Family Life

“I’ve seen enough black lives in ruins to know that protecting black futures starts with getting more people married. These kids just need dads around. I’ve seen fatherlessness drive so many mad with pain.” - Alton Hardy

“…while 90% of adults say that talking to their loved ones about their end-of-life wishes is important, only 27% have actually had these conversations.” - The Conversation

“Birth rates in the United States dropped during the COVID-19 pandemic amid the twin public health and economic crises, lending evidence to predictions from early on in the outbreak that economic uncertainty might trigger a baby bust.” - Pew

“Let’s face it, both marriage and child-rearing are difficult and often arduous tasks that requires more than many are willing to give in today’s hyper-individualistic world.” - Grayson Gilbert

“Annual birth rates are one tool for describing fertility, but not the only one. The Census Bureau recently released another crucial indicator: survey data on fertility history.” - IFS

“Each big anniversary of the 1996 welfare reform … sees an outpouring of retrospectives … It’s long been clear that single mothers flooded into the labor force after the reform, and that their income went up.

“Among both conservatives and progressives, there are claims that the world is getting worse and that the American family had a better standard of living, better opportunities for employment, and a simpler life forty years ago… . There are several factors that play into this perception. The first is that we suffer from … negativity bias.

“Despite all the chaos and struggles over the past year, the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic gave many parents the first-hand experience of working from home. And they like it.” - IFS

“Children in poor families tend to have better outcomes than children raised in foster homes, as I noted in a piece for Psychology Today. This is striking because when it comes to important outcomes like graduation rates, drug use, future earnings, and criminal behavior, much of our focus is on economic factors.” - IFS

5 Ways to Encourage Discouraged Parents