Sept. 23, 2025, marks the 30th anniversary of the publishing of “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Members of the Church also refer to this proclamation as the family proclamation.
For three decades, the principles and doctrine outlined in this document have helped members of the Church, as well as others, to strengthen and understand the importance of family in God’s eternal plan.
In this episode of the Church News podcast, W. Bradford Wilcox, a sociology professor at the University of Virginia and director of the National Marriage Project, joins Church News editor Ryan Jensen to discuss the benefits of a “marriage mindset.”
Listen to this episode of the Church News podcast on Apple Podcasts, Amazon, Spotify, bookshelf PLUS, YouTube or wherever you get podcasts.
Transcript:
W. Bradford Wilcox: But there’s just no question that sort of having the same religious worldview — going to church together, having similar opinions about work and family and these sort of core family commitments — is a big predictor of marital stability and quality. That idea is certainly articulated, too, in your proclamation. And so it just shows when the family is strong, communities are strong. And so, “as the family goes, so goes the nation,” as my own Pope John Paul II said, you know, many years ago.
0:41
Jon Ryan Jensen: This is Jon Ryan Jensen, editor of the Church News. Welcome to the Church News podcast. Today, we are taking you on a journey of connection as we discuss news and events of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Sept. 23, 2025, marks the 30th anniversary of the publishing of the powerful document by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints named “The Family: A Proclamation to the World.” Members of the Church also refer to this proclamation as the family proclamation. For three decades, this declaration has helped members of the Church, as well as others, to strengthen their homes and families by abiding its principles of faith and unity taught within the proclamation.
On this episode of the Church News podcast, Brad Wilcox, a sociology professor at the University of Virginia and director of the National Marriage Project, discusses how the sacred responsibilities of husband and wife are central to the Creator’s plan and how couples can create a “marriage mindset” in their home and beyond.
Jon Ryan Jensen: Brad Wilcox, thanks for joining us today on the podcast.
W. Bradford Wilcox: Good to be with you today, Ryan.
1:50
Jon Ryan Jensen: First off, I want to give you a chance to introduce yourself a little bit to our audience. Your name is Brad Wilcox, but you are not the Brad Wilcox who recently was released as a member of our general Young Men presidency.
But tell us a little bit about yourself so that people can get to know you.
2:10
W. Bradford Wilcox: Yeah. Thanks, Ryan. So, I was raised in Connecticut by a single mom, went down to the University of Virginia, got my undergraduate degree and then went off to Princeton for a graduate study in family and religion and sociology at Princeton, was able to come back to teach at UVA, or have been teaching now more than 20 years at UVA, teaching sociology of family, sociology of religion and statistics. And then I’ve been married to my wife, Danielle, for now 30 years, and we have nine children, so still pretty busy on the home front. Our youngest is 11, Ryan, and that’s a quick thumbnail sketch of my life and work as a scholar and husband and father.
2:47
Jon Ryan Jensen: My wife, Megan, and I recently celebrated our 19th anniversary. So, between our two couples, we’ve got about 50 years of marriage experience, but I lack behind on the kids. I’ve got four, and I’m excited to talk about what we’ve learned from that group of children.
W. Bradford Wilcox: My friends and I joke about: There’s no competition. If you have two kids, that’s wonderful, one child that’s wonderful. Or in our case, nine. We’ve got friends who’ve got 10. So it’s just whatever God gives you is the thought there.
3:18
Jon Ryan Jensen: That’s fantastic. So, you give a little bit of your own family history, but I would really love to know what it is in your life that led you to develop this interest in studying marriage and family. Why this focus for you?
W. Bradford Wilcox: Yeah, I think really in college, I had two professors who challenged me, who were in their own ways pretty family-oriented in their thinking, Ryan, and I had been raised by a single mom, and I was thinking about the importance of a father in a child’s life, didn’t have that growing up, and came to the conviction as a senior at the University of Virginia that marriage was that key institution that connected men to their families.
And so once I had that insight, I wanted to go on and study in graduate school the importance of marriage and fatherhood and family life and faith in the context of the discipline of sociology. So that was the genesis for my interest in this family research work that I’ve been doing since then.
4:15
Jon Ryan Jensen: So you had that inkling in the beginning that you perhaps missed out on something in your own life.
And so when you started studying, did you find that your personal feeling was backed up by actual examples in real life, both in your immediate geographic sphere and globally?
W. Bradford Wilcox: So, in general, yeah, I did find in my research that I conducted as a graduate student at Princeton that men who were more active in their religious communities were churchgoing guys were more likely to have happy marriages, stable marriages, and to be involved fathers. So I did find that in general, on average, religion is a help for American families.
Of course, we all know there are both personal exceptions we see around us, and it’s not always the case that every indicator that you would look at in the family arena is always better when people are religious. But yes, in general, I found that religion and marriage as two core American institutions were conducive to stronger and more stable families here in the United States.
5:20
Jon Ryan Jensen: I’m really interested in some of your findings, because within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and particularly in a year like this where we’re focused as Latter-day Saints studying the beginning history of our Church in the 1830s and ’40s, and the Prophet Joseph Smith received multiple revelations talking about the responsibility of parents to “teach their children” (Doctrine and Covenants 68:28). But you, on the flip side, are also bringing out the blessings of and impact of sticking together with the family.
And I wondered if you could share maybe some of those benefits that you’ve seen through your research. Why is staying together as a family and working things out as a family so pivotal for civilization in general?
6:07
W. Bradford Wilcox: So, what we see in the research that we have done is that kids who are raised in stable-marriage families are markedly more likely to be flourishing emotionally and socially, less likely to be getting into trouble of one sort or another. And so more concretely, for instance, what I’ve found in my work is that kids who are raised in nonintact families are about 50% more likely to be depressed.
And for young men, what we’re seeing is that young men who are raised by their own married parents are markedly more likely to go to college, graduate from college, than they are to end up in prison or in jail at any point. And by contrast, young men who are being raised in nonintact families, without their married parents at home with them and for them, are about four times more likely to end up in prison or in jail than they are to graduate from college.
And I can give you more statistics, but the bottom line is what we see in the research that both I have done and that others have done is that there is a consistent connection between growing up in a stable, married family and doing better on a number of different fronts for both boys and girls across the country, Ryan.
7:14
Jon Ryan Jensen: What do you think are the threats? Like, why is this happening, that if the statistics are there that demonstrate the benefits of staying together as a family, then what are the threats that individuals and couples are succumbing to that are keeping families from staying together?
7:31
W. Bradford Wilcox: Well, I think that we’ve had since time immemorial problems like alcohol abuse or substance abuse, domestic violence. These are things that are reoccurring problems that confront human beings. Harsh and angry temperaments that can derail marriages and families in ways that we all I think understand.
But I think what’s newer, Ryan, about our moment in time is that we are seeing a lot of men floundering at school and in the workplace and in ways that make it harder for them to function as good husbands and good fathers and good providers, and that’s both limiting their marriage prospects and the stability of their marriages. So one thing that I’ve seen in my own personal life is that a number of the guys that have gotten divorced in my circle are men who have not been stably employed across the course of their marriages. It creates a certain friction and insecurity in the part, I think, of their wives, oftentimes. So that’s one thing that we see among more and more men today, Ryan.
We’re living, obviously, in a more secular society, where there is less religious support and sanction given to marriage and family life, and a much more individualistic society as well, where people are often looking out for what makes them happy or they think will make them happy in the short term, oftentimes, and they’re not as likely to make the kinds of sacrifices and compromises in their relationships and their families that would be good for the family, the marriage, the kids, longer term.
8:55
Jon Ryan Jensen: For me, talking to you, is that I actually feel better as a dad. I think so many times we have conversations about parenting and what it should and shouldn’t look like and stuff, but just listening to what you’re saying, it makes me feel better about the efforts that I do make. And if it’s right before bedtime that that quick wrestling session — I’ve got twins who when they’re 12 now, but when they were 5, 6, 7, that was their favorite thing, was before bedtime, “Dad, can we try to take you down?” And they loved that.
And now with them, it’s, “Can we kick the soccer ball in the backyard? Can we shoot basketball hoop in the driveway?” And so it’s good to hear from you that those are helpful things. Because sometimes you wonder if it all has to be the deep conversations and the super intentional teaching moments, but sometimes it is just the being there.
9:48
W. Bradford Wilcox: Yeah. And I would say our culture, I think, tends to stress the importance of communication and conversation often, and a lot of them were feminine ways of being a parent. And so certainly, the research is telling us that yes, the things that Mom does with her kids are incredibly valued important, but there are distinctive things that often dads do with their kids.
And my wife can talk circles around me. She’s way more articulate than I am, so especially when it comes to talking about emotions and what’s happening in our kids’ lives. But I think, again, it’s important for us dads to recognize and realize and appreciate that just being present to our kids and to smile, the activity — I’m the one who tends to push the family out the door to go on a walk or go to the pool or go on a hike, and those experiences are important for our family as well. It’s not just those unique gifts that my wife has as well that are needful for our children too.
So those are some of the things that I think we see playing out today. And of course technology, Ryan, has tended to sort of, I think, in recent years, supercharge these dynamics oftentimes. And so what we’re seeing is that I think young adults who are the most dependent on their devices are the ones who are having the most difficulty dating, mating, marrying, having families and flourishing in life more generally.
And because of the power of technology in our lives, I think there are more and more young adults who are getting sucked into spending too much time in our virtual worlds in ways that tend to inhibit their capacity to flourish in the real world, and then also when it comes to relationships and families, too.
11:22
Jon Ryan Jensen: And I’m one who really struggles to blame technology for the decisions that people make, but I’m listening to what you’re saying, and it sounds like there is some of that immersion in technology and what it brings that causes some of that struggle.
I wondered as well if you had seen any correlation or have any anecdotal evidence with people who say things culturally like, “I need to live my truth. I need to become my best me,” and if that also plays into that separation from a family-driven mentality.
12:00
W. Bradford Wilcox: Yeah. I see this really rising in the ’70s, Ryan. So, it was famously described by the novelist Thomas Wolfe as “The Me Decade” the ’70s were, and there was just so much commentary and books and on television and in other venues about the importance of focusing on me and myself and my desires, rather than seeing one’s primary purpose in life as being a good husband, a good father, a good wife, a good mother. So I think that shift in the late ’60s and ’70s is really enormous towards a more we call “expressive individualism” in my world in sociology. And that means, again, you’re prioritizing what you want as a person, what your individual desires are, what you think is going to make you emotionally satisfied or fulfilled.
And of course, the challenge in any relationship, in any marriage, in any family relationship, is there are plenty of opportunities where you’re not going to be happy in the moment. And if you just live in the moment for what you want in the moment, that’s I think going to be basically a recipe for misery longer term and for having unstable and often unhappy relationships.
So that’s, Ryan, been the challenge since the ’70s, is a lot of us have really leaned in to doing what I want to do, rather than recognizing there’s a — I talk about the importance of a “we before me” approach to marriage, and the more that we can understand and appreciate that we have a spouse and kids with their own needs and interests and concerns and live our lives towards their good or goods, I think generally speaking, people are more likely to flourish.
13:36
Jon Ryan Jensen: And there’s a difference between working through those challenges or disagreements in the couple or the family. I mean, there are a lot of people who say the “happy wife, happy life” kinds of comments.
But there is something more than acquiescing, right? There is something to be said about working through challenges together. Is that what I’m hearing you say?
14:01
W. Bradford Wilcox: Yeah. I have a colleague, a late colleague, in my department who was doing a study of families in Louisiana. It was having this couple who had been living in New Orleans, they loved New Orleans, they loved living in New Orleans, all the culture and food and all that stuff. But they’re living in Baton Rouge. It’s like, “Why are you in Baton Rouge?” In fact, neither of them actually preferred Baton Rouge individually. But of course, it turned out they had all of their kin were in Baton Rouge, and they realized it was best for them as part of a larger extended family to move from New Orleans, which is what they did, and to be in Baton Rouge.
And so that’s just an example of how they weren’t pursuing their own individual interests in this situation. They recognized there’s a broader family interest in being plugged into Baton Rouge. But I think in a marriage too, obviously, they’re going to have — it’s not just that I’m suggesting that you always defer to your wife or your husband, but you’re trying to figure out what’s best for us as a family: “Is this move to a new job opportunity the best thing for our family?”
One thing I talk about is a Catholic Army officer who repeatedly turned down offers to go to different bases and get a more prestigious position where he had, he didn’t always have the choice, but where he had the choice, because he realized it was best for his wife and kids to be stable, in terms of their pattern of moving in the army. And it kind of actually worked out for him, because I think his superiors understood that he had real integrity, but he was making sacrifices on a regular basis just to give his family more stability. So that’s the mindset that we need to sell.
15:27
Jon Ryan Jensen: I love that. The catalyst for our conversation today is, as I mentioned in our introduction, the 30th anniversary of the Church’s family proclamation. And, Brad, I think it’s important to note you’re not a Latter-day Saint yourself, but you are familiar with this document, its teachings. You have spoken at BYU as well.
When you read through a document as this one that the late President Gordon B. Hinckley presented to the Church 30 years ago, are there principles in there that stand out to you and that you can say, “Yeah, look, this is backed by the research and anecdotes that I’ve seen”?
16:05
W. Bradford Wilcox: I think as we look at the importance of embracing what I call a family-first marriage — where, again, you’re trying to prioritize the welfare of your marriage and your family as a whole — and I think there are a number of ways in which the proclamation does point us to that way of life and the advice that it gives ordinary couples, ordinary husbands and wives. And then I think, too, it celebrates the power and value in intrinsic worth for the family in ways that have, I think, stood the test of time. And then it also talks about the way in which, collectively, societies that embrace the family are more likely to flourish, and those that don’t embrace the family are more likely to flounder.
And I think as we look at the course of human history, and even our more recent history in United States, we can see the wisdom of the proclamation being expressed. And so one thing that I’ve pointed out in my own research of late is just that there’s been a decline in one major data set in reports of human happiness here in United States. And we’ve got new research from an economist at Chicago telling us that the No. 1 factor that explains why happiness has come down in the U.S. is that fewer Americans are married, fewer Americans are both getting married in the first place and, well, in some ways, staying married in the second place. So I think that finding from this research at University of Chicago is roughly, and my own research is roughly, in concordance with what the proclamation is saying about not just the individual importance of the family for individual families, but its collective importance as well, Ryan.
17:34
Jon Ryan Jensen: I wonder, and you and I haven’t talked about this, so I honestly don’t know the answer: When a couple decides to get married, how important is it for them to have an agreement of sorts on believing or having a shared belief in the type of principles expressed in the family proclamation or in other common beliefs that they may have?
W. Bradford Wilcox: Yeah, we see is what’s called homogamy, Ryan, in my world, which is being on the same page when it comes to work and family, when it comes to faith, is it now, unfortunately, to even in politics, Ryan, is the big predictor of marital harmony and marital stability. I’ve looked more at religion, and what I see is the couples who share the same faith are more likely to be happily married as well as stably married, depending upon the data set, what we see is that couples and people who go to church regularly are about 30-50% less likely across the U.S. to get divorced.
But there’s just no question that having the same religious worldview — going to church together, having similar opinions about work and family and these core family commitments — is a big predictor of marital stability and quality.
18:44
Jon Ryan Jensen: Well, Brad, I really appreciate the perspective on the proclamation that you have. I mentioned as well that you spoke at Brigham Young University, which is sponsored by the Church as well. And while you were there, you compared what you call a “Midas mindset” to a “marriage mindset.”
Can you talk about that and share your five principles for happiness in marriage that you’ve extrapolated from your studies?
19:09
W. Bradford Wilcox: Sure. So, Ryan, what we’ve been seeing in the culture is that many, not just Americans, but really global citizens, are embracing what I call a Midas mindset, where the focus is really on education, especially career. And we’ve seen, for instance, in the Pew Research has done surveys in the U.S. showing that young adults today, about 70% of them would see a career as their primary path to living a fulfilling life. Only about a quarter would say that being a spouse or being a parent is a primary path to fulfillment.
So this is an example, from my perspective, of how this Midas mindset, privileging what you do in school, but especially in work as like the most important thing about life. And it also explains why we see such a dramatic crash in fertility in East and now Southeast Asia as well, because there’s just a big focus on work and professional identity there, even more so, I think, than the United States.
Jon Ryan Jensen: Since the definition of success relies heavily on the professional.
20:07
W. Bradford Wilcox: Exactly, and what you’re doing at work, how much status you have at work, how much money you make at work, how intrinsically meaningful you find your job. So I think the problem with that Midas mindset, in part, is that people don’t recognize that when it comes to meaning and happiness, we often find that family is a more reliable supplier of meaning happiness. So in my work, we find that yes, having a meaningful job boosts your happiness, but just simply being married is a bigger boost to the average American’s happiness, and being in a good marriage is by far the most important predictor of happiness for adults.
So I find that Americans who are in a good marriage are 545% more likely to be very happy with their lives. And there’s no factor in the data — not religious attendance, not self-rated health, not career — that would compare to a good marriage and predicting happiness for the ordinary man and woman in the United States. So, again, so what I find is that Americans who are happily married are about 545% more likely to be very happy with their lives as well. So, and again, there’s no factor in what’s called the General Social Survey, the GSS, this big social drama we look at all the time, that would compare to a good marriage and predicting people’s happiness.
So, I just want to basically communicate that reality to the general public, also my students at UVA, that like, “Look, yeah, I’m happy for you to be studying hard, to be thinking about your career. It’s all good stuff. But just bear in mind that for most of us, our friendships and our family relationships over the course of our lives are way more important.” There’s a similar Harvard longitudinal study that comes to similar conclusions, looking at adults in their 80s, actually, and finding that, again, a family and friendship are so, so important to people’s well-being. So that’s a big message in my work, is just recognizing and appreciating that a good marriage is quite valuable.
22:04
Now, the question in them is, “Well, how does one forge” — Ryan, as I think you were just saying — “a good marriage.” In my book, I talked about the five C’s, and those are basically “communion,” talking about, for instance, the importance of regular date nights as a way of building that communion in marriage would be one example. I’m talking about “children recognizing,” so having a common project as a couple. And for most of us who are married, that’s our kids, being good parents to our kids is a way to forge a strong and civil marriage.
Talking about the importance of “commitment” is a third C, and that extends to like looking at marriage as a permanent commitment, it extends to thinking about the importance of fidelity in marriage and being intentional about cultivating a virtue of fidelity in your marriage, would be, something that one can think about. But also, like my wife and I, we never use the D word when we’re having a disagreement or a fight or conflict — we’re not going to talk about divorce in the context of the inevitable challenges and difficulties and disagreements in married life.
Jon Ryan Jensen: So it’s not a threat.
23:09
W. Bradford Wilcox: Yeah, so it’s not on the table, doesn’t undercut our capacity to navigate both the highs and lows of married life. The fourth C is “cash.” I mean, marriage is still an economic reality, and couples who have a steady stream of income and more assets, shared assets, this comes in part from work done by Jeff Dew, my friend and colleague at BYU, talks about the importance of shared assets for couples as well.
And then the fifth C is “community” and recognizing that birds of the feather, Ryan, flock together. And so we are our friends, basically. And so if your friends are living family-friendly lifestyles, you yourself are way more likely to be doing that. And by contrast, if your friends are doing things that are not so conducive to being a good family man or family woman, you’re more like yourself not to being those things as well. And I talk in particular about how religious communities tend to be places where people are more likely to get married, to stay married and to have generally happy marriages when they’re connected to a religious community.
So those are the 5 C’s that I talk about, pillars, if you will, of both a strong marriage, a good marriage, and then a stable marriage as well.
24:25
Jon Ryan Jensen: I think it’s interesting, if we’re talking in the context of Latter-day Saints, there might be a sixth C that we would add, which is “covenants.” And we believe strongly in the power of covenants and ordinances, those covenants that we make with God when we choose to be married. We refer to it as a sealing, the sealing power of a covenant, and that you are then bonded together. And so, like you said, that D word is not on the table, because we believe that in this process of living a covenant life together, that we are forging a bond that is intended to last for eternity. But all of these C’s play so, so well together.
Not everyone, though, as you saw within your own family, has that good or ideal marriage situation. And so, I also wondered if you have any thoughts or advice that you would give to those who are struggling with marriage at this point in time, whether it’s within their marriage or the concept of getting married.
What kinds of advice and counsel do you give to those people?
25:29
W. Bradford Wilcox: Well, I think one of the things I talk about is this idea that because of where we sit, both culturally, I would say, technologically and economically, we are projecting a large minority of adults will never marry. About 1/3 of adults, we would say, by our estimations, who are in their 20s today, will never marry, Ryan.
And so it’s important for the church community to recognize that that’s a reality out there, and to act accordingly from that perspective. And so that means trying to do more to incorporate single adults into both your religious community but also into the fabric of your own family life. So, having your single friends over for dinner or for family activities, right? And that’s good for often you and the kids, having some third person over, so to speak, is often good for the family as well.
When it comes to folks who are struggling in marriage, just to recognize as well, I think just one thing that can be hard and people who are in church on a given Sunday is we see, in my data, is about between 10-20% of folks who are in church on a given Sunday are not in a good spot in their marriage. So most are, but a decent minority are not. And so having a priest or a pastor or a lay minister acknowledge that, reality from the pulpit, for instance, on occasion, or just in other informal communications, or informal religious communications.
I think people often can handle difficulties, Ryan, challenges when they know that they’re not alone, and when their situation is acknowledged and understood. So that’s certainly part of the advice that I would give, is to tell religious leaders: Let people know it’s OK if you’re struggling in your marriage. This is quite normal. It’s OK if you’re upset. It’s OK if you are struggling in some domain of married life, whether it’s financial or parenting or whatever it might be. And just to walk alongside people and give them that acknowledgement and whatever help and advice you can, and that’s all helpful too.
27:24
Jon Ryan Jensen: We have a Church leader, President Henry B. Eyring — who is the second counselor in the First Presidency of the Church — and he once said something similar, where he said whether you’re a Church leader who’s ministering or just a lay member who’s going and visiting with a fellow member of the Church, if you think that about half the people who you are meeting with are dealing with a challenge that to them is beneath the surface but that you have no idea about, more often than not, you’re going to be right, that they are.
And when we treat each other in that way of, “Hey, I’m here to help and support you, even if I don’t know what your challenge is,” it provides, like you said, that sense of belonging, that sense of, “Hey, there’s someone here who has my back, and that means a lot to them.”
28:04
W. Bradford Wilcox: Yeah, exactly. And one of the things that we see in marriage and family life more generally is that stress can be a corrosive force in our lives and in our marriages and our families. And so, I think one of the great things about faith and community, religious community, is that it helps. It’s not a magical potion solution, right? But when you are integrated into your religious community, when you are actively praying, what we do see in the research, scientifically, is people are better able to handle stress. I think that’s very relevant when we’re thinking about the stresses that one experiences that can otherwise really be poisonous for your marriage or your family.
28:43
Jon Ryan Jensen: Well, Brad, I really appreciate the perspective that you have given today. At the very end of the proclamation to the world, there is a warning that comes, and I think that you’re sharing some of the results of this today. But again, as President Hinckley read and as we read continuously in this document, it says, “We warn that individuals who violate covenants of chastity, who abuse spouse or offspring, or who fail to fulfill family responsibilities will one day stand accountable before God. Further, we warn that the disintegration of the family will bring upon individuals, communities and nations the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets.”
And I think that part of what you’re explaining is that we see that, the disintegration of communities large and small, when we don’t have families at the center of our efforts to bring us closer to Heavenly Father.
29:35
W. Bradford Wilcox: Yeah, Ryan, so what we do see, I mentioned the example, for instance, of just the trends and happiness in the U.S. have been kind of, at least in some surveys, has been going down of late. And there’s a family story there, and it’s consistent with what the proclamation says at the end there.
We also see, too, in some work that I did with a colleague at BYU, actually, Joseph Price, is that we find in our more community-based research that when it comes to both the strength of the American dream and when it comes to this negative pattern of mass incarceration, we found that in communities across the U.S., in a very large national data set, that communities that had more single-parent families were more likely to have kids who were stuck in poverty as they moved into adulthood. And so that vicious cycle of poverty was moving through the life course, if you will. And also that kids raised in those communities were, more likely young men, to end up incarcerated.
And by contrast, communities have lots of two-parent families were more likely to have poor kids rise into affluence as adults — it’s the rags-to-riches classic American dream story — and were way less likely to have their young men ending up in prison or in jail of any sort. So it just — we were looking at not individual data respondents, if you will. We were looking at patterns across communities in America with this work.
And so it just shows the wisdom of that concluding set of comments in a proclamation, just telling us that what happens in our families doesn’t just matter for individual adults and children in those households; it matters for the broader community context and even for the nations themselves. When the family is strong, communities are strong. And so, “as the family goes, so goes the nation,” as my own Pope John Paul II said many years ago. So that idea is certainly articulated, too, in your proclamation.
31:28
Jon Ryan Jensen: Love that. Well, Brad, we have a tradition on the Church News podcast where we like to allow our guests to have the final word. And so I would like to extend that invitation to you as well. Brad Wilcox, what do you know now, having done all of the research that you’ve done, seeing what you’ve seen about family and its purpose for us?
31:45
W. Bradford Wilcox: So, I think I would say two things, one that’s more personal, and then one that is more consequential for the common good.
So, the personal thing that I’ve found in my research, Ryan, is that fathers matter in ways that we’d expect, classically, in terms of both providing and in terms of discipline, and again, ways that we would expect. There’s certainly, I think, a lot of research on the importance of dads’ financial support for their families and the authoritative role that dads can play when it comes to disciplining their kids and maintaining order within the family.
But there’s also been a lot of new research done on the importance, Ryan, of physical play. So you can think about toddlers being thrown up in the air by Dad in the park, for instance. We can think about dads playing baseball or football in the backyard with their kids, or wrestling with their children on the family room floor, like on a Saturday morning, for instance. And what we’re seeing in this research on physical play, Ryan, is just the way in which is just something about that. Maybe it’s physiological, maybe it’s social, maybe it’s emotional, I’m not sure exactly why. But there’s something about this physical play that dads have with their kids that’s linked to a lot of good outcomes for our children.
There’s a piece of research done by an Emory psychologist, for instance, that was telling us that dads who roughhouse with their kids have children who are better equipped to keep control of their bodies and socialize with their school friends in elementary school. And he was commenting on how the kids who wrestle with Dad quickly learned that biting or hitting in certain ways is not acceptable. There’s just something about this physical play that the psychologist at Emory and others have found is just really valuable for kids.
So for me, personally, and I’m not the most athletic guy, just trying to be more intentional about playing basketball with my kids, for instance, shooting basketballs. And my kids are more athletic, generally speaking, than I am, so it’s a humbling enterprise for me to be out on the driveway shooting baskets with my children, for instance. But I’ve just learned through just the research, there’s something about playing basketball with them or swimming in the pool with them in the summer, whatever it might be, it’s really important. So I think I would encourage all your dads out there, and also moms to encourage dads, to do everything from roughhousing with little kids on the family room floor to other forms of play and athletic activity, physical activity with that. Trying to cultivate that is super valuable.
34:17
So that’s the more personal comment. The more professional, common-good comment is just — I’ve been banging the marriage drum now for about 20 years as a family sociologist. But what I want to say to your audience, and I think it’s obviously very apropos for your audience especially, is it’s not just that marriage and the family matter for adults and kids today; I think that they may matter more than ever. And, Ryan, I say that because of the role especially of technology in our lives. And this is what we’re seeing, Ryan, is that reports, I think, of loneliness, reports of unhappiness on some national surveys seem to be increasing, and the gap between married and unmarried adults, the gap between parents and childless adults, on some key social and emotional indicators is increasing. And the power of married parents for kids on some outcomes is increasing.
So, just to give you some examples, what we see in some research that I’ve done is that when it comes to kids, for instance, that the link between growing up in a stable, married family and graduating from a college, Ryan, is growing from the boomer generation to the millennial generation. We see in another study the link between stable, married family life and school suspensions is increasing. So, for kids, it looks like having stable parents may be more valuable today than it was 20 or over 16 or 30 years ago. And then for adults, we’re seeing some measures of unhappiness, measures of mortality, that it’s not just that being married is good for you, but it’s better than ever. And that same thing is true for being a parent versus being a childless adult.
And I think that part of the story is, particularly for adults, Ryan, is that because of the power of big tech to distract and divide us as adults, especially, and as teenagers, having the benefit of a spouse and a family as an adult becomes that much more valuable in terms of giving us something to do with our free time that’s constructive and in person and valuable and meaningful.
And so, it may be the case that in a sense, that wisdom articulated in the proclamation, as we go forward, Ryan, will not just be true, but even truer than we could have imagined. Because one of the things that’s directing grounding and guiding us today as Americans, especially American adults, is just the power of family to keep us from becoming too distracted and too divided by these devices taking such a big role in our lives, especially in the last, really, 15 years.
37:01
Jon Ryan Jensen: Thank you for listening to the Church News podcast. I’m your host, Church News editor Jon Ryan Jensen. I hope you learned something today about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and had your faith in the Savior increase by looking through the Church News window as a living record of the Restoration. Please subscribe, rate and review this podcast so it can be accessible to more people. And if you enjoyed the messages we shared today, please share the podcast with others. Thanks to our guests; to my producer, KellieAnn Halvorsen; and to others who make this podcast possible. Join us every week for a new episode. Find us on your favorite podcasting channels or with other news and updates about the Church on TheChurchNews.com or on the Church News app.
