Family

We are designed for love. We’re designed to experience love eternally. This is joy. And that is grounded in family relationships, mothers, fathers, children bound together eternally. I think it’s so beautiful.

A recent article in The New Yorker investigated various AI companion websites, citing a Wheatley Institute report on how dangerous and widespread the use of romantic chatbot services is.

"There are many reasons people choose not to have children or not to get married, but false messages about happiness should not be one of them. The articles I read long ago were right that parenting (and marriage) can often be exhausting. But they ignored the sense of meaning that comes from parenthood and the connection of physical touch at the core of family life."

Magnify the Podcast featured Wheatley Family Fellow Jenet Erickson discussing findings from a recent Pew Research study on women of faith. Latter-Day Saint women were found to have very high rates of happiness and spiritual well-being, in sharp contrast to negative pop culture depictions. Pew Research concluded: "“It may be the confluence of the religious values and practices, reinforced by social ties and norms, that give religious communities their powerful effects on so many aspects of human flourishing.”

Marriage and fertility rates have reached all-time lows in the U.S. in recent years, as fewer people marry or have children. These trends are likely to continue in the future. In 2023, only 72% of 18-year-old women in the U.S. said they were likely to have children, down from 85% in the late 2000s.

Brian Willoughby, a Wheatley Institute Family Fellow, contributed an article to the Deseret News about a sharp decline in dating among young American adults. Willoughby cites financial pressures, low confidence, and shifting priorities as factors in this "disconnect from romance, dating and marriage."

Using over a decade of data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, Wheatley Fellow Dr. Samuel Wilkinson's study finds that unmarried individuals are consistently at higher risk for suicidal thoughts, plans, and attempts—and that the protective effect of marriage has grown over time, especially among those who have never married and young people have de-prioritized marriage as an important life goal.

Wheatley Distinguished Fellow Shima Baughman contributed an op-ed to Newsweek examining the decline of American trust in marriage, a trend now increasingly reflected in popular media. Baughman cites studies showing marriage rates at historic lows and an increasing public sentiment viewing marriage as old-fashioned or restrictive. But despite shifting public attitudes, marriage continues to be research-proven way to provide happiness for parents and stability for children.