Young people have always probably chafed against their elders. But in Africa, a gerontocratic system was instituted, which at least frustrated the development of a hereditary elite. And we are not without elements of gerontocracy in our own society. I […]
Family
Surveying Marriage vs. Cohabitation: Not a Binary Choice Any More
I have been following the Institute for American Values, led by David Blankenhorn, and the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, led by W. Bradford Wilcox. They have been working, among other things, on the fortunes of children born […]
Living with Same Sex Marriage
Several of the Federal circuit courts have found that the Fourteenth Amendment, which became part of the Constitution in 1868, requires the states to validate same sex marriage as equal with opposite sex marriage. Of course, I think this would […]
If 65 is the New 45, is 20 the New 13?
Anna Sutherland, in, Family Studies, points out that teenagers are getting less risky in their behavior nowadays; they are drinking less alcohol, and actually having less sex, not just less unprotected sex. [In fact, the average young person today is […]
Two Theories of a Lasting Marriage
Reading the Sunday New York Times always fertilizes the imagination, for good or ill. Today they had a psychologist named Eli J. Finkel writing about how since 1965 we have been in the era of the “self-expressive marriage,” which is […]
God = Not Society and Not the Autonomous Individual
Conor Friedersdorf, fortunately declares that children do not belong to the ‘community’ or ‘society’. Actually, they don’t really belong to their parents anyway; they belong to God, and their parents are temporary stewards of them. While we cannot say it […]
Evangelicals: From ‘Mind their own Business’ to Activism
I don’t think opposition to abortion rights is ‘hating women’, but it is very true that the Evangelical Right, unlike the Catholics, came to its anti-abortion position rather late. It was Francis Schaeffer, his son Frank, and the man who […]
The Fate of Planned Parenthood: It Isn’t Just About Abortion
In the last two weeks votes were taken on whether Title X should continue to fund Planned Parenthood’s work in pregnancy prevention, prenatal care, and education. No Federal money, and to my knowledge no state money, funds Planned Parenthood’s abortion […]
Moms
Abby Wisse Schachter, in a recent Weekly Standard, unfortunately not available to non-subscribers, finds fault with both the Tiger Mom and her chief opponent on the ground that one cares about achievement, the other about following your bliss, but neither seems […]
Chinese Parenting, Part II: Why Chinese Mothers are Superior
Here is David Brooks defending the upper middle class American approach to parenting. He declares that Amy Chua sheltered her daughters from the kind of social interactions that teach us how to deal with people in the real world. In […]