Family

Ryan Anderson from The Heritage Foundation gave the Wheatley Roundtable on Family Keynote Address on the importance of marriage today.

Most sex education, however well-meaning, has failed to achieve its dual purpose: 1) Promote the understanding that personal growth, development, character, relationships and sexual interaction all relate to the quality of life most people long to experience; and 2) prevent negative, harmful, self-destructive choices which undermine the quality of an adolescent’s family relationships and future opportunities.

In this Roundtable on the Family, Wheatley Fellow, Jenet Erickson Ph.D, tackles a unique perspective on children: instead of why do children need their parents, she looks at all of the positive ways parents are affected and transformed by their children.

Sir Paul Coleridge, the founder and director of the Marriage Foundation in the UK, discuss the vital role that marriage plays in society and outlines its decline in Britain.

Recent research on Millennials and young adults identified a trend that startled contemporary scholars and journalists. Findings revealed that an increasing percentage of high school seniors and young adults espouse the traditional norm of men being the primary breadwinner and women being the primary caregivers at home, a percentage that has been increasing since the mid-1990s. This rise in “traditionalism” took many by surprise, uprooting the assumption that each new generation would continually move toward a highly prized value of “gender equality,” where men and women divide professional and family work equally. For many journalists, the only explanation for such a finding was that Millennials just don’t seem to care about “gender equality” in marriage. But a more accurate analysis suggests that many Millennials just don’t adhere to the narrow definition of “gender equality” that assumes men and women are only equal if they do the same things, professionally and at home. And it is not just Millennials who appear to desire a more “traditional” approach to family life. Married mothers and fathers in America today (the parents of these Millennials) typically divide caregiving and professional work hours along traditionally gendered lines. And they do so, “because that’s what most of them want to do.”

Jenet Erickson, affiliated scholar at the Wheatley Institution, has a chat with Jason S. Carroll. They discuss gender roles between mothers and fathers, and their influence on children, common misunderstandings about motherhood and feminism, and our society's adult needs taking precedence over children's needs first.

Erika Bachiochi gives a lecture at the Wheatley Institute's 2017 Roundtable on the Family conference. Bachiochi addresses the reality of sexual asymmetry between genders and the dependency that men and women have on each other within society.

Mary Eberstadt delivers the 2017 Wheatley Roundtable on Family Keynote Address. Dr. Eberstadt discusses how we do live in a pagan time and the impact that has on the family.

Jenet Erickson, affiliated scholar of the Wheatley Institution, identifies the challenges children face in today's society, within the context of evolving and non-traditional family structures.