In a snapshot summary of her memoir released on Tuesday, In Spite of Everything, Susan Gregory Thomas gives a firsthand account of what remains of children and parents after the devastation of divorce. Thomas presents a vivid portrait of the children of divorce in her neighborhood who, with her, wandered as “sad-eyed, bruised nomads.” Decades of research underscore the truth of Thomas’ anecdotal account and the plight and trajectories of those lonely children. Adolescents who do not live in intact families are more likely to engage in substance abuse, exhibit …
Catching you up on clips, commentary and news of the day. Sign up for the daily email update from Scribe. The Debt Ceiling and the Constitution – Stephen Moore Of Pork and Trade – Investor’s Business Daily In Search of a Silver Lining – Rea Hederman For Americas 99ers, jobs crisis is hard to escape – Alexandra Alper Federal budget mess: Six ways to fix it – Mark Trumball FHA delays foreclosures for unemployed – Amanda Seitz The government’s war on cameras – C.J. Ciaramella Congress considers “resetting” Russian relations – …
A new chart from Heritage FamilyFacts.org bears good news: Recent marriages are lasting longer. This is great for happily committed couples, and it also represents a boon for civil society because of the social and economic benefits marriage provides. Commitment to marriage steadily declined from 1960 to the early 1980s, but as the chart highlights, this pattern is starting to reverse. Nearly 75 percent of the women who married for the first time in the early 1990s reached their 10th wedding anniversaries. This is a three-percentage-point increase compared to women …
Struck by the rapid disintegration of the family in American life, Heritage’s Chuck Donovan recently called for a “Marshall Plan for Marriage” to rebuild the traditional institution and re-establish its importance. In an interview with National Review Online’s Kathryn Jean Lopez posted today, Donovan talks candidly about why this work is crucial to the nation’s economic, social and moral well-being. At the outset of their Q & A, Lopez questions Donovan’s intentional shorthand reference to America’s multibillion-dollar effort to rebuild Europe after World War II, which got its nickname from …
Evolution and inevitability are words much in the news lately regarding same-sex marriage. The victory for marriage redefinition advocates in New York has sparked a new round of assertions that Americans can stop thinking about and debating this basic institution of civil society. Vice President Joe Biden sounded a similar theme after the repeal of the military law on homosexual conduct last December. “Inevitability” is a hardy perennial, therefore, but hardly correct. The debate over marriage has entered a new phase, but it is nowhere near an endgame. First, the …
The New York legislature’s vote last Friday night to redefine the family and recognize homosexual marriage will have a number of impacts within and well beyond the Empire State. The vote does not signal an end to the now two-decade fight over the meaning of marriage. A new phase—not an endgame—has begun. Here are five key impacts: 1. The vote continues an adverse trend for marriage law in New York. Last year the Empire State became the 50th state to repeal a fault-based divorce law. Weakened emphasis on the durability …
This Father’s Day, take a moment to stop and consider why dads play such an important role in ensuring a children’s well-being and, subsequently, the stability of society. In a new Heritage in Focus, Heritage fellow Ryan Messmore discusses the importance of fathers to strong families and a healthy civil society. Listen to the full podcast, here. For instance, children and teens who experience a good relationship with their fathers are at a decreased risk of suffering from loneliness and emotional anxiety. Likewise, adolescents who are close to their dads are …
For many Americans, poverty is hidden from view, and its reality is conveniently tucked out of sight and out of mind in places like inner cities or across rural landscapes. The effects of poverty, though, are all too real for those suffering in the shadows. Consider one startling fact: Children from single-parent families (most of which are headed by a single mother) are over five times as likely to live in poverty than are those from married families. The Heritage Foundation’s Robert Rector points to the root cause of the …
As more Americans delay or forego the benefits of marriage, one social scientist is suggesting that young adults’ reluctance to tie the knot may stem from faulty market mechanisms in the “sexual economy.” At a recent presentation at The Heritage Foundation, Mark Regnerus discussed the concept of sexual economics and his recent book Premarital Sex in America: How Young Americans Meet, Mate, and Think About Marrying, also mentioned this week in The Washington Times. The dynamics of sexual economics, Regnerus explains, include tradeoffs in the exchange of sexual relationships, in …
One need look no further than the latest sitcom or celebrity pronouncement to witness the strained state of fatherhood in American culture. As men have become expendable in the eyes of pop culture, fewer adults see the necessity of ensuring their children are raised in intact, married families, where they can experience the unique benefits of both a mother and a father. More Americans are cohabitating; fewer are marrying; and if they do wed, it is at a much later age than previous generations. Although divorce rates have declined slightly …
