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March 17, 2025
How State Policymakers Can Save the Nuclear Family
Blue states are better for families. That is what many academics contend. In their classic book “Red Families v. Blue Families: Legal Polarization and the Creation of Culture,” law professors Naomi Cahn and June Carbone argue that blue states have the liberal values and policies they believe make for strong and stable families. Scholars like…
March 17, 2025
Progressives Are Starting to Come Around on the Importance of Marriage and Fatherhood
Progressives and conservatives rarely agree. But there’s a growing consensus about this one data point: America’s men are not OK. This isn’t exactly a political phenomenon — although men are changing politically, too. Last summer, economist Tyler Cowen detected a “vibe shift” in American culture, noting people were drifting rightward. Among his 19 reasons for the shift,…
February 27, 2025
The GOP Is Still the Pro-Marriage Party
While Elon Musk was chainsawing at CPAC, his ex-girlfriend, the singer Grimes, pleaded with him to attend to their child’s medical crisis. This dustup followed a claim by the conservative influencer Ashley St. Clair that she had given birth to Musk’s 13th child. Musk’s complicated family life, combined with the admiration for Musk among many conservative writers,…
February 25, 2025
Ohio Ranks Only 29th In The Family Structure Index
Ohio ranks 29th in family strength, according to a new report from the Institute for Family Studies and the Center for Christian Virtue. The Hope and a Future report spotlights the state of Ohio families, details the consequences of family breakdown in the Buckeye state, and charts a policy course to turn things round. A Dream Deferred in Ohio…
February 18, 2025
Why So Blue: Liberal Women Are Less Happy, More Lonely. But Why?
Young liberal women are especially prone nowadays to reporting poor mental health. This was the discovery that Zach Goldberg made almost five years ago pouring over Pew data in the spring of 2020. Further research in 2022 found that depression had surged among liberal high school girls in the last decade-and-a-half, and much more so for them than other high schoolers,…
February 6, 2025
The Trump Administration is Already Proving to be Family Friendly
The first Trump administration did not do a lot to advance the family policy ball. Sure, they doubled the Child Tax Credit to $2,000 in 2017. Otherwise, Trump 1.0 didn’t score many wins on the family field. But there are growing signs the second Trump administration will move much more aggressively to make America more family friendly….
December 12, 2024
Which Men Cheat Least? Republican Husbands, Especially ‘Religious Wife Guys’
Republicans have an infidelity problem. If your only impression of Republican marriages was ripped from the latest headlines, this would seem to be a reasonable conclusion. But the picture appears different when we look beyond the headlines at the lives of ordinary Republican men. It turns out that Republican husbands, especially religious ones, are less…
December 2, 2024
The Pursuit of Happiness Starts with Families: A Conversation Between Brad Wilcox and Gov. Spencer Cox
Utah has been at the forefront of a national conversation about how to grow and strengthen families, thanks in part to the leadership of Gov. Spencer Cox. I recently invited Cox to speak at the University of Virginia about Utah’s initiatives that enable strong families, as well as the governor’s efforts to protect teens from…
September 17, 2024
The Blue State Family Exodus: Families Are Migrating to Red and Purple States
You would think that Minnesota is a mecca for families, judging by the adulatory press coverage that Democratic Gov. Tim Walz’s family policy record in the state has received from liberal professors and pundits. Celebrating the vice presidential nominee’s moves to expand the child tax credit for poor families, advance paid family leave, and provide…
September 12, 2024
Surgeon general’s dour picture of parenthood misses the mark
Fifteen years ago, after we had adopted five children, I thought my wife and I were done having children. Boy, was I wrong. She got pregnant with twins in 2009 and, after the girls were born, I was shellshocked by the double dose of diapers, late nights and extra parenting demands — not to mention…