen Y’ers are moving back in with their parents. JD Power and Associates dissects Gen Y’s buying patterns and suggests that the recession is making them grapple with a “Quarter-Life Crisis.” Today’s “emerging adults” enjoy more options for work, marriage and location than perhaps any previous generation. But with that freedom come anxiety and confusion. And sociologists …
You should talk about money before jumping into it, a story in The New York Times says. You can spice it up by doing more housework, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. And this just in: Your strong commitment to it is a sign you’re trying to practice what you regularly hear preached. “It,” of course, is marriage. Marriage and its connection to religious involvement will be one of the themes highlighted Thursday during “Religious Practice and the Family,” a conference sponsored by The Heritage Foundation at the Ronald Reagan Building and …
Research and policy proposals to make sense of the teenage years tend to address concerns such as educational achievement, sexuality, drug abuse and suicide. Noted sociologist and University of Notre Dame professor Christian Smith has spent much of his career delving into a curiously overlooked aspect of teenage life — religion. His research offers insights into teenage beliefs while addressing common questions from parents and youth pastors: Do today’s teens remain loyal to their parents’ faith? Are they abandoning traditional religious institutions to search for a newer, more “authentic” spirituality?
This week’s TIME magazine cover story, Unfaithfully Yours, dramatically laments the collapse of marriage: “There is no other single force causing as much measurable hardship and human misery in this country, as the collapse of marriage. It hurts children, it reduces mothers’ financial security, and it has landed with particular devastation on those who can bear it least: the nation’s underclass,” writes Caitlin Flanagan. Flanagan’s clarion call is backed by demographic trends that have now reached a point where nearly four of every ten babies is born out of wedlock …
Speaking at Heritage, Rebecca Hagelin, author of 30 Ways in 30 Days to Save Your Family, shared some startling news with us about the decline of families in America. A point that she brought up is that when people can’t depend on their family, they turn to the government for dependence. A report from CNN started that 40% of children are born outside of wedlock. This is an alarming trend. According to our FamilyFacts.org web site’s Top 10 findings for December 2008, married families are much better off financially than …
This past Friday the Iowa Supreme Court rewrote the definition of marriage to include same-sex couples. Justifying their rejection of the argument that “the optimal environment for children is to be raised within a marriage of both a father and a mother,” Justice Mark Cady wrote: “The research … suggests that the traditional notion that children need a mother and a father to be raised into healthy adjusted adults is based more on stereotype than anything else.” First of all, the court is just wrong on the facts. Children whose …
FamilyFacts.org has compiled the Top 10 Findings that explore the link between parental involvement and academic success. Studies show that there is a strong positive link between parental involvement and all areas of academic success including, school readiness for preschoolers, being well-behaved in middle school, and graduating from high school. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kx8Vbeqqpno[/youtube]
