Family

A talk with Naomi Schaefer Riley from the Home Truth's conference that discusses raising children, the structure of childhood and balance between career and parenthood.

Jenet Erickson presents social science research outlining the distinctive contributions of mothers and fathers to children's development.

Sherif Girgis sketches the philosophy behind the conjugal view of marriage, contrasting two competing views of marriage and defending the conjugal view.

Dr. Jason Carroll, professor at Brigham Young University, offers six takeaways from the 2014 Wheatley Conference on Family.

Ryan Anderson, expert at the Heritage Foundation, defends traditional marriage, citing evidence that gender is relevant in parenthood and the dangers of redefining marriage.

The conclusion that redefining marriage will materially alter the mix of social benefits marriage provides is supported not only by sound socio-institutional theory, logic, and common sense but by experience with other changes to marriage and marriage-related expectations. Of course, no one can know the precise, long-term consequences of redefining marriage to include same-sex couples. It is simply too soon, and the ways it may affect marriage are too complex to be understood without ample time and extensive conceptual and empirical inquiry. Justice Alito recently made this point: Past changes in the understanding of marriage… have had far-reaching consequences. But the process by which such consequences come about is complex, involving the interaction of numerous factors, and tends to occur over an extended period of time. We can expect something similar to take place if same-sex marriage becomes widely accepted. The long-term consequences of this change are not now known and are unlikely to be ascertainable for some time to come.

At the center of moral philosophy in the Western tradition has been the notion that human beings should always be treated as ends in themselves, rather than as means to other ends. This principle can be found in the works of moral theorists as disparate as Aristotle, Aquinas, Maimonides, and Kant. One need only a passing acquaintance with history to see that treating people as means rather than ends has been a core feature of tyranny and oppression down through the ages. To define a person principally in terms of the functions that person can serve is to render them an interchangeable part, replaceable by any other person who can perform the same functions. The mechanical anonymity of such persons, however, provides no grounds for what everyday human beings in fact find most meaningful about each other.

In creating and delivering a public school curriculum that sought to reduce risk-taking behavior among adolescents, my colleague Chris Wallace and I sensed that the major factors in fostering or reducing destructive patterns of behavior were the beliefs, values and moral commitments of the students themselves. Although it is true there is not a one-to-one correlation between one’s beliefs and one’s behavior, the association of the two dimensions is strong. Nevertheless, we felt that to affect student behavior with a curriculum, the content could not escape examining values, beliefs and commitments—especially those related to the ethical and moral domain.

Helen Alvaré, professor at George Mason University, discusses the benefits of roles in marriage and family, rebutting trending thought against gender roles.