The proportion of children who live with two parents has been inching upward for some time. After increasing from 67.3% to 69.4% between 2005 and 2010, the number has steadily crept upward from 69.2% in 2015 to 71.1% by the end of last year. (Photo: MoMo Productions/ Digital Vision/Getty Images)
Newly published data from the U.S. Census Bureau indicates that the proportion of American children living in two-parent families increased to 71.1% in 2023, continuing a slight upward trajectory since 2015. The numbers appear to contradict a popular narrative in the mainstream media that American society no longer aspires to establish households with a mother and father to parent children.
As noted by Nicholas Zill, a research psychologist and a senior fellow of the Institute for Family Studies, the Census Bureau data “includes children living with a birth parent and stepparent and couples who are cohabiting without being married.”
Zill goes on to observe that the proportion of children who live with two parents has been inching upward for some time. After increasing from 67.3% to 69.4% between 2005 and 2010, the number has steadily crept upward from 69.2% in 2015 to 71.1% by the end of last year. The numbers appear to contradict widely accepted narratives offered by writers at legacy media outlets like The Atlantic, The New York Times, and a number of others about the supposedly inevitable decline in two-parent family structures.
As Zill observes, “The trends reviewed here show us that those who predicted a relentless increase in family instability or single parenthood were simply wrong. There seem to be growing numbers of young adults in all racial and ethnic groups who realize the economic, educational, and emotional benefits of marriage for themselves and their future children.”
Zill further points out two recent trends that he argues could “extend the resurgence of the traditional family—the older ages at which adults embark on parenthood nowadays and the increased numbers of recent immigrants in the U.S. population. Women and men who begin having children in their 30s and 40s are more likely to marry beforehand and stay married. Likewise, recent immigrants have shown a propensity to marry before having kids and then to remain married.”
Experts are also noting how the increasing number of children living with two parents is an indication of how the stable presence of a mother and father in the home strengthens a culture of life that leads to fewer abortions.
“The [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] data on the number of children killed through an abortion shows things have gotten worse over the past few years with one exception,” Mary Szoch, director of the Center for Human Dignity at the Family Research Council, told The Washington Stand.
“Women who are married have had fewer abortions each year since 2018. The 2021 data shows that only 12.7% of women who underwent abortions were married. We know that the very best environment for a child to be raised in is one where there is a loving mother and father,” Szoch said. “Clearly, the positive impact of growing up in a two-parent household begins long before birth, and in many instances, it is the difference between life and death for a child.”
These days, when she gets ready for school, the hair will be done. Perhaps it will be a braid of some sort, perhaps it will be curled. Earrings will be selected. A light and subtle application of age-appropriate makeup usually follows. The only constant is that she will always put on a skirt.
It didn’t used to be this way. When younger, she was quite the tomboy. There were the fights over getting her hair cut short, fights she lost not because we’re that controlling, but because short hair has to be cut more frequently and we didn’t want to add monthly visits to the stylist to the calendar. The uniform was shorts or pants and a polo for school, nicer pants and tops for dressier occasions, and athletic gear for casual moments. Jewelry was a no-go, even the pearls and things that grandmothers like to give to be worn at church.
She never suffered from dysphoria. She always knew she was a girl. It bothered her how often she was mistaken for a boy, not connecting the dots between her preferred functional form of attire and how it was virtually indistinguishable from the clothing sported by little boys. She was horrified when a classmate exhorted her to “just get the surgery.” That was reading too much into the truth, which was that she just wanted to play, to roughhouse, and to get outside. Dresses and skirts didn’t lend themselves to such things.
Once puberty arrived, the interests largely remained, but the video tutorials on how to do different braids and requests for new earrings joined them. It’s also when she looked at me earnestly in the car one evening and said, “I’m glad you and Mom aren’t liberals. You would’ve tried to turn me into a boy.”
While there are people across the political spectrum who recognize the realities of biology, statistically speaking, she wasn’t necessarily wrong in her proclamation. If she’d been born to this mom, this mom, or this mom, things could have turned out much differently. Thankfully, she was born to us, and we don’t hold retrograde opinions about the imaginary relationship between preferred clothing, toys, activities, and sex.
Not everyone is so enlightened, though, instead preferring to categorize children based on rigid stereotypes about how superficial things define us as boys and girls, men and women. Countless stories, like those linked above, of parents realizing their daughter was “transgender,” start with “I knew my son [sic] was trans when…” and revolve around such stereotypical markers. She didn’t like the color pink (once hated in our house, now one of her favorites), dresses, or games associated with little girls. Ergo, she must be a boy!
All one has to do to make such a logical leap is ignore the fact that prepubescent kids are, by definition, not sexual creatures and, as such, not much thinking in terms of true masculinity and femininity. They are just thinking about what interests them, not how those interests align with or diverge from their sex. It’s misguided parents who swoop in and make those assumptions.
This viewpoint is especially incomprehensible when one realizes that tomboys have long been with us. They were once staples of literature and other entertainment, from Laura Ingalls to Jo in Little Women to Pippi Longstocking. That they enjoyed clothing or activities more typical of boys wasn’t reason to attempt to muck around with their biology, and it still isn’t reason now.
If you have a daughter, you have a daughter. Her preferred clothing and activities do not define her, particularly when she’s young. Maybe she just finds pants more comfortable or likes playing in the dirt more than playing with a Barbie. If you let her grow up as a girl, those preferences may stick or they may, as in our case, shift in more traditionally feminine ways. In either case, it is not our job as parents to guide them toward self-destruction, but toward self-fulfillment and flourishing.
Let your tomboy be a tomboy. As a father, enjoy that you can get out and do more rough-and-tumble things with her. As a mother, enjoy that she isn’t raiding your closet or makeup tray. To do otherwise, to make the destructive assumption that because she doesn’t fit a stereotype she must have been “born in the wrong body,” is to abdicate your responsibility as a parent, to punish her with pseudoscience, and to saddle her with a lifetime of legitimate suffering, not the imaginary kind that arises from preferring blue to pink.
This author is a regular Federalist contributor.
This byline marks several different individuals, granted anonymity in cases where publishing an article on The Federalist would credibly threaten close personal relationships, their safety, or their jobs. We verify the identities of those who publish anonymously with The Federalist.
NBA player Jonathan Isaac, who made headlines in 2020 when he remained standing during the national anthem even as other players kneeled, has launched an apparel company that aims to celebrate faith, family, and freedom.
“UNITUS brings people together around stylish, high-quality apparel that champions faith, family, and freedom. Together, we’re redefining greatness,” the company’s website states. “UNITUS is a movement—one that starts with U and ends with US.”
During the brand’s launch event in Orlando, Florida, on Saturday night, Isaac, who is outspoken about his Christian faith, explained that “true greatness is found in none other than Jesus Christ.” Isaac said that UNITUS has “hopes of aligning ourselves with value-aligned athletes from all sports.” He also noted that the company does not have any links to the nation of China.
Later that night, during a brief interview with TheBlaze, Isaac said that he is a “Bible-believing Christian” and noted that his actions, including “standing in the [NBA] bubble” and opting not to take the COVID-19 vaccine, have “been motivated by my desire to please Christ.”
Some of the people who showed their support by attending the UNITUS launch event included former University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines, former University of Pennsylvania swimmer Paula Scanlan, and Dr. Aaron Kheriaty, who is a fellow and director of the Program in Bioethics and American Democracy at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
Former University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas, a biological man who made waves while competing against women, tied with Gaines for fifth place in the 200 freestyle final at the NCAA Women’s Championships in 2022, according to swimmingworldmagazine.com. Gaines has been an outspoken in opposing the practice of permitting men to compete in women’s sports. Scanlan, who was on the University of Pennsylvania swim team with Thomas, has also been speaking out about the issue.
At the UNITUS event on Saturday, Gaines told TheBlaze that Isaac had previously reached out to her and expressed his support. Gaines said that she believes people desire “an alternative to put their money towards that aligns with their values” and that Isaac and UNITUS are such an alternative.
The pro-faith, family, and freedom ethos of the UNITUS brand stands in stark contrast to other major companies that promote woke agendas, such as Nike, which, for example, previously tapped transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, a man who identifies as a woman, to advertise a bra and leggings.
The UNITUS website features items for sale, including hoodies, T-shirts, sweatpants, crewnecks, a cap, a track jacket, and track shorts. Isaac noted during remarks at the launch event that the company plans to expand its offerings to include “more technical sportswear,” which involves items such as a sports bra, leggings, and men’s tank top. “This upcoming season I will be debuting the UNITUS Judah 1 basketball sneaker,” Isaac noted.
Blaze Media editor in chief Matthew Peterson also attended the company’s launch event on Saturday.
“Succeed or fail, Isaac’s Unitus is one of the most significant examples we’ve seen yet of a growing commercial-cultural movement that’s rising up throughout the nation,” Peterson said in a written statement. “Mainstream media outlets are not paying attention, but most Americans are very interested. And we’re going to ramp up our coverage of it for them.”
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From high interaction with homeschooled families and graduates in multiple environments, professional and personal, I’ve definitely noticed differences.
Homeschooling rose to 1 in 10 American kids in 2021 due to lockdowns, and the number has remained high even as lockdowns abated. Most families who began homeschooling due to lockdowns say they don’t plan to go back.
Despite the steady increase in homeschooling since its revival in the 1980s, families who choose this way of raising their children often face fearful responses from family and friends. Chief among the concerns is what people often call “socialization.” Sometimes, they mean, “Will your kids have any friends?” Other times, they mean, “Will your kids understand social cues and how to get along with normies?”
Yes, you can find homeschooling kids who dress oddly and don’t know how to carry on a basic conversation. But you can find people like that anywhere. As anyone who attended a public school can confirm, people who can’t make eye contact and are otherwise antisocial persist in that environment, too.
From high interaction with homeschooled families and graduates in multiple environments, professional and personal, I’ve definitely noticed differences. On balance, these differences tend to favor homeschoolers. Here are just seven I’ve observed that are also often obtainable in small schools.
1. Independent Thinking
It’s common for the “good” kids in public school to work hard to learn what the teacher wants and give it to her. They have a tendency to become compliers. “Just tell me what you want, and I’ll do it.”
Now, homeschooled kids often also want to please Mom and Dad, but the ability to negotiate with a parent in ways one can’t with a teacher often encourages mental independence. They have freedom to read widely and extra free time in which to develop and personalize their sense of self. They also tend to get more long conversations with their parents because of homeschooling’s extremely small class sizes.
All these cultivate independent habits of thought. They teach people to develop their interests and personalities, and to follow arguments all the way to their conclusions. These things also teach students to spend time comparing and contrasting ideas for real, in a way that shapes one’s soul for life, not as a human version of ChatGPT.
Homeschoolers are also used to being unusual. They’re used to being asked questions like, “Do you have any friends?” and given the cold shoulder by public-school kids at events like sports and family gatherings.
Sometimes this turns a homeschooled kid desperate and makes him more peer-dependent, especially if he’s a sociable child and doesn’t spend enough time with friends. So he’s desperate for friends and therefore works overly hard to conform to negative peer pressure. I’ve seen this also with conservative kids. They accept peers’ or culture’s shaming and rejection of their social differences and therefore can more easily turn into antagonists against their own group.
Thus we have entities like Homeschoolers Anonymous, which argues that because some homeschooling families are abusive, homeschooling rather than the family is the problem. (You don’t hear that same argument about public schooling, which has a far higher rate of child abuse than homeschooling does. But I digress.)
If parents observe and address these social dynamics, mostly by helping their children find friends who build them up instead of savage their family’s choices, homeschoolers do tend to emerge into adulthood as independent thinkers. They tend to be quite comfortable with nonconformity, bringing new perspectives into their communities. This strengthens our society, especially now, as political correctness is metastasizing into a totalitarian social credit system.
2. More Practice with Multi-Age Relationships
Since they are so strongly family-oriented, homeschoolers break out of our society’s artificial, factory-school model of corralling people with those who happen to be born in the same calendar year. Homeschooled kids are far more comfortable making friends with anyone, not just those their exact same age.
They drop by for tea at the old lady’s down the block (true story). Bigger kids play comfortably with babies and toddlers. They know how because they have little siblings and cousins they are around more often because they’re not in school all day. This makes many homeschoolers even more socially capable than peers who falsely believe that one can only be friends with a person who looks and acts just like them. It expands their horizons and their relationship skills.
Freedom from same-age exclusivity has academic benefits as well as social benefits. Everyone understands that no person is exactly mentally on track with every other person his age. An 8-year-old may be strong in math but weak in spelling, compared to those of his age. Homeschooling allows the flexibility to meet children academically outside of the “average” peer.
Being too far ahead of one’s class makes bright kids bored, and being too far behind his class makes struggling students despair. Teaching right at a person’s actual level instead of his artificially imposed level is the most effective instruction possible.
3. More Prosocial Habits and Expectations
For decades, parents have moved to the suburbs to raise their kids because they didn’t want their children in environments shaped by poverty. As Thomas Sowell and others have chronicled, America’s urban and rural poor share many antisocial behaviors that keep them down and drag others with them. These include higher rates of violence and nonmarital sex and other coarse and life-damaging behavior such as openly disrespecting authority.
Homeschooling takes the protection of moving to the suburbs a step further. That’s an increasingly prudent step as our entire culture seems hell-bent on downward mobility.
Simply the widespread adoption of smartphones for children immediately degrades entire social ecosystems such as schools, because children are too immature to handle attention-destroying notifications and open internet access. Ten-year-old girls don’t need to see pornographic drawings and get propositioned to join a threesome because their badly parented peers watch YouTube videos of lesbian sex (true stories — from the suburbs).
In an environment like this, sometimes the only possible way to ensure your child actually has a childhood is to homeschool. It would be better if our society decided to protect children from living in social cesspools like this, but most of our parents and institutions have so far refused. That leaves it up to sane parents and churches. Homeschooling is one way to allow children an innocent childhood so they encounter this world’s violence and sex when they are ready.
4. Better Ability to Choose Friends
It’s always been prudent to select one’s companions carefully. Friends strongly affect who you are. Families who pay $50,000 a year for so-called “elite” private schools and then send their children to morally bankrupt Ivies know this. Their values are degraded, but the underlying impetus is correct: One’s companions can determine the course of one’s entire life. This is true for adults and even more so for children.
The thing about public school is that anyone can and does go there. We don’t live in the 1950s, when one could more reliably count on both the average parent and most institutions to be sane and responsible.
Today’s average parent is checked out and lets his kids be mentored by creepy strangers on the internet and other kids who are mentored by creepy strangers on the internet. Today’s average institution is run by apathetic box-checkers whose lack of moral fiber tends to let antisocial people and woke inmates turn everything into an asylum.
This means parents today can’t count on most other people to encourage their families toward the good. Sending children to public school (and allowing them unsupervised internet access) not only prevents parents from carefully selecting their children’s major influences but also ensures their impressionable children will repeatedly encounter sick perversions they are too immature to handle.
Homeschooling (and private schooling) families have far greater control over their companions than do those who allow our degraded public square to mess with their kids’ minds, and therefore can more intentionally manage this key determinant of a family’s character.
5. Better Family Relationships
A complaint I often hear about homeschooling that unintentionally reveals its speaker’s lack of character is: “I just couldn’t be with my kids all day long!” Parents shouldn’t avoid helping their kids mature by farming out their parenting to others. Others don’t do as good a job of it as parents will. It’s also an abdication of their responsibility that has bad consequences for them, their children, their community, and all of society.
Yes, children are annoying. Every person is annoying sometimes. Mature adults realize we’re also annoying sometimes and that a currently annoying person will usually get over it. This isn’t a children problem, it’s a people problem.
Yes, children can be more directly annoying than adults because they are more actively driven by their passions. That’s one top characteristic of immaturity. Yet kids’ natural immaturity isn’t worse because it’s more obvious than most adults’.
When an adult seeks arousal, he might use internet porn, blast loud music in public spaces, or zone out on a video game. A child seeking arousal might wander around whistling or run in circles around the kitchen. He might bang the same song on the piano 20 times a day or tease his sister 30 times just to get a reaction (guess how I came up with these examples).
But Jordan Peterson is right that kids are mostly as annoying as their parents allow them to be. Some parents allow their children to maintain habits of complaining, whining, arguing with parents when they say no, teasing siblings, or fighting. Other parents build and enforce appropriate behavior boundaries in their family life.
By putting family members in more constant direct contact with each other, homeschooling gives parents increased opportunities for character building and habit formation. If parents do this work, it definitely pays off. It also tends to pay off both short- and long-term.
Children who are required by active parents to daily practice self-discipline tend to become better adults — better fellow citizens, better parents, better neighbors, mothers, and fathers. Unlike unparented children, they are also mostly a pleasure to be around — just like adults.
6. More Creative Hobbies and Entrepreneurial Instincts
Because they don’t have to waste so much time being controlled as part of a herd in large classes and schools, homeschoolers tend to have a lot more free time that they don’t spend watching TV. This makes homeschoolers extremely creative and active people, on average, which lends itself to entrepreneurial instincts.
With all the free time they gain from not having to move at a pace constrained by 22 other people, homeschoolers tend to develop strong hobbies and skills. The average homeschooler is involved in more than five community activities such as piano lessons, scouts, and karate, and is more likely to volunteer than public-schooled kids, according to studies.
Cultivating personal interests is not only good in itself, but it also leads to other goods, such as a penchant for social and economic entrepreneurship. Homeschooled students are used to being self-directed and managing their own time and interests. That makes them more likely to develop their own creative pursuits and I think explains why there are so many homeschooling families running high-traffic channels on YouTube.
7. A More Individual Personality
Some combination of the high personalization and high control of one’s time in homeschooling, as well as the lack of personality flattening that comes from harsh peer pressure, seems to make homeschoolers often very much more developed individuals. This reality is a bit ineffable, partly because it’s so varied in its expression.
While most people seem to come out of public schools slotted into some mass marketing consumer profile — punk, valedictorian, LGBT, SJW, jock, geek, nerd, or some other role defined and assigned by corporate conglomerates — homeschoolers tend not to fit into these kinds of boxes very easily.
Partly I think it’s because they have less awareness that these boxes even exist, because of their lower exposure to mass media through both screens and peers. Partly I think it arises out of their years of freedom to deeply explore nooks and crannies of human existence that aren’t part of mass culture, like Victorian clothing, historical re-enactment replicas, or Scottish literature.
Sometimes this reality manifests in slight oddities, like wearing nonstandard clothing, taking longer pauses in a conversation (or being more likely to monologue at people), knowing swing and folk dance steps, and not getting pop culture references. But I prefer these kinds of oddities to encountering a bearded man in a dress or to hearing some crappy song blare out of someone’s speakers that sounds essentially like every other crappy song that has blared out of speakers since the 1960s.
This also makes homeschoolers really interesting people to talk to. They have actual interests in their lives and unusual ways of seeing the world because more of their ideas haven’t come to them via the dreary mass marketing that in our society badly substitutes for legitimate culture. So no, often homeschoolers don’t act like zombies who download their brains from the corporate cloud, but that’s a good thing.
Those conservatives who want to shape the nascent pro-family movement emerging on the right must be willing to embrace a controversial — and countercultural — reality: Healthy families require strong, stable, and secure men. That means Republicans interested in crafting pro-family policy must focus on the well-being of America’s boys and men.
Democrats have spent decades supporting policies that make men and fathers economically and socially obsolete. They’ve promoted the notion that families and societies flourish when women are empowered, even to the detriment of men. For instance, they see the fact that women outnumber men in the college-educated labor force as a win for gender equality.
It’s not all progress, however, from the perspective of modern feminists. So-called access to abortion, a major plank in the women’s empowerment agenda, was dealt a serious blow when the Supreme Court’s Dobbsv. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision struck down Roe v. Wade and returned the issue of abortion to the states.
This seismic shift, combined with the economic challenges brought on by Covid-19 shutdowns and parental discontent with public schools, has opened the door for some conservatives to seek to rebrand Republicans as the party of families.
The initial push for this political pivot came from Republicans in the U.S. Senate. The most recent iteration of Utah Sen. Mitt Romney’s proposed Family Security Act would provide between $250 and $350 a month per child, based on age. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s Provide for Life Act would expand the child tax credit, enable parental leave, expand support for pro-life crisis pregnancy centers, and fund mentoring services for low-income mothers. Conservative social commentators have also made the case that limited government and support for families are compatible policy goals.
Whatever the merits of these efforts, the success of pro-family policies will depend on more than bipartisan support in Congress. The social and economic outcomes conservatives want to see must start with the understanding that men and women are not generic, interchangeable parts in the machinery of family life.
Recognizing Roles
Men have played the role of provider throughout human history, though in recent decades that role has been shared. Still, no culture teaches that it’s a woman’s responsibility to take care of an adult male and the children they have together. This is why women generally seek men who earn more than they do. One analysis of U.S. Census data found that female physicians married men in the same field. Male doctors, however, often married nurses and teachers.
This is not an argument against women in the workplace. It’s an appeal for conservatives to recognize that disregarding the natural order in the name of “women’s empowerment,” whether through public policy or cultural norms, will make it harder for Americans to form strong, stable families.
Conservative politicians and pundits need to become comfortable talking about what boys and men need in terms of education, economic opportunity, religion, social norms, and relationships.
Their political speeches, op-eds, and podcast appearances need a renewed emphasis on vocational education that is aspirational, not framed in terms of a fallback option for young men who are unable — or unwilling — to attend college. Conservatives need to speak with a similar sense of clarity and concern when it comes to men, sex, and family formation.
Every conservative bill, statute, policy, or regulation that directly affects families should include some version of the following statements:
Children have a right to the love and support of the man and woman who created them.
The ideal family structure for every child is to be raised by his or her married biological parents in a stable and loving home.
Men, not the state, are ultimately responsible for the children they father.
These self-evident truths should function as the “iron triangle” of social conservatism. Men need something they are willing to both live and die for. The responsibilities that come with a family give them both.
Critics on the left — as well as some on the right — will undoubtedly accuse conservatives focusing on men of promoting a regressive return to the rigid sex roles of the 1950s. What they fail to realize is that the sexual revolution and 60 years of liberal social policy did not destroy patriarchy — they distorted it by minimizing the importance of men while maximizing the influence male-dominated institutions have in every area of American family life.
Different Forms of Patriarchy
“Bureaucratic patriarchy” was introduced through the war on poverty’s expansion of the welfare state and policy incentives that provided aid and basic necessities for unmarried mothers. It has grown because of the symbiotic relationship between elected officials seeking votes, social service administrators overseeing the poverty economy, and single mothers who need financial support.
Conservatives have a hard time criticizing “corporate patriarchy,” by contrast, because it promotes financial independence for women and exploits conservative deference to the private sector. A recent video from the pro-life organization Live Action satirizes an unfortunate reality brought about by the right’s allegiance to corporations: Many businesses would rather fund abortions than paid maternity leave for their female employees. Perhaps business executives are simply taking cues from Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who said, “eliminating the right of women to make decisions about when and whether to have children would have very damaging effects on the economy and would set women back decades.”
The advent of “trans patriarchy” further complicates the pro-life, pro-family movement because men who believe they are women are committed to erasing biological sex altogether. In addition to attacking the foundation of human existence itself, this deformed version of patriarchy also seeks to usurp the family’s role as the primary shaper of children’s values.
Many conservatives fail to see how the daycare-to-demisexual pipeline was built over time by politicians increasing funding for childcare and schools, corporations offering generous benefits in exchange for employee loyalty, and gender ideologues who want access to shape the next generation of children.
The actors involved in all three deformed patriarchies are cruel taskmasters because they take a utilitarian view of women and children. A man who accepts his God-given responsibilities has a completely different orientation toward his family. His relationship with his wife is a covenant, not a contract. His children are the fruit of that union and the linchpin to multi-generational prosperity. They’re not mere “consequences” of sex and burdens to be overcome for the sake of economic productivity.
In a sense, some form of patriarchy is inevitable. The question conservative policymakers need to answer is which form they believe produces the best outcomes for men, women, and children. This is why clear thinking about families must be preceded by honest reflection on the different natures of men and women and how they can be harnessed to fortify American households. That is why now is the perfect time for conservatives to lean into the connection between strong men and stable families.
Delano Squires is a research fellow in the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Life, Religion, and Family at The Heritage Foundation. Follow him on Twitter @DelanoSquires.
It seems like every time I turn around, an editor assigns me a story related to the mental health crises of our children. Most of the health experts I speak to correlate Covid lockdowns and our children’s fragile state. Closing schools played a major role in this phenomenon, but what if other crucial factors are being overlooked?
Another story, seemingly unrelated to the mental health crisis, is making the rounds in the corporate press. Church attendance is on a rapid decline. The “nones,” survey respondents who say they have no religious affiliation, are the fastest-growing group in the United States every year. We now have a generation of adults that grew up not attending worship services weekly, and they are raising their children in a similar fashion.
The “nones” seem to prefer a parenting style that says: “We’re fine without church and worship and religious instruction and institutions, thank you very much.” But they are not fine. Their children are not coping and managing the day-to-day stresses and inconveniences thrown at them. They are fragile and increasingly so.
The “nones” will tell you it is because we need to better embrace children’s differences and preferences (like their pronouns) while empowering them with positive affirmations and encouraging personal acceptance through self-esteem workshops. We clutter their calendars with sports, theater, STEM clubs, and dance classes. If none of that pans out, we allow our kids to self-medicate with hours spent on social media.
Parents will do all of this, but won’t take their families to church. Yet research shows that children who attend weekly worship services have higher GPAs, score higher on standardized tests, and are less likely to be held back a grade. They also are more likely to achieve a bachelor’s degree in college.
So why aren’t parents taking their children to weekly worship?
When surveyed, parents often respond that their children and teens do not want to attend worship. This democratic approach to family decision-making only seems to apply to church attendance, however. For other important decisions like wearing a seatbelt or vaccinations, parents balk at giving their children voting privileges. A child’s vote carries more weight when it aligns with a parent’s desire to stay home in pajamas on a Sunday morning.
Why should church attendance be considered a powerful tool for parents to boost their children’s mental health? We can look to the research for the answer.
In a 2018 study, Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health found some surprising benefits to children and adolescents who attend weekly worship. It turns out that children and teens who attend church grow up to be young adults with higher rates of reported happiness and life satisfaction. They were less likely to suffer from anxiety and depression, less likely to use illicit drugs, and less likely to engage in early sex and contract sexually transmitted infections.
In addition, these same young adults were more likely to embrace volunteering and reported feeling a sense of mission and purpose than their non-church-attending counterparts.
With all of these positive outcomes for children who attend weekly worship, should we be surprised that children who do not have a similar structure in their lives experience an inverse phenomenon? Is it any wonder that anxiety and depression among children and teens are on the rise when every day, their still-forming brains are bombarded with information about doom and destruction while they drown in a sea of gender confusion and racial animus?
We think we can combat all the negativity by telling children: “You are perfect! You are awesome! You keep being you!” We put these pithy platitudes on T-shirts and backpacks and stickers with unicorns and rainbows. At the end of a bad day, our kids know that this is no substitute for the real deal.
Each of us knows these sentiments are superficial. We are poor, miserable sinners in need of forgiveness. Where do we go with all our baggage when the church is not an option? We go to therapists and pharmacists, but trends show that the last place parents want to go is the place actually offering a solution.
What could families find at church that they won’t find anywhere else? Hopefully, something that is woefully lacking in the world around them: the truth.
Newsflash, kids! You are not perfect! You know that mean thing you did to your classmate in the cafeteria? That was a sin. And that nasty thought you had about that person? That was a sin. And the snide comment you made to your mom when you were hangry? Yep. Are you starting to see a pattern here?
Good news: you’ve come to the right place! Jesus came for sinners. As a matter of fact, the church is filled with them. Each week, they come to hear the message that even though we are sinful human beings, Jesus died for those sins. When we confess those nasty thoughts and horrible things we did, we can receive forgiveness — a clean slate!
Will we mess up again on Monday? Of course. But that’s why we can look forward to church. Can we try harder to be better people? Kinder people? Yes, we can. Does our forgiveness depend upon what we do and how we perform each week? Nope. You are forgiven because God loves you that much, so much that he sent his son to take the punishment that should have been yours and mine.
Imagine what a burden could be lifted from our children if they had a place to go each week that offered them that grace. How much better could they cope with a bad day, knowing that each moment offers a fresh start? How much more resilient could our children become?
Parents, we put our children at a disadvantage when we do not give them the very thing they need for their mental and spiritual health. It is time to put a new priority on the family calendar every Sunday. If we won’t do it for ourselves (and we should), let’s do it for our children. The next generation depends on it.
Mary Rose Kulczak is a writer for various parent and child publications. She is a wife and mother of three sons, and currently resides in Saline, Michigan.
No matter how you define “marriage,” there is zero respect for it in the so-called Respect for Marriage Act. You may believe it serves to federally codify the Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision that rejected marriage as a male-female union. Maybe it would do so temporarily. But that’s not the endgame.
If you’re paying attention, you can see that the Senate’s recent 62-37 vote for cloture on HR 8404 puts us one step closer to abolishing state recognition of marriage entirely. That’s where this train is headed.
This will happen the same way such things always happen — through a demonization campaign that frames skeptics as bigots who are guilty of discrimination. That’s how you get Democrat-pliable Republicans such as Mitt Romney and craven Supreme Court justices like Anthony Kennedy to sign on. That’s how you manufacture a public opinion cascade, warning average Americans that they’ll be pummeled with lawsuits and ostracism if they dare think out loud.
And that’s how Democrats in Congress are likely in the not-too-distant future — via HR 8404 — to make the case that marriage actually comes with privileges that discriminate against the unmarried. Disagree? You’re a bigot who deserves to be socially ostracized! Self-censorship in the face of such accusations will pave the way, as always.
Collectivists Hope to Destroy Private Life and Regulate Relationships
Once they’ve gotten to that point via HR 8404 and Republicans who supported the measure, congressional Democrats will doubtless push us to agree that marriage is a discriminatory institution. We’ll start seeing more anti-marriage initiatives supported by singles, millennials, Julias, and gen Z, all well-groomed for the moment by teacher’s unions, academia, and media.
They’ll fall for the pitch that we can all just write up domestic partnership contracts instead. “Marriage” would then become nothing but a legal relationship (a contract) between two (or more) people for any purpose at all. Bureaucrats would broker those contracts. This proposal is all mapped out in Sunstein and Thaler’s 2008 book “Nudge.” It’s also been promoted for decades by internationally acclaimed feminist legal scholar Martha Fineman who writes that a system of contracts replacing marriage will help the state “regulate all social interactions.”
Under a system that abolishes state recognition of marriage, the family could no longer exist autonomously or unmolested by the state. How could it if the state no longer recognizes marriage as the foundation of the family unit? The government would have no requirement to recognize religious rites of marriage as valid. Thus, it would meddle more deeply in religion and religious communities that recognize bonds of kinship through blood ties.
We Become Atomized Individuals in the State’s Eyes
The atomization resulting from this will have repercussions that go beyond the bill’s guarantee to treat any difference of opinion as a federal crime. If we continue on this path, the government will no longer have to recognize any biological relationships. It need not recognize any legal right you might have as the parent of your biological child. Why should it? It would have already abolished its recognition of the union that produced the child.
Some of this process has already been completed through gender-neutral language in documents like passports, birth certificates, or the rules of the 117th Congress that do not recognize the words “mother,” “father,” “son,” or “daughter.”
Much groundwork has also been laid by surrogacy and abortion laws that treat children as chattel to buy, sell, and dispose of at will. And why would the state have to recognize any other relationships resulting from marriage if it no longer recognizes marriage? It could ignore your blood relationships to brother, sister, aunt, uncle, or any familial bond. In this scenario, you’d likely need a license to raise your own child, an old communist goal that the so-called Respect for Marriage Act conjures up.
When all there is are bureaucratized domestic partnership arrangements, the government would no longer need to recognize spousal privilege and thereby could legally coerce spouses to testify against one another in court. It could also abolish the default path of survivorship through which your inheritance goes to your spouse or next of kin. Instead, the state would be free to redistribute your nest egg at will in its great bureaucratic wisdom.
Indeed, there is no reason to doubt that the Respect for Marriage Act serves as a midwife to the radical left’s long-held goal of abolishing state recognition of marriage. It will allow the government to regulate our relationships, rendering each of us naked before its power.
We are each being set up for a pre-arranged marriage with Big Government operating as our abusive spouse.
Such Atomization Is a Totalitarian Necessity
The path to human atomization is the natural arc of all totalitarian systems in the making. They must always first isolate people in order to control them through terror, as Hannah Arendt noted in her work “The Origins of Totalitarianism.” Tyrants always mask their intentions by borrowing from tradition, using words like “respect for marriage,” “love,” or “equality” as they march us all into virtual solitary confinement.
There’s nothing new about this trajectory. It’s a long-standing vision of all totalitarian systems, which first came into the open with the Communist Manifesto’s proclamation, “Abolish the family!” Communists referred to traditional religion as “the opiate of the people” while setting up communism as a pseudo-religion that demanded unquestioning loyalty. The resulting dependency then truly becomes the fentanyl of the people.
Such deceptions are why Schumer and company talk about marriage as though the government has some sort of litmus test for “love.” But anyone with half a brain knows that love’s got nothing to do with a functioning state’s interest in marriage. Marriage is an institution that exists to allow for a structured society and for the protection of children.
Of course, we easily forget such facts while living in a nation that increasingly promotes infanticide, assisted suicide, recreational drug use, child pornography, and other ways to torture and kill our children. In fact, virtually all of their policy positions are tailor-made for family breakdown, community breakdown, and for hostility toward religious communities.
But maybe you like feeling lonely and alienated, like the idea of a childless and hopeless future, and are all for the state regulating your personal relationships and conversations. Well, then, you’ll like the “Respect” for Marriage Act.
But the destruction of bonds of affection and loyalty in the private spheres of life makes sense from the point of view of statists. Those loyalties get in the way of their ambitions for power and social engineering. They are invested in isolating us so that we become dependent upon them.
Stella Morabito is a senior contributor at The Federalist. She is author of “The Weaponization of Loneliness: How Tyrants Stoke Our Fear of Isolation to Silence, Divide, and Conquer.” Her essays have appeared in various publications, including the Washington Examiner, American Greatness, Townhall, Public Discourse, and The Human Life Review. In her previous work as an intelligence analyst, Morabito focused on various aspects of Russian and Soviet politics, including communist media and propaganda. Follow Stella on Twitter.
First lady Jill Biden revealed the 2021 White House Christmas decorations on Monday, and the State Dining Room was adorned with stockings above the mantel. But there was one blatant problem with the decor.
According to Daily Mail reporter Emily Goodin, the stockings were meant to represent the Bidens’ grandchildren, with each one having the name of a different grandchild.
Trees in state dining room decorated with old photos of first families. Stockings on fireplace have names of Biden grandkids pic.twitter.com/pkFjrAPyhy
However, Twitter users quickly noticed a glaring omission from the mantle. Only six stockings hung above the fireplace despite the fact that President Joe Biden has seven grandchildren.
According to Marie Claire, Biden has three granddaughters from his son Hunter: Naomi, Finnegan and Maisy.
He has two more grandchildren from his late son, Beau: Natalie and Robert, who goes by Hunter after his uncle.
So who is Biden’s seventh grandchild? That would be Hunter Biden’s son with adult entertainer Lunden Alexis Roberts. The boy was born in 2018 and Hunter was proven to be the father in 2020, according to Marie Claire.
So that makes a total of seven grandchildren, one more than the number of stockings on the mantle.
Multiple people pointed out the omission on Twitter, including reporter Amber Athey of The Spectator.
Despite this seemingly obvious exclusion, the establishment media refused to report on it. (At The Western Journal, we fight to bring you the news other outlets will not. You can support us in the fight for truth by subscribing.)
Many social media users also speculated that Hunter Biden’s child with Roberts was the one grandchild who was left out.
In the photo above, some letters can be seen on the stockings. The beginnings of the names “Naomi,” “Finnegan” and “Natalie” appear to be written.
Since all the names cannot be seen, it is hard to confirm that Roberts’ child is the one left out. However, that does not make the Biden family look much better.
If the family left out Hunter’s son with Roberts, they were essentially ignoring him because they view him as an embarrassment. If it was a different grandchild who was left out, the family simply forgot one of their grandchildren.
Trees in state dining room decorated with old photos of first families. Stockings on fireplace have names of Biden grandkids pic.twitter.com/pkFjrAPyhy
Grant is a graduate of Virginia Tech with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. He has five years of writing experience with various outlets and enjoys covering politics and sports.
Republican senators warned this week that the U.S. House of Representatives’ $3.5 trillion budget bill championed by congressional Democrats creates “harmful penalties for marriage”that will make families more dependent on the federal government.
In a Thursday letter to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, 35 Republican senators, led by Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, expressed their concerns about the package.
“We were disappointed to learn that in some instances the House of Representatives’ reconciliation bill creates harmful penalties for marriage,” they wrote. “Discouraging marriage is not in our country’s best interest and sends the wrong message to our families.”
In August, the House passed a $3.5 trillion budget resolution that expands social safety net programs, including childcare, free community college, paid leave and programs that combat climate change. Meanwhile, the Senate passed a $1.2 trillion infrastructure package. On Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., delayed voting on the Senate’s $1.2 trillion even though moderates sought a vote. President Joe Biden signed a continuing resolution to avoid a government shutdown and give Congress nine more weeks to negotiate 2022 appropriations bills.
The Republican senators defined a marriage penalty as “when a household’s overall tax bill increases due to a couple marrying and filing taxes jointly.” They also mentioned that federal programs such as Medicaid, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and Section 8 housing reduce or eliminate benefits when a couple gets married.
“Federal policy should be designed to foster strong marriages, which are the foundation of strong families and strong communities,” the letter added. “Unfortunately, despite its original rollout as part of the ‘American Families Plan,’ the current draft of the reconciliation bill takes an existing marriage penalty in the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and makes it significantly worse.”
The senators provided an example of how the reconciliation bill penalizes married couples.
“For example, a couple in 2019 with two children where one parent earns $12,000 and the other $30,000 could pay $1,578 more in taxes — or nearly 4% of their yearly earnings,” the senators argued.
“The reconciliation bill could make the same family significantly worse off. It could nearly double the marriage penalty, costing the same parents $2,713 if they choose to marry.”
The lawmakers concluded that because “marriage is a vital social good,” it is “misguided and unfair for the government to build bigger barriers for couples to marry.”
The letter comes as the marriage rate in the United States has hit a new low. According to the Institute for Family Studies, 33 out of every 1,000 unmarried adults in 2019 got married. By contrast, that figure stood at 35 out of 1,000 in 2010 and a much higher 86 per 1,000 in 1970.
Republicans have consistently argued that federal programs have had an impact on the marriage rate. Last year, Republicans on the U.S. Senate Joint Economic Committee published a report titled “The Demise of the Happy Two-Parent Home,” which attributes the decline in marriages to the increased availability and use of federal welfare programs.
“Public ‘anti-poverty’ programs often exacerbated the problem of family instability by making single parenthood a more viable option and by discouraging marriage among those receiving benefits,” the report stated. “A safety net marginally reduces the costs of single parenthood, nonmarital childbearing, and divorce. It also can create a significant tax on marriage because the addition of a spouse with income typically reduces safety net benefits, and if he has only modest earnings or unsteady employment, the trade-off may not be worthwhile.”
The report argued that through the safety net, “a single mother can achieve about two-thirds of the standard of living she could get from marrying a sole breadwinner at that compensation level.”
“The safety net would put her about one-third higher, with no additional income, than the 10th percentile of male compensation,” the report reads.
Additionally, the report explained that “children raised by married parents do better on an array of outcomes.” Specifically, they have “stronger relationships with their parents, particularly with their fathers,” are “much less likely to experience physical, emotional, or sexual abuse” or “engage in delinquent behavior,” have “better health … and exhibit less aggression.”
Increased educational attainment and higher wages as adults, and a lower likelihood of living in poverty were also cited as benefits enjoyed by children of married couples.
The report provided empirical evidence attempting to demonstrate that the expansion of the social safety net in the 1960s led to a drop in the number of married people and the number of children born to unwed parents. Data found that the share of married American women dropped from 71% in 1962 to 42% in 2019. The percentage of children born to unmarried mothers rose from 5% in 1960 to 40% in 2019.
While the share of American children living in two-parent households has declined dramatically since the 1960s, one recent study from the Institute for Family Studies showed that the phenomenon of increased illegitimacy may have begun to reverse itself. The study found that in 2020, 70.4% of children under 18 lived with both parents, a slight increase from 69.1% in 2000 and 69.4% in 2010. At the same time, the percentage of American children residing in two-parent households remains far below the 87.7% recorded in 1960.
My parents and in-laws haven’t seen their grandkids in nearly a year. Because we live states apart, the most time we spend together is during the holidays and a week in the summer. Due to the lockdown this year, the grandparents have only been able to see our kids during video calls.
It could be worse; some dear friends of ours buried a parent during the lockdown with no guests or funeral, and the grandchildren had to stay away. Family bonds do more than just unite people with the same origin or name, however. Those bonds hold us up and together during times of struggle and grief.
These painful life events can shape our perspectives for the remainder of our time on Earth. I learned a lot about dealing with grief when I attended family funerals growing up. When my grandmother passed away years ago, my cousins and I stood solemnly together as we watched our aunts and uncles say their final graveside goodbyes.
When our uncles walked my grandpa to her casket, we witnessed this quiet, strong man cry for the first time in our lives. I would not have been able to watch it without the rest of my family there. He didn’t just cry; his sobs shook his thin, 6’3” frame and threw him off balance. He leaned on the casket to help support his weight, and we gave him a moment before swarming him for comfort.
The sight was a shock that swept us into a new reality: We, the grandkids, wouldn’t be “the grandkids” in our family’s hierarchy much longer. Each generation took one step up that imaginary staircase with the death of our grandparents. Our kids assumed the step below us where we once stood. The presence of family makes that meeting with mortality easier to process.
I had just given birth to my second child when my grandfather passed away, living long enough to learn that his second great-grandson was on this Earth, miles away from him, but healthy. I didn’t get to attend his funeral because it was too soon after childbirth, the day I brought my baby home.
That night, I rocked my son to sleep in the solitude and darkness of his nursery and cried until there was nothing left in my soul to expend. That heavy sort of grief is meant to be borne by more than one. It took a long while to get past that.
Lockdowns Have Caused Immense Harm
That’s the closest experience I have to compare when I read about grief during lockdowns. This is why my heart truly breaks over stories from others who were forced by lockdowns and restrictions to endure this with their loved ones.
The emotional dam of a non-political, grief-stricken friend burst forth on Facebook after she read about politicians defending protest gatherings while she and her sister had to bury their father alone, just themselves, on a cold, clear March day earlier this year. The pain seems endless, and the lockdowns have predictably caused immense unintended consequences:
Depression rates for every age demographic have tripled.
Sixty percent of small businesses that closed during the last lockdown will not reopen, and others barely hanging on are giving up.
Even though schools aren’t superspreaders and medical professionals have been telling districts to reopen, many haven’t. New York City just closed its schools again.
Deaths from non-coronavirus health issues have climbed since the start of the last lockdown as people don’t seek medical care for treatable illnesses. The lockdown could kill more than the virus.
‘Experts’ Have Given Us Every Reason Not to Trust Them
Later, Fauci admitted he lied when he told people masks weren’t essential. Politicians and “experts” shouldn’t be surprised when their actions like these make reasonable people lose faith in their leadership and unwilling to follow their rules.
Many of us comforted ourselves through the dark, lonely spring and desolate summer with visions of family gatherings over the holidays. Now we’re told to skip those too or just have a “virtual Thanksgiving.” If you can’t do that, limit guests, make everyone wear masks, stay away from each other, and have everyone bring their own food — unless your name rhymes with Schmavin Twosome, that is:
California Medical Association officials were among the guests seated next to Gov. Gavin Newsom at a top California political operative’s opulent birthday dinner at the French Laundry restaurant this month.
CEO Dustin Corcoran and top CMA lobbyist Janus Norman both joined the dinner at the French Laundry, an elite Napa fine dining restaurant, to celebrate the 50th birthday of lobbyist and longtime Newsom adviser Jason Kinney, a representative of the powerful interest group confirmed Wednesday morning.
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker dodged a reporter’s question about his family’s Thanksgiving plans — they traveled to their second home in Florida — and it made the rounds on social media. Pritzker had to return to do damage control: “I was taken aback by yesterday’s question about my family’s holiday plans, in part because my wife and I were in the process of making the very hard decision that we may need to celebrate Thanksgiving apart from one another for the first time ever, and it was weighing heavily on my mind.”
He was “taken aback” that reporters, during a press conference about COVID-19 Thanksgiving plans, asked him if he was going to follow his own lockdown orders — especially knowing that Pritzker’s wife violated the last lockdown by fleeing to their multimillion-dollar equestrian estate in Florida?
We would be fined for this, but these Democratic governors are exempt from coronavirus and lockdown concerns, apparently. It’s not just governors, however. Don’t forget House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the shuttered salon.
Before her was Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot and her lockdown salon trip. Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser locked down residents while she attended Biden rallies. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo refused to wear a mask and self-quarantine.
California lawmakers lived it up in Maui during lockdown on the excuse of a “conference” (We all have to Zoom, why can’t they?). New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio went to the gym while you were locked down at home. The Daily Caller compiled a list of hypocritical lawmakers violating lockdown, and you can find an additional great thread here.
Americans Are Sick of the Double Standard
We have all sacrificed, some more than others, and we are tired of the double standard. We are sick of bureaucrats leading us around, treating us like children instead of the employers whose tax dollars form their paychecks.
Americans are weary of speculation presented as science. We are tired of being told that our businesses are nonessential, that worker lives are nonessential, and that our kids and their wellbeing are nonessential. We are sick of hearing that any deviation from the mandates passed down to us by politicians who refuse to follow the rules means sentencing our neighbors to death.
I rejected that outright:
I wrote about this accusation in April, noting that the intent of our elitist overlords is murky. Who are they to decide which workers are essential? By the politicians’ own rhetoric, those “essential” workers are actually “expendable,” since they are most susceptible to the same virus the electeds use to scare the rest of us into our homes.
For those maligning business owners as murderous monsters because they simply want to pay their bills consider this — certain businesses were declared essential: Food delivery is essential but cancer treatment isn’t. So you’re fine with risking the lives of delivery drivers to avoid picking up your pizza yourself? Is it acceptable to risk the lives of restaurant staff because you don’t want to make your own food? Is it acceptable to risk the lives and health stability of cancer patients as well as the livelihood of medical staff being furloughed around the country to demonstrate a devotion to saving lives? If you want to discuss murkiness of intent, this is it. By declaring that some people are essential, haven’t you already decided that some lives are expendable?
This is an awful virus. Unlike a military battle, this is a foe that will never be vanquished. We can vaccinate against it and build up our immunities, but just as with chickenpox, polio, and other illnesses before this virus, there is no cure, only prevention and acclimation. Overreaction is a lesser enemy, and moderation is an ally. There is a difference between reasonable concern and “Chicken Little” hysteria.
The hysteria is exhausting. We are tired of being told that contracting the virus means instant death when it emphatically does not — it has a 99.98 percent survivability rate. We are tired of being told that because some can’t venture out, no one should. Nothing in life is perfectly safe, including freedom. But freedom is a lot safer than the statist systems so many leftists champion.
It’s Time to Declare Our Freedom
As a daughter who doesn’t have much of her family left, whose kids are growing up faster than she can even capture with her phone camera, I am not going to miss out on life. I am not going to let my parents age out of this world while lying to my own heart that it’s OK if I missed an entire year or more with them. I am not going to tell my children that it’s alright if they don’t see their family anymore because we have to hide in our homes.
More than anything else, I am sick of being told I don’t have the right of risk when risk is part of freedom. I will not be lectured by people who say that eating in a restaurant with health protocols is riskier than shutting down the largest economy in the world. I won’t be bullied by bureaucrats who say it’s risker to reopen schools than to force an entire generation into lockdown for nearly a year, stunting them in every way but loneliness. I will not be shamed by lawmakers who don’t follow their own rules. I won’t be preached at by pundits too purposefully obtuse to see nuance over their partisanship.
I am going to host my parents for Thanksgiving, and I hope to host my in-laws for Christmas. I will continue living as a free and responsible American with liberties for which my family has taken bullets and mine shards, until the day comes that our government wants to stage a modernized version of 1776 by trying to end that perfectly wonderful freedom.
As Teddy Roosevelt said, “For those who fight for it, life has a flavor the sheltered will never know.” Freedom is beautiful and scary. It’s up to each of us to maintain it.
Dana Loesch is a nationally syndicated talk radio host of “The Dana Show” with Radio America and a best-selling author.
Years after Common Core made its debut in many state education systems, the disastrous long-term results of the program are finally being seen. The revelation came as part of the Department of Education’s 2019 National Assessment of Educational Progress report.
“Every American family needs to open The Nation’s Report Card this year and think about what it means for their child and for our country’s future,” Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said in a media release. “The results are, frankly, devastating.”
“This country is in a student achievement crisis, and over the past decade it has continued to worsen, especially for our most vulnerable students,”she added.
The NAEP is a test administered in alternating years to students in the fourth and eighth grades. The government-mandated assessment covers both math and reading proficiency. The students’ reading assessment paints a grim picture of educational readiness, with tested fourth and eighth graders failing to best the previous test’s results. This year’s results were only marginally better than those from 1992.
The mathematics scores show the most damning results — an upward trend until the year 2015, when the momentum seemed to grind to a halt. Although there were double-digit gains since the ’90s, fourth graders only managed to score a single point above their previous tests. Eighth graders failed to meet that low standard, sinking below their predecessors from two years before.
“This must be America’s wake-up call,”DeVos said. “We cannot abide these poor results any longer. We can neither excuse them away nor simply throw more money at the problem.”
The dip doesn’t seem to be without cause, either. By 2015, most states had implemented some form of Common Core standards, according to the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Studies have linked Common Core to declining test scores and generally poor student performance.
This failure in U.S. schools comes at a time when Chinese students appear to be blowing American children out of the water. Results from the Program for International Student Assessment, which tests students internationally on their proficiency in math, science and reading, show that China ranks a full 21 spots ahead of the United States.
The 21st century needs to remain an American century. Letting the Chinese take the global lead would have disastrous results across the world. If we expect our future engineers, scientists, and mathematicians to compete in an increasingly globalized world, it’s clear that Common Core needs to be abandoned.
A pro-life movie that’s partially financed by MyPillow CEO Michael Lindell is set to be distributed nationwide next month, and it couldn’t have been announced at a better time.
The dramatic trailer for the pro-life feature film “Unplanned” was released on Thursday. In the film, Ashley Bratcher plays Planned Parenthood clinic director Abby Johnson, who renounces abortion after witnessing the procedure firsthand.
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“Everything that they told us is a lie,” Johnson says in the emotional trailer.
Johnson is also warned that she made an enemy of “one of the most powerful organizations on the planet.” The film is set to be released on over 800 screens nationwide, beginning on March 29. “Unplanned” will be distributed by Pure Flix, which also theatrically distributed “God’s Not Dead,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.
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Additionally, the film was partially funded by the MyPillow CEO, who has a history of standing up to the left. Last April, Lindell refused to pull his ads from Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle” while leftists were targeting Ingraham’s advertisers. Now Lindell is investing money into a movie to combat abortion, and the trailer couldn’t have been released at a more perfect time.
Last week, Democrats in New York passed new legislation that will allow late-term abortions up to the moment of birth. Democrats in Virginia unsuccessfully tried to pass similar legislation this week, and Virginia’s governor is now under fire for allegedly supporting infanticide. In an interview on WTOP Wednesday morning, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam implied that post-birth abortion — otherwise known as infanticide — may be deliberated with doctors under the proposed legislation.
“If a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen. The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable,” Northam prefaced.
“The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.”
These are the monsters that Lindell hopes to oppose by funding “Unplanned,” but unfortunately, liberals may try to attack his business in retaliation. Lindell will need conservatives’ support to compensate for liberal push back as he takes the fight against abortion to Hollywood.
Malachi Bailey is a writer from the Midwest with a background in history, education and philosophy. He has led multiple conservative groups and is dedicated to the principles of free speech, privacy and peace.
Rev. Jasper Williams Jr. gives eulogy at Aretha Franklin’s funeral at Greater Grace Temple on August 31, 2018 in Detroit, Michigan. (Angela Weiss / AFP / Getty Images)
Motown diva Aretha Franklin earned the title “Queen of Soul” after becoming an icon in the music industry and American culture … but “soul” is the exact thing a passionate minister who spoke at her funeral says is missing from the black community these days.
Rev. Jasper Williams Jr. was personally chosen by Franklin to speak at her funeral, which took place in Detroit on Friday. During a 50-minute long eulogy, the fiery minister scolded black culture for losing its way and specifically called out the “Black Lives Matter” movement.
Williams was a friend of Franklin’s father and fellow pastor C.L. Franklin. His surprisingly conservative message sent many liberals into a huff, and the media and outlets like Twitter quickly lit up with indignation.
“Where is your soul, black man? As I look in your house, there are no fathers in the home no more,”Williams declared during the ceremony, according to the Associated Press.
Calling out the black community for abandoning family values was one of his major themes, with the connection between fatherless homes and crime at the forefront.
“(A)s proud, beautiful and fine as our black women are, one thing a black woman cannot do, a black woman cannot raise a black boy to be a man,” he warned.
The pastor chosen by Franklin pointed out that it took a “provider” father and “nurturer” mother to raise children, particularly boys. That conservative view, of course, flies in the face of “progressive” messaging that promotes single parenthood and rejects traditional gender roles.
Williams was just getting warmed up. As the star-studded audience looked on, he took on another of the left’s sacred cows: Black Lives Matter.
“It amazes me how it is when the police kills one of us we’re ready to protest, march, destroy innocent property,”the African American minister stated.
He pointed out how black-on-black violence in places like Chicago and Detroit has been largely ignored by the very groups it impacts the most.
“We’re ready to loot, steal whatever we want, but when we kill 100 of us, nobody says anything, nobody does anything,”he continued, falling into a heartfelt rhythm.
“Black on black crime, we’re all doing time, we’re locked up in our mind, there’s got to be a better way, we must stop this today,”he declared.
If there was any doubt that he was criticizing the Black Lives Matter movement for failing to take responsibility for African American problems, his next sentences cleared it up.
“No, black lives do not matter,”Williams said. “Black lives will not matter, black lives ought not matter, black lives should not matter, black lives must not matter until black people start respecting black lives and stop killing ourselves.”
Predictably, that message didn’t sit well with liberals.
“Social media critics called his eulogy ‘a disaster’ and questioned why he was chosen as the one to honor Franklin,” reported the AP.
Some social media users quickly called Williams “ignorant” — but he appears to have reality on his side.
“Department of Justice statistics showed that between 1980 and 2008, 52 percent of all homicides were committed by black males,”as we previously reported based on publicly available data. Remember, African Americans are only 13 percent of the U.S. population, and black males only about 6 percent.
“With the police shooting of black men taking the center media stage, current statistics show that at current rates it would take 40 years for police to kill as many black men as were killed by other black men in 2012 alone,” our report found.
“The evidence does not support the conclusion that American police are waging a racist war against blacks,”a recent Manhattan Institute report explained. “The Black Lives Matter movement has been a counterproductive distraction from the real violence problem facing black communities: violence from criminals, not the police.”
It’s the same story with Williams’ message about black families. The left may hate it, but the facts back him up. Even Barack Obama has pointed this out.
“More than half of all black children live in single-parent households, a number that has doubled — doubled — since we were children,” Obama said on Father’s Day at a Chicago church in 2008.
“(C)hildren who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime; nine times more likely to drop out of schools and 20 times more likely to end up in prison.” Again, that was Barack Obama — and stop the presses, he was right.
One of Aretha Frankin’s last wishes was for her family friend and pastor to deliver her eulogy. This message was so important that he put it front and center where key members of the black community could hear it. Maybe we should give that a little respect.
Benjamin Arie has been a political junkie since the hotly contested 2000 election. Ben settled on journalism after realizing he could get paid to rant. He cut his teeth on car accidents and house fires as a small-town reporter in Michigan before becoming a full-time political writer.
It’s easy to get caught up in our day to day routines, forgetting that the people who surround us have their own stories and struggles.
But by doing this, we could be missing out on opportunities to lend a helping hand to someone in need. It only takes a second to be a little more observant, and the results could make a huge impact.
A story shared by an Alabama woman is the perfect example of why this is important.
Angela O’Neal Jacks was shopping at her local Dollar Tree in Gardendale, Alabama, on July 31, 2018, when she noticed a man shopping for school supplies with three children.
A Dollar Tree store is seen on July 28, 2014 in Miami, Florida. Dollar Tree announced it will buy Family Dollar Stores for about $8.5 billion in cash and stock. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
He was checking over a school supply list with the kids and was apologizing that they had to shop at a discount store to get some of the items, but the kids continued to be “cheerful and nothing but thankful.”
Angela decided to give a little friendly advice by telling the man that he could purchase better quality pencil boxes for the same price at a different store.
The stranger was thankful for the information and shared that the children had just lost their mother three weeks prior. He was their uncle and had taken the kids in when no one else stepped up to take care of them.
The military man had no idea just how expensive back-to-school items were going to be; he just knew he needed to take care of his late sister’s kids.
“(He) said they had needed complete wardrobes, backpacks, supplies etc. He was overwhelmed and also upset about the Dollar Tree, but was doing the best he could,” she wrote.
Angela was about to take his list and give him more money-saving tips when an elderly couple approached them.
They said, “Sir, we have overheard your conversation. We were wondering if you would put all of this back and meet us at Wal-mart? We’d like to purchase all of their supplies, clothes, shoes and backpacks.”
“We’d like to thank you for your service to our country and to these kids,” they continued.
The man and three kids were extremely grateful. Angela said there were “tears everywhere.”
In the middle of thank you’s and tears, one of the children piped up and said, “Can we get an MP3 player, too?”
Angela’s heart melted and she quickly responded, “You sure can, sweetheart.”
She told Liftable (a brand of Western Journal) that as a mother of four, she knew how disheartening it can be to not own something most other kids at school do. “They had just lost their mother. I wanted to bring a little joy,” she said.
Angela also wrote a Facebook post detailing the precious interaction hoping that it inspires others to take a second to notice those around them and be ready to lend a helping hand.
Meeting this sacrificial man and learning more about his story served as a sweet reminder for her.
She told Liftable, “It reminds me that we never know what someone else is going through and that we should be ready to help those in need in whatever way we are able.”
This writer has made it a personal goal of his to defend young marriage in today’s culture in an attempt to encourage his generation to grow up and end the extended adolescence that has become so popular.
Before the Obama administration approved a controversial deal in 2010 giving Moscow control of a large swath of American uranium, the FBI had gathered substantial evidence that Russian nuclear industry officials were engaged in bribery, kickbacks, extortion and money laundering designed to grow Vladimir Putin’s atomic energy business inside the United States, according to government documents and interviews.
Federal agents used a confidential U.S. witness working inside the Russian nuclear industry to gather extensive financial records, make secret recordings and intercept emails as early as 2009 that showed Moscow had compromised an American uranium trucking firm with bribes and kickbacks in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, FBI and court documents show.
They also obtained an eyewitness account — backed by documents— indicating Russian nuclear officials had routed millions of dollars to the U.S. designed to benefit former President Bill Clinton’s charitable foundation during the time Secretary of State Hillary Clinton served on a government body that provided a favorable decision to Moscow, sources told The Hill.
The racketeering scheme was conducted “with the consent of higher level officials” in Russia who “shared the proceeds” from the kickbacks, one agent declared in an affidavit years later.
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Rather than bring immediate charges in 2010, however, the Department of Justice (DOJ) continued investigating the matter for nearly four more years, essentially leaving the American public and Congress in the dark about Russian nuclear corruption on U.S. soil during a period when the Obama administration made two major decisions benefiting Putin’s commercial nuclear ambitions.The first decision occurred in October 2010, when the State Department and government agencies on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States unanimously approved the partial sale of Canadian mining company Uranium One to the Russian nuclear giant Rosatom, giving Moscow control of more than 20 percent of America’s uranium supply.
When this sale was used by Trump on the campaign trail last year, Hillary Clinton’s spokesman said she was not involved in the committee review and noted the State Department official who handled it said she “never intervened … on any [Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States] matter.”
In 2011, the administration gave approval for Rosatom’s Tenex subsidiary to sell commercial uranium to U.S. nuclear power plants in a partnership with the United States Enrichment Corp. Before then, Tenex had been limited to selling U.S. nuclear power plants reprocessed uranium recovered from dismantled Soviet nuclear weapons under the 1990s Megatons to Megawatts peace program.
“The Russians were compromising American contractors in the nuclear industry with kickbacks and extortion threats, all of which raised legitimate national security concerns. And none of that evidence got aired before the Obama administration made those decisions,” a person who worked on the case told The Hill, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution by U.S. or Russian officials.
The Obama administration’s decision to approve Rosatom’s purchase of Uranium One has been a source of political controversy since 2015. That’s when conservative author Peter Schweitzer and The New York Times documented how Bill Clinton collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in Russian speaking fees and his charitable foundation collected millions in donations from parties interested in the deal while Hillary Clinton presided on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.
The Obama administration and the Clintons defended their actions at the time, insisting there was no evidence that any Russians or donors engaged in wrongdoing and there was no national security reason for any member of the committee to oppose the Uranium One deal.
But FBI, Energy Department and court documents reviewed by The Hill show the FBI in fact had gathered substantial evidence well before the committee’s decision that Vadim Mikerin — the main Russian overseeing Putin’s nuclear expansion inside the United States — was engaged in wrongdoing starting in 2009.
Then-Attorney General Eric Holder was among the Obama administration officials joining Hillary Clinton on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States at the time the Uranium One deal was approved. Multiple current and former government officials told The Hill they did not know whether the FBI or DOJ ever alerted committee members to the criminal activity they uncovered.
Spokesmen for Holder and Clinton did not return calls seeking comment. The Justice Department also didn’t comment.
Mikerin was a director of Rosatom’s Tenex in Moscow since the early 2000s, where he oversaw Rosatom’s nuclear collaboration with the United States under the Megatons to Megwatts program and its commercial uranium sales to other countries. In 2010, Mikerin was dispatched to the U.S. on a work visa approved by the Obama administration to open Rosatom’s new American arm called Tenam.
Between 2009 and January 2012, Mikerin “did knowingly and willfully combine, conspire confederate and agree with other persons … to obstruct, delay and affect commerce and the movement of an article and commodity (enriched uranium) in commerce by extortion,”a November 2014 indictment stated.
His illegal conduct was captured with the help of a confidential witness, an American businessman, who began making kickback payments at Mikerin’s direction and with the permission of the FBI. The first kickback payment recorded by the FBI through its informant was dated Nov. 27, 2009, the records show.
In evidentiary affidavits signed in 2014and 2015, an Energy Department agent assigned to assist the FBI in the case testified that Mikerin supervised a “racketeering scheme” that involved extortion, bribery, money laundering and kickbacks that were both directed by and provided benefit to more senior officials back in Russia.
“As part of the scheme, Mikerin, with the consent of higher level officials at TENEX and Rosatom (both Russian state-owned entities) would offer no-bid contracts to US businesses in exchange for kickbacks in the form of money payments made to some offshore banks accounts,” Agent David Gadren testified.
“Mikerin apparently then shared the proceeds with other co-conspirators associated with TENEX in Russia and elsewhere,” the agent added.
The investigation was ultimately supervised by then-U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein, an Obama appointeewho now serves as President Trump’s deputy attorney general, and then-Assistant FBI Director Andrew McCabe, now the deputy FBI director under Trump, Justice Department documents show.
Both men now play a key role in the current investigation into possible, but still unproven, collusion between Russia and Donald Trump’s campaign during the 2016 election cycle. McCabe is under congressional and Justice Department inspector general investigation in connection with money his wife’s Virginia state Senate campaign accepted in 2015 from now-Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe at a time when McAuliffe was reportedly under investigation by the FBI.
The connections to the current Russia case are many. The Mikerin probe began in 2009 when Robert Mueller, now the special counsel in charge of the Trump case, was still FBI director. And it ended in late 2015 under the direction of then-FBI Director James Comey, whom Trump fired earlier this year.
Its many twist and turns aside, the FBI nuclear industry case proved a gold mine, in part because it uncovered a new Russian money laundering apparatus that routed bribe and kickback payments through financial instruments in Cyprus, Latvia and Seychelles. A Russian financier in New Jersey was among those arrested for the money laundering, court records show.
The case also exposed a serious national security breach: Mikerin had given a contract to an American trucking firm called Transport Logistics International that held the sensitive job of transporting Russia’s uranium around the United States in return for more than $2 million in kickbacksfrom some of its executives, court records show.
One of Mikerin’s former employees told the FBI that Tenex officials in Russia specifically directed the scheme to “allow for padded pricing to include kickbacks,”agents testified in one court filing.
Bringing down a major Russian nuclear corruption scheme that had both compromised a sensitive uranium transportation asset inside the U.S. and facilitated international money launderingwould seem a major feather in any law enforcement agency’s cap. But the Justice Department and FBI took little credit in 2014 when Mikerin, the Russian financier and the trucking firm executives were arrested and charged. The only public statement occurred a year later when the Justice Department put out a little-noticed press release in August 2015, just days before Labor Day. The release noted that the various defendants had reached plea deals.
By that time, the criminal cases against Mikerin had been narrowed to a single charge of money laundering for a scheme that officials admitted stretched from 2004 to 2014. And though agents had evidence of criminal wrongdoing they collected since at least 2009, federal prosecutors only cited in the plea agreement a handful of transactions that occurred in 2011 and 2012, well after the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United State’s approval.
The final court case also made no mention of any connection to the influence peddling conversations the FBI undercover informant witnessed about the Russian nuclear officials trying to ingratiate themselves with the Clintons even though agents had gathered documents showing the transmission of millions of dollars from Russia’s nuclear industry to an American entity that had provided assistance to Bill Clinton’s foundation, sources confirmed to The Hill.
The lack of fanfare left many key players in Washington with no inkling that a major Russian nuclear corruption scheme with serious national security implications had been uncovered.
On Dec. 15, 2015, the Justice Department put out a release stating that Mikerin, “a former Russian official residing in Maryland was sentenced today to 48 months in prison”and ordered to forfeit more than $2.1 million.
Ronald Hosko, who served as the assistant FBI director in charge of criminal cases when the investigation was underway, told The Hill he did not recall ever being briefed about Mikerin’s case by the counterintelligence side of the bureau despite the criminal charges that were being lodged.
“I had no idea this case was being conducted,”a surprised Hosko said in an interview.
Likewise, major congressional figures were also kept in the dark.
Former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), who chaired the House Intelligence Committee during the time the FBI probe was being conducted, told The Hill that he had never been told anything about the Russian nuclear corruption case even though many fellow lawmakers had serious concerns about the Obama administration’s approval of the Uranium One deal.
“Not providing information on a corruption scheme before the Russian uranium deal was approved by U.S. regulators and engage appropriate congressional committees has served to undermine U.S. national security interests by the very people charged with protecting them,”he said. “The Russian efforts to manipulate our American political enterprise is breathtaking.”
A study released Monday by Kevin Hassett, President Donald Trump’s chief economist, gives a boost to Trump’s proposed corporate tax cut. The study shows that if the tax cut is implemented, the average family could see an income boost in the thousands of dollars.
The tax cut would lower the current rate of 35 percent to 20 percent. Based on “conservative estimates,”this decrease would boost the average household income by $4,000, the paper said. But more “moderate estimates” reveal increases of $9,000 per family.
“Put simply, capital deepening, which brings additional returns to the owners of capital, brings substantial returns to workers as well,” said the paper, which studied evidence from other countries that have lowered their corporate tax rates.
But Democrats have disapproved of Trump’s proposed tax cut from the start. They believe it will not benefit ordinary families, but only business themselves.
The new study will allow Republicans to offer a rebuttal.
Hassett, the chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, insists that American families would benefit the most from significantly lower corporate tax rates, more so than the companies themselves.
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“America’s broken corporate tax system creates incentives for firms to hold their money outside of our borders,”Hassett told reporters on Sunday, according to the Washington Examiner.“When firms hold their money overseas rather than invest them in America, they’re holding down the productivity of the American economy and the wages of American workers.”
The United States has one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world, leading many companies to keep their profits abroad in lower-tax countries to avoid significant tax hits back home.
By cutting the tax rate, the idea is that companies would then invest more within the United States. This would cause a boost in productivity throughout the country.
This productivity would then boost wages, according to Hassett’s study.
“More assets like machines let workers produce more, and when workers can produce more, businesses can afford to pay their workers more,”Hassett said, as reported by The Hill.
But some economists and tax policy experts have voiced their concerns about the tax cut directly benefiting workers. Although they agree this would attract companies to invest more in the United States economy, they cannot predict how much money will bring back home. There is also concern over what corporations will do with their tax savings.
Trump announced his tax proposal during a September a speech in Indianapolis. Calling it a “revolutionary change,”he said it would boost wages to “levels that you haven’t seen in many years,”according to The New York Times.
In an historic move for one of the largest youth organizations in the United States, the Boy Scouts of America announced Wednesday that they will begin to allow the admittance of girls. A new program will be created for older girls wishing to join the organization and the curriculum will be similar to that currently used for Boy Scouts, Fox News reported.
In a unanimous vote, the Boy Scouts board of directors in Texas opted for the historic change to the organization, which has mostly served young men and boys since its inception more than a century ago.
However, there is notably one organization that is not happy with the decision by the BSA.
The Girl Scouts have publicly spoken out against the initiative, suggesting it would strain the relationship between the two groups and accusing the BSA of simply looking to boost revenue.
“I formally request that your organization stay focused on serving the 90 percent of American boys not currently participating in Boy Scouts … and not consider expanding to recruit girls,” Girl Scouts of the USA President Kathy Hopinkah Hannan wrote in a scathing letter to Randall Stephenson, the Boy Scouts of America president.
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Still, the boy scouts believe the move is important.
“We believe it is critical to evolve how our programs meet the needs of families interested in positive and lifelong experiences for their children,” said Michael Surbaugh, the current chief executive of the Boy Scouts, according to NBC News.
According the revised plan, Cub Scout dens, which are the organization’s smallest units, will be single-gender — either all girls or all boys. The larger Cub Scout packs will be given the option to remain single gender or allow both boys and girls to join.The program set for older girls is planned to begin in 2019 and will allow girls to earn the envied rank of Eagle Scout.
“The historic decision comes after years of receiving requests from families and girls,” said Boy Scouts of America in a statement, according to CNN. “(T)he organization evaluated the results of numerous research efforts, gaining input from current members and leaders, as well as parents and girls who’ve never been involved in Scouting — to understand how to offer families an important additional choice in meeting the character development needs of all their children.”
“Families today are busier and more diverse than ever. Most are dual-earners and there are more single-parent households than ever before, making convenient programs that serve the whole family more appealing,” the statement continued.
The BSA was founded in 1910 and The Girl Scouts was founded not long after in 1912. Both are among many youth organizations it the U.S. that have experienced a sharp decline in membership in recent years.
Girls will be allowed to join the Boy Scouts as soon as next year.
When former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick began the anti-American trend of sitting or taking a knee while the national anthem was played, he insisted he was using his platform to raise awareness and start a broader dialogue regarding perceived racial inequalities in America and police brutality.
Other players who have joined the protest trend have echoed those sentiments, and while some of them may truly believe it and think they aren’t being disrespectful or un-American, the reality is that many Americans do indeed find their actions to be quite disrespectful and offensive.
And in Kaepernick’s case, just a wee bit hypocritical.
You see, while the bi-racialKaepernick rails against the perceived oppression of minorities in America by a “white supremacist” system, he himself doesn’t appear to have been all that “oppressed” and held back from opportunity by “white people,” but was in fact raised and presented with a multitude of opportunity by white people, namely his adoptive white mother and father.
Landon Routzong of Troy, Alabama, has a big heart for the age of 9, and he proved just how big over the weekend at a Chick-fil-A drive-thru. While he and his mother were waiting in line to pick up their lunch, Landon Routzong noticed the Florida license plate on the back of the car in front of theirs. So, he told his mom he wanted to pay for that car’s meal.
“I didn’t want them to waste their money on food because they’re trying to escape the hurricane,” Landon Routzong told ABC News. “I felt like I should help out.”
But in order to pay for the meal, he had to get to the drive-thru window before the Florida car did. As a result, his mother, Tara Parker Routzong, gave him her debit card and told him to run. The man in the Florida car agreed to let Landon Routzong pay for his meal.
Later, the man pulled over to meet the family, telling the mother and her son he was from Miami and was fleeing Hurricane Irma. He said was on his way to Birmingham to stay with relatives.
“Landon and I both had tears in our eyes from how appreciative he was,”Tara Parker Routzong wrote on Facebook in a Friday post detailing the encounter.
Routzong’s post has since been shared over 700 times has over 1,800 likes.
Tara Parker Routzong told Inside Edition she and her husband always try to help out. She was proud to see her son do the same thing.
“A 9-year-old could be focused on so many other things, but whenever a situation presents itself, Landon is always thinking of how we can help,”she said.
Routzong said the encounter gave her hope that she is doing a good job as a mother.
“I often feel like I’m failing because I can’t do it all, all the time and then things like this happen and remind me that I don’t have to,”she said in her Facebook post. “My most important job is going just fine.”
Hurricane Irma was downgraded to a tropical storm after it made landfall along the coast of Florida over the weekend. But the storm’s overall damage has been severe, with more still to come. Irma still had sustained winds of up to 70 mph as of Monday afternoon, while over 6.2 million Floridians have experienced power outages.
Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine in the very heart of your house, your children like olive plants all around your table. Behold, thus shall the man be blessed who fears the Lord. Psalm 128:3-4
The question is often asked, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” A corollary is, “Why do godly parents sometimes have ungodly children?” When parents do their best to fear the Lord and raise their children with admonition and nurture in Him, and children still go astray, it can be a heartbreaking experience.
The Bible doesn’t promise that godly parents will never have ungodly children any more than it promises that a godly Christian will never sin. The Old Testament covenant promised the Israelites that the starting place for success in life begins with fearing the Lord (Deuteronomy 28:1-14; Proverbs 1:7; 9:10). We should never think that not fearing the Lord is the path to blessing. If we want to create a godly family, we should begin by fearing the Lord (Psalm 128:1) lest we labor in vain (Psalm 127:1). That is the only direction the Bible offers, even when things don’t go as prayed for.
Never waver from your life-long commitment to honor the Lord, come what may. Your family’s firm foundation is the fear of the Lord
The family altar would alter many a family. Unknown
Twins – one with severe health issues – hold hands in the womb
A pregnant mother has a beautiful image to that may serve as a comfort through difficult days ahead: her twins – one with severe medical issues – were caught on sonogram camera holding hands in the womb.
Brittani and Ian McIntire were told one of their unborn twins will not survive. The boy twin has a hole in his heart and an abnormal brain,KWCH reports. At each doctor appointment, the couple received more bad news, until recently, when the image was captured by sonogram.Brittani recalled, “We didn’t really see much, she said there’s his hand and there’s her hand and it looks like they’re holding hands.”
The boy twin, whom the couple calls Mason, is on the left, and has his tiny hand wrapped around the growing finger of his sister, Madilyn. Brittani said, “Most twins when she’s trying to take pictures and stuff, they’re kicking each other and hitting each other, and she said with our twins, it seems like she was very protective over him.”
Ian said of the photo, “We know we have a piece of them together that will last forever and it’s special to have.”
Brittani added, “It’s just nice with everything going on I know I’m holding him, I’m carrying him but I just want to be there for him and not knowing and she’s the only one who can actually be there and holding onto him through it, and so it’s comforting to know that if he does pass, he won’t be alone.”
This is by far the most disturbing Confederate flag associated crime I have heard yet. One person was killed and five family members were injured in Columbus Ohio. Three male victims were stabbed and a female victim was shot in the neck.
The family flies a large Confederate flag on their porch and reports claim they may have been targeted because of their race. Both of the attackers were black and the family is white.
Police said two men, 36-year-old Clement Dwight Cooper and 32-year-old Michael Antonio Long had been burglarizing the home when they were surprised by the residents returning home from work.
One of the residents, Tim Bowls said he saw a shadow on the basement steps, thinking it was his brother, but it wasn’t.
“Pointed a gun at him and told him to lay down, then proceeded to beat him with the gun, stabbed him several times and tied him up with an orange extension cord,” said his Aunt Kim. She asked NBC4 not to use her last name. While the two suspects were attacking Bowls his father, mother and brother also came home from work.
“One of them pointed a shotgun up at them and big Tim started wrestling him for the gun so they shot him and then all hell broke loose,” said Kim.
She said six people were fighting in the stairwell and basement, when the mother was shot at close range.
“Jill was shot in the face and neck,” she said.
The Aunt said the family was afraid for about girls sleeping upstairs.
“There were two girls and three small children asleep upstairs they could have killed them.”
They heard the gunshots and call 9-1-1.
“They shot my mother, please, please someone,” said one of the girls.
Columbus police said five family members were injured and taken to two hospitals. Investigators said they found one of the suspects, Cooper dead in the basement.
Investigators are waiting for an autopsy report from the Franklin County Coroner that will reveal how Cooper died. The family is out of the hospital and staying with relatives while they recuperate.
“They are hurting very bad they were beaten pretty bad we are upset, I mean somebody comes in your house you feel violated,” said Kim.
Violent attacks like these are happening far too often. The term “race war” was once only used by racial extremist, now it is becoming more of a reality. Thank God, this family was armed or else the situation could have been even worse. When simply being proud of your heritage can get you killed, something needs to change.
This looks like a great place to have a party! After doing some checking I found out that you can actually rent this thing for 12 hours for yourself and 99 friends for the very reasonable price of only $5000. So there ya go, I did the leg work, now just make sure you invite me please!
Ok, everybody knows you shouldn’t play with fire, but when you see the cool things you can do, you might just have to try a few of them. Kids, make sure that your parents supervise if you decide to try any of these neat tricks!
How ironic that as children all across the nation prepares to take part in various Christmas season events that they, in far too many cases, will not be allowed to actually celebrate Christmas. But to be honest, it is far more serious than just celebrating Christmas. Each day millions of students are sent by their parents off to build a solid academic base as well as learn about our American values in school. Those values and principles are built upon Judeo-Christian beliefs. In 2013 there were over 400 biblical principle attacks on children who wanted to read a Bible before or after school or even during lunch break and were denied.
When your child returns from the Christmas holidays will he or she still have to learn and embrace the teaching of Islam in the classroom, but have the teaching of biblical history overruled? What happens when the topics your child may be learning are ideals and values that marginalize how you have raised them and articulate an agenda that compromises your family’s religious beliefs? This is not something that can be overlooked simply because the child is heading home for a Christmas break.
Actually this serves as the best time to discuss and share what your beliefs are and reinforce the reasons why you will stand up for them when your child returns to school in the New Year. Don’t accept the erroneouschurch and state separation argument that liberal school officials try to jam down the throat of Christian parents. Your child has U.S. Constitutional rights and they must be protected.
In 2014, it has become an unfortunate circumstance in far too many communities across America that conservatives and parents of faith find themselves locked out of a parental support system like the school’s parents’ organization. Instead of assisting the parents by standing up for their interests and the interests of their kids, the parent organizational members give them cold to lukewarm support.
So it really is upon you;
As a parent what are you willing to sacrifice to stand up and protect your child from a school or a school district that is willing to take away or marginalize your child’s values and principles because it is convenient for them?
Are you willing to tolerate unfair and illegal treatment of your child?
Are you willing to let the politically correct values of liberal parents and secular anti-Christian organizations dominate your life, principles and support of America’s biblical heritage?
America has a culture that rises up from the deep foundational values that guided the founding fathers. We understand that it is America’s heritage found in small towns, big cities and rural communities that give birth to parental heroes whose actions become larger than life. These are the parents that pray over their decisions at their kitchen table, or in the living room or perhaps during the church service. As a responsible parent they take a stand on principle rather than they should turn over their role and responsibility to the offending teacher, principal, submitting to the will of a partial anti-Christian school administrator or local school board member. They are not like others who take the easy route and conveniently swallow their principles and their values.
Be one of those parents who are not just heroes for their children but are truly American Heroes with a capital H. Join and recruit others in your school, neighborhood and church this Christmas season in the nation’s Heartland.
Take a page from Samuel Adams, who was one of America’s Revolutionary Heroes and a Founding Father. Adams’s father was a church deacon and was deeply influenced by him. Adams spoke of lukewarm supporters saying,
“If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”
Let liberty and your children and America’s future generations be your guide and your prayer as you celebrate this Christmas season. There is no tranquility in servitude to political correctness, so take off the politically correct chains of convenience that are used to shackle your children. Praise the birth of the Son of God and fight to protect your child and their future in the New Year as their Hero!
The UN is doing something evil. It must be a day that ends in “Y.”
Having already acted as a willing tool of the US State Department Eugenics policy, pretending to endorse the freedom of mothers to murder babies or not (i.e. “abortion rights), while in fact openly bribing and coercing population reduction, this latest move by the United Nations is not that big a deal relatively. It is just one more monstrosity on top of many other monstrosities. Still it is worth noting, since it will surely be used for propaganda purposes in the United States. Fox News reports:
“Amid a surge of anti-gay violence and repression in several countries, the United Nations’ human rights office on Friday launched its first global outreach campaign to promote tolerance and greater equality for lesbians, gays, transgender people and bisexuals. Called Free & Equal, it’s an unprecedented effort by the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights to change public attitudes around the world on issues that have bitterly divided the U.N.’s own member states.”
In my opinion, this will ultimately prove to be a good thing if the UN pushes this. It will prove to the global world that, no matter how much money and power we possess in the Western world, and no matter what lovely promises we make, that we are a force for evil that needs to be resisted.
In fact, the UN is openly circumventing the will of its constituents and doing the will of a rich minority to brainwash the poor majority:
“Radcliffe said funding for Free & Equal is being provided by outside contributors, and is not reliant on U.N. funds, thus skirting any possible opposition from U.N. members who oppose gay-rights activism.”
Remember, even in Kenya, a country where residents regard President Obama as a kind of Superhero, the Kenyan President, Uhuru Kenyatta, rebuffed Obama’s advocacy of perversion.
What is obvious from the UN campaign is that the organization does not want to spread the idea of libertarian freedom. Nothing in the UN campaign argues that it doesn’t matter to the civil power what sins consenting adults commit in private only between themselves. That may not be the position God wants civil governments to hold, but it would give these countries a plausible reason to stop prosecuting (or persecuting) homosexuals, without being forced to change all their ethical and religious beliefs.
But no, the UN is insisting that Kenyans and Senagalese and South Africans all the rest change their moralities. They must regard sexual preference as an “orientation” and therefore regard its practice as a kind of “civil right.” Rather than simply decriminalization, the UN is going to push for hate crimes laws, re-education, and the entire gamut of social engineering.
The result: the UN is going to intensify animosity and violence against homosexuals. They would rather see that happen than promote any kind of libertarian freedom.
One aspect of the moral blindness of the UN can be seen in their claims about anti-homosexual violence in South Africa:
“South Africa, in contrast, does not criminalize homosexuality and allows same-sex marriage, yet is plagued by extensive anti-gay violence, including frequent rapes of lesbians.”
I’m sure this odious crime is committed all the time against lesbians because lesbians are women and South Africa is notorious for frequent rapes of women. But is there extensive outside funding available for a campaign against rape in general? Nope. They just care about the homosexuals. The UN is taking a country rife with sexual violence of all sorts and using the part that fits their agenda.
This is the final battle, and it is one in which the United States, the real power behind the United Nations, is a force for evil in the world.
A few weeks ago I was in a particularly depressed mood. That’s not the norm for me, but this time it was completely justified. I was pondering my children’s futures.
College prices have sky-rocketed, far surpassing wage increases. My daughter will be ready for college in five years. Will we be able to afford a college education for her or even pay a percentage of it? And, if she does go to college, what will she major in that will provide a reliable career in a world whose future is increasingly unreliable?
Perhaps my kids should learn a trade that would provide a rock-solid income, but what would that be? As a mom, I want their futures to be as secure as possible, giving them a chance of achieving their dreams and a comfortable lifestyle.
As you might imagine, it was right around this point that my thinking got pretty muddled. Is there a career that’s EMP-proof? A job that will provide their families with an income even if the dollar goes belly up and America, as we know it, declines forever?
I’m still not sure what path they should take, and of course they have a say in their future plans! However, my brain lit upon something that gave me hope as I contemplated a dismal future.
What’s more important than a college degree?
The future job market may be bleak for professions from A to Z, but people will always, always, look for and need leaders. People who have the skills, confidence, and personality to stand up and lead. Isn’t that what our world is crying out for right now? Leadership?
image by (Blue Sky)
My son could easily become an electrician, capable of wiring a building, knowing electrical code, and also able to give direction, focus, and encouragement to his peers and family. Perhaps my daughter will become a florist, but why can’t she also live her life with goals and a vision and inspire others to do the same? It’s those leadership qualities and skills that may very well trump another person’s Ivy League education.
I believe the future belongs to those who possess leadership skills and are willing to step out and lead. Leadership, though, is mostly taught and nurtured. Skills such as decisiveness, ambition, the ability to motivate and inspire are not taught in the public school. I spent 9 years in the classroom as a public school teacher and another 4 as a school district trainer. Trust me. There is nothing in the public school curriculum that teaches leadership skills. If your child is to become a leader in a tumultuous and unpredictable future, you will have to teach him or her yourself.
What skills and qualities should you begin focusing on? Here are a few:
Communication skills
From an early age, give your children practice speaking to and with adults. At restaurants, insist that they place their own orders with the waitress. Stand back and let them approach the librarian or store clerk with their questions. Be willing to sit and just listen to your child as they put their thoughts and emotions into words. Enroll them in activities that will require them to make speeches orpresentations or communicate with the general public. Many adults shrink away from this themselves, but it’s impossible to be a leader without effective communication skills.
Even if there is no need for your child to earn money, getting a job is an excellent way to learn how to communicate with all sorts of people. My first job was at J.C. Penney and I had to work in the children’s clothing department. I learned how to strike up conversations with customers, ask my boss for help when I needed it, and not crawl into a hole when the store manager showed up! All lifelong skills!
Creating a vision
All children have fantasies and dreams for their futures. Encourage them to talk about what they want to be when they grow up, what they want to do, to build, to create. Nothing meaningful on this earth has ever been accomplished without, first, a vision. Our world has been greatly enhanced by people like Steve Jobs and Thomas Edison. They let their imaginations run wild, and apparently, so did their parents!
Setting and achieving goals
image by RDECOM
Once your child has a vision for something, help him or her break it down into smaller parts. Setting and achieving goals is an enormous confidence builder but too many people, including most adults, have no idea of the power of goal-setting. Start with a small goal, perhaps earning a certain amount of money or achieving some specific goal in a school subject. Write out the goal and what has to be done in order to complete it. This teaches kids to know what they want and what has to be done to get it.
Courage in the face of opposition
We live in a world where too few people have courage. They are too willing to behave like sheep and kowtow to the latest version of political correctness. A real leader stands up for what he or she believes in the face of ridicule, prejudice, and rejection. As well, it takes courage to finish a difficult task and overcome obstacles of every kind. Facing peer pressure is another chance to be courageous and do the right thing.
Confidence
Confidence comes with competence. Require your kids to always to their best and to not make excuses. However, don’t expect them to succeed in something without thorough instruction. That applies to school subjects, athletic endeavors, and even household chores. I used to get frustrated at my son’s attempts to load the dishwasher until I realized that I had never actually taught him how to do it! Don’t demand a high level of competency without making sure your child understands exactly how to accomplish the task. Once they are competent and experience repeated successes, just watch their confidence soar!
Ability to encourage others
We all need a pat on the back, a word of encouragement, or a note of appreciation. Let your child see from your own actions what it means to encourage others and give them opportunities to do the same. Perhaps they could write a kind note to a friend who lost a pet or send a get-well card to a relative. Our culture encourages isolation and selfishness, but this will teach your kids a more rewarding way of interacting with others.
Honesty
People will never trust a leader who they know to be dishonest. Honesty brings with it respect and admiration. Reward truthfulness and integrity every time you notice it.
Decision making
image by Ernst Vikne
I have a friend who decided what her daughter should wear each day until the girl was at least 11 years old. Yes, she was always perfectly coordinated, but without meaning to, I’m sure, her mother was teaching her to doubt her own decisions. Part of learning to make smart decisions is bearing the consequences of poor ones. When my kid spend all their money foolishly, I don’t slip them a ten when they see something else they want! Let your kids make decisions. Talk about what they give up if they make Decision A versus Decision B. It’s important to take into consideration the consequences of their decisions and learn to not rush into something without giving it plenty of thought.
How should these be taught?
Point out examples of leadership in movies, TV, literature, and real life. Be specific in explaining why that person, or character, is a good leader. For example, one reason many people look up to Ron Paul, regardless of political beliefs, is because he speaks his mind, even when his opinion is unpopular and he stands a good chance of being criticized. It’s important to actually label the specific leadership skill or quality.
Ask your child to look for examples of leadership among your circle of familyand friends and tell you why that person is a leader.
Encourage your child to read biographies of famous people and then analyze their leadership qualities and skills.
When you observe these skills in your child, be sure to point them out and praise them.
Set family goals and track progress with a chart or a marble jar.
Family meetings can be helpful in discussing decisions, conflicts, and goals. They also give each family member the chance to express their opinions and feelings. In other words, they can help develop important leadership skills.
Give children an allowance in order to help them make decisions involving money. Teach them how to keep a ledger of income, outgo, and savings.
You and I have no way of knowing what careers will be “hot” in ten or twenty years, but in a way, that doesn’t matter. Young adults facing the future with the confidence that comes with these leadership qualities and skills are ready to tackle anything and succeed, even without that Ivy League education.
USA Trying to Deport Christian Homeschooling Family Knowing They Face Persecution
Uwe and Hannelore Romeike are Christians and the parents of six children. When their kids attended the German public schools, they were bullied and harassed because of being Christians. The parents began looking into the schools and what their kids were being taught. They found a number of objectionable and inappropriate things in the textbooks that they didn’t want their kids learning.
They strongly believed that their children would receive a better education grounded in biblical principles by being schooled at home rather than having their children indoctrinated by the German schools. Uwe said:
“We knew that homeschooling would not be an easy journey.”
However, the German government had made homeschooling illegal and actively pursued Christian families who tried to homeschool their children. In 2008, the Romeike family was ripped apart when government officials stepped in and forcibly removed the kids from the home. The parents were fined thousands of euros.
Their only hope was to seek political asylum in a country that allowed Christians to homeschool, so they applied to the US for asylum. A US immigration judge ruled in 2010 that the family did face persecution from the German government and granted the Romeike family political asylum. The family moved and settled in Tennessee.
“Today, we also remember that religious liberty is not just an American right; it is a universal human right to be protected here at home and across the globe. This freedom is an essential part of human dignity, and without it our world cannot know lasting peace.”
“As we observe Religious Freedom Day, let us remember the legacy of faith and independence we have inherited, and let us honor it by forever upholding our right to exercise our beliefs free from prejudice or persecution…”
Here’s how he lives up to his statement.
US Attorney General Eric Holder and the Department of Homeland Security are fighting the political asylum status. Holder claims that the family’s fundamental rights have not been violated by Germany’s law forbidding families from homeschooling. They have asked the courts to withdraw the family’s political asylum and have them deported back to Germany.
“The U.S. law of asylum allows a refugee to stay in the United States permanently if he can show that he is being persecuted for one of several specific reasons. Among these are persecution for religious reasons and persecution of a ‘particular social group.’”
“In most asylum cases, there is some guesswork necessary to figure out the government’s true motive—but not in this case. The Supreme Court of Germany declared that the purpose of the German ban on homeschooling was to ‘counteract the development of religious and philosophically motivated parallel societies.’”
“This sounds elegant, perhaps, but at its core it is a frightening concept. This means that the German government wants to prohibit people who think differently from the government (on religious or philosophical grounds) from growing and developing into a force in society.”
“The Romeikes’ case is before the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. The case for the government is officially in the name of the Attorney General of the United States. The case is called Romeike v. Holder. Thus, the brief filed by the U.S. Department of Justice is filed on behalf of the attorney general himself—although we can be reasonably certain he has not personally read it. Nonetheless, it is a statement of the position of our government at a very high level.”
“We argued that Germany is a party to many human rights treaties that contain specific provisions that protect the right of parents to provide an education that is different from the government schools. Parents have the explicit right to give their children an education according to their own philosophy.”
“While the United States government argued many things in their brief, there are three specific arguments that you should know about.”
“First, they argued that there was no violation of anyone’s protected rights in a law that entirely bans homeschooling. There would only be a problem if Germany banned homeschooling for some but permitted it for others.”
“A second argument is revealing. The U.S. government contended that the Romeikes’ case failed to show that there was any discrimination based on religion because, among other reasons, the Romeikes did not prove that all homeschoolers were religious, and that not all Christians believed they had to homeschool.”
“This argument demonstrates another form of dangerous “group think” by our own government. The central problem here is that the U.S. government does not understand that religious freedom is an individual right. One need not be a part of any church or other religious group to be able to make a religious freedom claim. Specifically, one doesn’t have to follow the dictates of a church to claim religious freedom—one should be able to follow the dictates of God Himself.”
“One final argument from Romeikes deserves our attention. One of the grounds for asylum is if persecution is aimed at a “particular social group.” The definition of a “particular social group” requires a showing of an “immutable” characteristic that cannot change or should not be required to be changed. We contend that German homeschoolers are a particular social group who are being persecuted by their government.”
If they are returned to Germany, the couple could be facing more large fines, jail time and the loss of their children. If this is not a violation of the family’s fundamental rights, then I don’t know what is. Perhaps more importantly to all homeschoolers in America is that if Holder wins this case, there is the possibility that it could serve as a legal precedent for Obama’s efforts to outlaw homeschooling here in the US.
What gets me really hot under the collar on this case is that Holder and the DHS are allowing nearly a million illegal aliens to remain in the US, still illegally, while trying to deport a family who only wants to homeschool their children. When Obama penned that proclamation last month, he was lying out both sides of his mouth and had no intention of doing anything for any Christian. He’ll leap tall buildings to defend the rights of Muslim and gays, but he’ll turn his back and walk away from Christians. The hypocrisy of the Obama administration is enough to make me want to vomit.
American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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Wednesday, February 17, 2016, HUTCHINSON, KS
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