Tuesday, February 25, 2025

Part I

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The Power of the Natural Family: New Research Shows Importance of the Two-Parent Family and Quality Time Dads and Moms Spend Together with Their Children

Paul E. Peterson is the Henry Lee Shattuck professor of government and director of the Program of Education Policy and Governance at Harvard University. He’s also senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. I want to introduce you to Professor Peterson today precisely because of an article he recently wrote as published in the most recent edition of the Hoover Digest. That is the Digest, the official journal of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. More on that in just a moment. You’re going to be encouraged by the article he wrote. It is entitled “The Family Way.” The subtitle in the article is this: “Of All the Things That Help Students Achieve Success and Economic Mobility, the Two-Parent Family Is the Most Powerful.” Here you have a professor at Harvard University, the Henry Lee Shattuck professor of government. You have a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution who says, “If you’re really concerned about student success in schools, if you’re concerned about children’s succeeding in schools, what is the most important predictor? It is whether or not they are living in a home with a mother and a father married to one another.”

Professor Peterson begins by writing, “Let’s take a moment to celebrate the economic and social power of families. The prevalence of two-parent families in communities predicts their average level of student achievement and social mobility rates for those from disadvantaged backgrounds, even after adjusting for income, education, ethnic composition, racial segregation, and other community factors.” He continues, “Children learn more if they have two parents, and they benefit as well from living in places where two-parent families are the norm.”

He cites recent research undertaken by academic economists, and that’s on both sides of the Atlantic, by the way, and he goes on and says, “I discovered the importance of families after digging into the county-level data on social mobility for children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.” He goes on to say that this data has been made available by Opportunity Insights at Harvard University. He continues, “We find that having two adults in the home creates more opportunity for success than otherwise, even when money and other factors are taken into account as important as dollars is time, the scarcest resource of all. Adult time is needed for a child to learn words and numbers, to receive emotional support, to learn about learning resources and to get a ride or walk to school. An opportunity for children to have twice as much time with a parent counts for lot.”

Now, as you look at this article citing the report that is beneath it, you understand that what we see here is a massive affirmation of creation order. What we see here is a massive affirmation of the importance of marriage and family. And what we see here shouldn’t surprise Christians nor, frankly, do we take this imperative about marriage and family on the basis of some kind of social science report.

No, it works the other way around. It is important to understand that social scientists asking the question, “Why are children not learning and why are they not advancing socioeconomically in terms of social mobility?” It turns out ss Professor Peterson says, it turns out that the most salient factor, the most important factor is whether or not that child is in a two-parent family.

Now, as Christians, we want to explain and we want to define two parents further than just the number two. We’re looking at the biblical imperative that we’re talking about, a mother and a father, a husband and a wife. But we also understand that statistically that’s exactly what’s being talked about here. If you talk about a two-parent family statistically, you look at this kind of study, you are talking about moms and dads and their children. Now, there’s a lot more that is revealed when you start looking into just, say, the social science data. You start finding out that all kinds of good things that happen to children, happen to them more frequently and with greater predictability within the context of the two-parent family.

Now, we understand what’s now militating against what is subverting so much of the flourishing of children it’s because of the subversion of marriage and the subversion of the family. In a society that’s increasingly confused about marriage, increasingly confused about family, in a society that wants to separate sex from procreation and procreation from marriage, you have a recipe for more and more children being born and raised in situations that are defined as those less likely, if not least likely for children to advance academically and also socioeconomically.

And this is just common grace information. This is exactly what Christians would expect. Once again, this is not the authority for our definition of marriage, our honoring a family. It is nonetheless very important data that now you have in a secular context. This is a professor at Harvard University. This is being published by the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. You just might think someone would pay attention to this.

Let’s remember that the ideological left identifies what they sometimes rather strangely call the nuclear family. They refer to the nuclear family as an artifact of patriarchy, an artifact of oppression, an artifact of mandated heterosexuality. Well, if you followed that ideological path, you can look at data like this and say, “Well, the reason many of these other children aren’t doing well is because of the discrimination they face because they are in a single parent home, et cetera.” But here’s where this particular data, a look at this research, reminds us of the fact that you’re looking at what does lead to success, what does lead to learning, what does lead to security, what does lead to socioeconomic mobility. And you’ll notice that what does lead to those things is exactly what marriage and family are pointing to and what they constitute and what their functions are.

And so you look at this again, the ideological Left will say, “This is just further evidence of discrimination. Children from other homes, parents trying to raise children in a single parent home in other contexts, this just shows you the discrimination against them.” But that’s where this study is really interesting because no doubt there is some of that discrimination, there is some of that stigma. And again, as Christians, we understand all kinds of reasons why. But you’ll notice that this particular study goes on to explain further than you might think why having two parents in the home is functionally important. And the one thing they look at, especially with educational background, and educational achievement, is the fact that that takes time. And here’s just a simple fact of math. Two parents have twice as much time as one parent.

Furthermore, you begin to look at studies, and they just look at how families operate. And it is very interesting. It’s like National Geographic discovers the family, and they’ll look at this and say, “Well, look at this interesting unit. This is a very interesting way for human beings to arrange themselves. How does this work?” Well, here’s the thing. The math isn’t exactly right when you say, “Two parents have twice as much time as one parent.” It turns out nearly mysteriously and even as recognized by some studies two parents have more than twice the time of one parent. And a part of that is simply because, and let’s say this with respect to those who are single parents, they’re having to do the work of two parents in many ways just in terms of income and family organization and all the rest, and so there just isn’t a lot of time left over. And it does point to God’s plan. Christians understand it’s a Genesis revealed plan of the fact that God intended for children to have a mother and a father and for the distribution of responsibility, as children are being raised in the nurtured admonition of the Lord. And so it’s tempting just to say, “You do the math.” The math is done for us in this article.

But I think the bravery and courage of this particular author and this article needs to be recognized because this is in the face of the intellectual establishment and in particular the academic Left that will do everything possible to marginalize and dismiss this kind of research. And so hats off to the Hoover Institution and to the editors of the Hoover Digest for publishing this. And a sincere word of appreciation to Professor Paul E. Peterson for writing this article and working through this research.

At the conclusion of his article, Professor Peterson writes, “The gold medal goes to dual parent families, which by a wide margin contribute more to an equal opportunity society than any other factor.” Those are particularly courageous and particularly clear words: “More important than any other factor.” Once again, it’s almost as if this was part of God’s plan. And we, as Christians, understand we’re not smart enough to have figured this out on our own; this is God’s gift to us in the order of creation and in the explicit teachings of Scripture.

Part II

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What About Marriage in Rural America? Falling Marriage Rates Make It to Rural America

All right, now I want to transition to another headline. This one comes from The Washington Post. “In Rural America, More Women are Saying, ‘I Don’t.'” The subhead in the article, “Many Americans Still Imagine Rural Areas as Bastions of Traditional Families.” That’s no longer the case. Shelly Clark and Matthew M. Brooks are the reporters on this story. Professor Clark is at McGill University, Professor Brooks is at Florida State University.

And it’s very interesting how the article begins. Listen to this. “The Trump administration recently issued new guidelines for the transportation department, surprisingly prioritizing spending and infrastructure for communities with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average. In other words, communities with large traditional families.” The authors continue, “We know what you’re probably thinking; that means rural and small town America, presumably President Donald Trump’s core constituency, will disproportionately benefit from these funds. But you could very well be wrong.” 

All right, let’s just step back for a moment. First of all, many people who observe government very carefully were very surprised by this particular set of guidelines issued for the Transportation Department. We’re talking about funds used to support road projects and all the rest and infrastructure. That’s a huge amount of money. It’s hugely important. This is one of the things that government does that we all recognize because we all have to drive, and so the roads immediately get our attention. If a bridge is out, if something happens to a highway, it’s washed out, we want it fixed and we want it fixed now. And most of us don’t complain that tax money is being used to fix the bridge. But nonetheless, it is interesting that the Transportation Department guidelines that were issued by the Trump administration prioritize specific communities; communities with marriage and rates higher than the national average.

Now let me just step back for a moment and say that’s a pretty amazing development. Here you have a president and his administration saying, “We’re going to put our money where our mouth is on this. And we’re not only going to support marriage and we’re not only going to support children even having additional children, we’re going to prioritize road projects and infrastructure projects accordingly.” But the interesting aspect, the very interesting angle undertaken in this article is to ask the question, well, what about marriage in rural America? And they’re looking at a very interesting singular statistic, pun intended, of how many women in rural America are basically giving up on marriage or at least are not marrying.

Now, as Christians, let’s just forget the roads for a moment. This is far more important than a bridge. We’re looking at the very essence of human civilization by God’s own design. What in the world is going on here? Well, for one thing, we are looking at a long-term crisis that is not unique to rural America, is present throughout America of declining marriage rates. And then of course we have what we’re going to talk about later this week on The Briefing, which are catastrophically falling birth rates. But of course we recognize that they’re tied together.

The fall off on the marriage rate, particularly when you’re looking at young women, has to do with a lot of things that might be part of the causation. For one thing, young men and young women are working through societal levels towards social maturity at different rates. Let me give you one statistic that will make the fact very clear. You’re looking at some universities and colleges where the entering class is as much as 70% young women, 30% young men, we’re looking at high school graduation rates, look at college admission rates, college graduation rates. We are looking at a female surge. And the fact is sociologically that most women, and I’m speaking here sociologically, most women sociologically don’t want to marry down, which is to say a man with less education, they want to marry a man with more education. They don’t want to marry a man with lower job prospects than they see themselves as having, they want to marry a man with higher job prospects.

And this is where Christians, by the way, have to jump in and say, again, creation order is very much at stake here. The problem is a generation of young men, far too many of whom are just not advancing as they should. They’re not growing up as they should. They’re not understanding and growing into disciplines as they should. They’re not working, they’re not learning as they should. But that’s just a part of the equation.

The other thing that has really flipped the scales in the United States, it lands at a far deeper worldview level. And this has to do with so many young women buying into the idea of personal autonomy. And frankly, so much of the world inhabited by young women, and I speak of the college campuses, that’s ground zero for much of this, it’s so saturated with leftist ideologies that revolve around personal autonomy and, quite frankly, success specifically without reference to marriage and specifically without reference to children. And so we are reaping what has been sown. And it’s been quite deliberate. But nonetheless, it is very interesting to have The Washington Post run this article just stating that even as the Department of Transportation has said that, “We’re going to prioritize spending for infrastructure to regions that have higher marriage rates and higher birth rates,” that might not land where you expect.

And this is not an assault upon rural America because there are also some sociological reasons why rural America is in decline on so many of these issues. For one thing, mid-level cities have lost a lot of their industries, a lot of their jobs, the transition in the economy and the urbanization of the entire society with more people moving into cities and metropolitan areas. You look at a state like Texas or a state like Georgia and you could look at cities like Atlanta or Dallas or Austin, and you can see vast growth and young people moving to those places as if they were magnets or meccas. But that means they’re not staying in the county seat towns where they grew up and went to high school. The pattern in so many of these states is that younger people go to college and they don’t come back. And that just changes everything. We are looking at a very complex pattern here.

Frankly, it also filters down to churches in so many of these rural areas and in small communities because so many of them have few young adults precisely because the young adults have moved elsewhere. I often talk about the fact that social liberalism and secularism, they follow the patterns. I mentioned the Cs: concentrated on the campus, concentrated on the coast, concentrated on the cities. There’s more to it even than that, including corporations. When you’re looking at fewer women getting married and fewer men seeming to be qualified for marriage, you’re looking at a social phenomenon that’s devastating to a country. And there are biblical reasons why it is so devastating.

But we’re also looking at a flip side here. The headline is “In Rural America, More Women Are Saying, ‘I Don’t.’” Spectacularly surprising data is coming in telling us that in this generation of young adults 18 to 30, more young men want to get married than young women. That’s very interesting. There is a desire expressed on the part of more young men at those ages than even young women to be married.

One other factor reflected in this article and in the studies behind, it is very sad to note the decline in a marriage culture throughout much of America. That decline in the marriage culture, it came slower to rural America. But guess what. Rural America has caught the contagion. What began on the campuses, began in the cities, began on the coasts is now in the heartland. It affects red America as well as blue America. And in that sense, we should all be saddened by the understanding of what’s taking place. But it also shows the importance of Christian churches and of Christian parents. It shows the importance of Christian pastors preaching and teaching the word of God, pointing to God’s plan, affirming and explaining creation order, setting forth God’s plan for human beings as men and women, a man and a woman coming together in marriage, receiving children as God’s gift and raising those children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

The family, by the way, is the greatest engine for turning out successful adults. Again, just look at the data we’re talking about here. It also, in ways that many people don’t want to think about, becomes one of the greatest predictors of how future citizens will vote and how they will act. It turns out that the intact family also turns out to produce people who want to conserve the intact family. If you’re surprised by that, you shouldn’t be.

Part III

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A Federal District Court Judge Deems Trump’s Gender Policy ‘Biologically Inaccurate’ – Are Federal Court Judges to Instruct Us on Biology?

Well, all right, sometimes you just have to look back and wonder and say, “Well, the battle’s been joined.”

The Trump administration has handed down a raft of executive orders on the gender question making very clear that the United States government will recognize two and only two genders, the male gender and the female gender. The administration went on to define that. But the Trump administration’s gone further to specify an entire series of specific changes in policy in US departments, in colleges and in universities and different contexts related to, for instance, the prohibition of those with male bodies playing on female athletic and sporting teams, the cessation of the federal government allowing for so-called transgender treatments or gender-affirming treatments as they are wrongly called when it comes to children and minors. It’s a pretty comprehensive thing.

And all of this, of course, is going to end up in the courts. And it already has landed in one US district court, and in this case with Judge Ana C. Reyes. She was hearing a case, by the way, she was appointed as a federal judge by President Joe Biden. And she was presiding over a hearing about a call for an injunction against the Trump administration on some of these transgender policies or gender clarification policies. In this case, this judge decided she would hop right into it in a hot way. She was very clear in stating that the Trump administration says there are two and only two genders. And then the judge responded that that is, “Biologically inaccurate.” 

Now, let’s just wait just a minute. Here you have a federal district court judge declaring that the Trump administration’s policy that human beings are male and female, and she says that’s not biologically accurate. Do we need a federal district court judge to tell us about biology that’s as simple as male and female? I think not. But what this demonstrates is the fact that in our cultural division in this country, and frankly in the projection of so many of these issues into the judiciary, all these issues ended up in court, that’s going to happen again and again and again, and we’re going to have more judges like this.

By the way, Judge Reyes was very clear and pressing against the Trump administration, the Justice Department’s attorney. But basically, she said it’s biologically inaccurate to say there are only two genders, male and female. I can just tell you, this is going to be appealed. You’re going to have all kinds of courts active in this. And by the way, that is a part of the strategy of the Trump administration, which is to move so quickly on so many fronts with so many policies that the federal courts will get clogged with so many cases. And President Trump wants these issues adjudicated as quickly as possible.

But the important thing for us is to recognize that all of this is now at stake. And so you think about how important an election is and you try to weigh it in the balances. Well, just consider that in this case, we’re reminded that male and female was in the election of November 2024. And then you also recognize, okay, there’s more to it than that because who sits in the federal courts has everything to do with who’s sitting in the Oval Office. This judge who just declared male and female limitations to be biologically inaccurate was appointed by President Joe Biden. No spectacular surprise there. Again, it underlines the importance of elections and the fact that in this country right now we’re not just talking about political divisions, we’re talking about a collision of worldviews and we’re talking about the fact that virtually the most basic issues of human existence, they’re now pretty much on the headlines. You can’t get more basic than male or female.

But as you’re looking at federal judges, you also see that some of them we’re now posing as scientists. And I want to point out that’s not new. And the politicization of the courts, the pushing of so much of this into the courts, which was done primarily by the ideological Left in the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s, producing, for instance, the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, remember that in writing the majority opinion, the pro-abortion opinion of the US Supreme Court and the Roe v. Wade decision, and remember, it wasn’t incidental that Justice Blackman had been the general counsel for the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. He had a lot of medical friends. He turned to those medical authorities to define when human life begins and the realities of abortion. It was Justice Blackman who introduced into America’s cultural conversation the division of into pregnancy into trimesters in which he came up with this artificial and, frankly, absolutely deadly scheme of looking at the relative rights of the government to protect unborn life and the respective trimesters.

I just want to underline the fact that when you’re looking at the federal judiciary, these days you are looking at ground zero for many of the most important policy issues of our day. I don’t think this is what the founders of our constitutional order expected. But in a highly litigious society, this is where so many issues are going to land. That was true of abortion, not only in Roe v. Wade, but in subsequent decisions, thankfully also the Dobbs decision reversing Roe v. Wade. And so even as you’re looking at the Supreme Court of the United States dealing with the abortion issue, you understand that those justices were dealing with an issue that the founding justices of the US Supreme Court couldn’t imagine would ever come before that court. And we’re now looking to judges to have all kinds of expertise. And in the case of Judge Reyes, she evidently believes she has that expertise.

But we are looking at deeper issues here as well. You can’t get to more foundational issues than the identity of human beings as male and female. And the fact that this is now something that is going to be thrown into the federal judiciary and the argument is going to be made by not only lawyers but also doctors on both sides of the argument, it just shows you how much ideology is entered into the world around us. And so just buckle your seat belts, it’s going to be a wild ride. It’s going to be a very interesting few months and even few years ahead. Judges are going to be hearing all kinds of cases, arguments are going to be made. And honestly, we need to track them all because every one of them is going to be important. All that to say, yes, we’re in a cultural moment in which male and female make the headlines almost every single day. It’s almost as if we need to look back to the Book of Genesis for bearings. Almost.