Report encourages marriage and parenthood to reverse 'America's family crisis'

A new report from the Heritage Foundation has called for Americans to embrace marriage and parenthood, protect children from negative and addictive technology, and spurn hookup/porn culture.

Key Takeaways:

• The Heritage Foundation has released the first in a series of reports encouraging Americans to embrace families.

• The report proposed pro-family policies, including creating new tax credits for families, ending marriage penalties in welfare, and creating investment accounts for newborns.

• The group also encouraged Americans to spurn hookup culture and pornography, and to protect children from harmful and addictive technology/social media.

• The United States, along with many other countries, is struggling with a plummeting birth rate.

The Details:

In a press release, the Heritage Foundation announced its new initiative to help grow families, pointing out that prioritizing families is vital to the survival of the United States. The group's goal is to reverse the trend of "a low marriage rate, a low fertility rate, and an epidemic of broken homes," by analyzing what has led the nation to this point, and offering solutions to promote marriage and parenthood.

The report's summary states:

To end America’s family crisis, policymakers and civic leaders should treat restoring the family home as a matter of justice, driven by two truths. The first is that all children have a right to the affection and protection of the man and woman who created them. The second is that the ideal environment in which to exercise this right is in a loving and stable home with their married biological parents. In contrast, the default in American culture today is to put the desires of adults over the needs of children. Children are too often called to sacrifice what is due to them—the presence of their mom and dad under the same roof for the entirety of their childhood.

According to Heritage Foundation and Heritage Action for America president Dr. Kevin Roberts:

The family is the foundation of every healthy society, and, tragically, the American family is on the brink. We are dangerously close to being unable to reverse the decline. Our country will not survive if families continue to crumble at this rate.... Strong families build strong communities, churches, schools, and businesses. Without them, freedom cannot last.

The report denotes the family is the foundation of a successful society, and argues that the United States must work, therefore, to rebuild the family. What will determine the future of this country, the group opines, is the question of "What happens to a nation when its citizens largely stop having children and eschew marriage?"

READ: BLIND SPOT: UNFPA warns of ‘fertility crisis’ while insisting abortion is a ‘human right’

The Heritage Foundation offers three main initiatives:

• Stop punishing families

• Support more married families

• Restore the American dream

The report suggests potential government policies, like eliminating marriage penalties in the welfare system, $2,500 deposits into new investment accounts for newborns, a tax credit for new parents upon having a baby (including a bonus for those with three or more children), and more.

Culturally, Heritage noted that the sexual revolution of the 1960s, which separated sex from marriage and childbearing, began the decline of the family which is now a crisis. Contraception and abortion further encourage casual sex, with addiction to pornography and social media greatly exacerbating the issue.

Zoom In:

As a previous Live Action News series pointed out, rates of both marriage and childbirth have been falling in the United States.

Parenthood has been relegated to a checklist — one of many items on younger generations' list of things to accomplish in life. Baby Boomer parents who began to divorce at high rates taught their children (sometimes inadvertently) to prioritize career and financial stability over family.

Those children have since become adults, and many spurn parenthood. Gen Z in particular has been polled as placing marriage and parenthood at the bottom of their list of priorities, with things like "having a career or job you find fulfilling," "having enough money to do the things you want to do," and "achieving financial independence" all listed higher.

The number of young adults who say they never plan to have children is steadily increasing. Instead of viewing family as important, young adults want to spend their time and money on personal luxuries like dining out, vacations, and hobbies.

It doesn't help that multiple generations have been indoctrinated with the false belief that overpopulation is destroying the planet, and that they must avoid childbearing to save it.

Overpopulation: The Making of a Myth

The Bottom Line:

Marriage is associated with better mental health, financial stability, and overall happiness for adults, and research shows that children raised by their married, biological parents have better outcomes. While marriage might be making a comeback, it isn't growing sufficiently enough to save the United States from a near-future demographic crisis.