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THRIFT AND GENEROSITY A Word from Suzii -- April/May 2011 Suzii Paynter, Christian Life Commission, May 31, 2011 "A drama unfolded on the floor of the Texas House of Representatives this week. It was a parable of Biblical proportions -- money, self interest, moral outrage and free market politics. Rep. Vickie Truitt (R-Keller) presented her bills to begin a disclosure and license process for payday lending and auto title loan businesses. The Thrift report (.pdf) that we are featuring this month is a document that emphasizes some of the guiding principles about thrift, prosperity and financial stability. [Lead researchers for the report are Dr. Barbara Dafoe Whitehead of the Institute for American Values and Charles E. Stokes of the University of Texas, who is also the Roy F. Bergengren Fellow at the Institute.]" America's Lost Trillions Chris Isidore, CNNMoney, June 9, 2011 "'I think the absolute decline in household wealth resulted in a decline in confidence about the future,' said Barbara Whitehead, director of the Templeton Center for Thrift and Generosity [at the Institute]. 'Most experts agree (that), over the long term, Americans are going to save more.'" Foes Plan to Attend Arlington Hts. Meeting Deborah Donovan, Chicago Daily Herald, June 5, 2011 "Residents of Arlington Heights need to know whether village officials have studied the issues in the questions, said Rev. Tom Grey, senior adviser to [Institute partner] Stop Predatory Gambling, who has Arlington Heights ties. Opponents of gambling expansion maintain that video gambling will lead to more crime and emergency room visits and will take business from downtown Arlington Heights." Gambling Myths Steve Chapman, Chicago Tribune, June 5, 2011 "If legal wagering doesn't lead to El Dorado, the mythical land of gold, it also doesn't descend into the inferno. Groups like [Institute partner] Stop Predatory Gambling depict casinos and racetracks as demonic agents spreading social disaster. They aren't." A Slight Delay in Next Phase of SugarHouse Expansion Jennifer Lin, Philly.com, June 16, 2011 "Paul Boni, a volunteer with [Institute partner] Stop Predatory Gambling who was the only critic of SugarHouse to speak at the hearing, said there were hidden costs from compulsive gambling that have to be weighed against the benefits of the casino." DC to Become Gambling Haven Charlie Butts, OneNewsNow.com, June 21, 2011 "Nathaniel Beaudoin of [Institute partner] Stop Predatory Gambling agrees that Internet gambling might produce some revenue for the city, but says it is a very unstable source." MARRIAGE AND FAMILIES How Divorce Lost Its Groove Pamela Paul, The New York Times, June 17, 2011 "'There has been a striking shift in both beliefs and behavior towards marriage among educated and affluent Americans,' said W. Bradford Wilcox, [Institute senior fellow and] an associate professor of sociology at the University of Virginia and director of the National Marriage Project. 'There's a tacit or explicit recognition among well-educated parents that their kids are less likely to thrive if Mom and Dad can't be together.'" For Richer, for Smarter The Economist, June 23, 2011 "'Marriage has become much more selective, and that's why the divorce rate has come down,' said Bradford Wilcox, [Institute senior fellow and] director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. The project found that divorce rates for couples with college degrees are only a third as high as for those with a high-school degree." Why We're Going Back to Single-Sex Dorms John Garvey, The Wall Street Journal, June 13, 2011 "Hooking up is getting to be as common as drinking. Sociologist [and Institute senior fellow] W. Bradford Wilcox, who heads the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, says that in various studies, 40%-64% of college students report doing it." Read the Article | and read at Catholic Education Resource Center A Marshall Plan for Marriage: Rebuilding Our Shattered Homes Chuck Donovan, The Heritage Foundation, June 7, 2011 "W. Bradford Wilcox, [Institute senior fellow and] director of the National Marriage Project, writes that the 'retreat from marriage' among middle-income Americans is 'imperiling the social and emotional welfare of children' and 'opening up a cultural divide in our nation that does not augur well for the American experiment in democracy.' The numbers are alarming indeed." Read the Article | and read in The Moral Liberal Can (This) Marriage Be Saved? Ruth Franklin, The New Republic, June 1, 2011 "David Popenoe, [Institute senior fellow and] a former director of the National Marriage Project (and the son of Paul Popenoe, co-author of the famous 'Can This Marriage Be Saved?' column in Ladies' Home Journal), tells Haag that many people's 'view of marriage may be so unrealistic' -- namely, romantic and narcissistic -- 'that they're doomed to failure.' Haag's mother tells her that 'there are worse things in life than being bored and unfulfilled.' A woman who resigns herself to an unsatisfying marriage, in this view, isnt limiting herself; she's being realistic and mature." 'Dadchelor Parties' Celebrate First Time Fathers Katherine Bindley, Huffington Post, June 13, 2011 "Bradford Wilcox, [Institute senior fellow and] director of the National Marriage Project, suspects dadelor parties could in part be explained by the fathers' fears about how the baby's arrival will affect his relationship to his spouse. 'When babies come along, it tends to make a much more dramatic shift in the wife's focus,' Wilcox said. 'It's to some degree traumatic for your average husband.'" Father's Day: Why Dads Are More Engaged ... and More Absent Mark Trumbull, The Christian Sciene Monitor, June 17, 2011 "[Institute senior fellow] Mr. Wilcox sees 'an erosion of good-paying, stable jobs for less-educated men.' This has made many men less capable as family providers, and less attractive to women as a result, he says. The deep recession of 2007-09 only made an existing problem worse, leaving many working-age men on the economy's sidelines." From "What Do You Do?" To "I Do" Meghan Casserly, Forbes blog, June 21, 2011 "[Institute senior fellow] Wilcox says that it's important to point out that marriage-as-business is currently en vogue, despite being somewhat unromantic.'For decades,Americans thought about marriage as a soul mate situation -- that instant love connection, passion, sparks. The economic basis of marriage, of establishing a joint bank account, buying a home together, having an economic future together had fallen out of perspective.'" Good Family Man' Deserves Recognition in Society David Blankenhorn, Sr., Jackson Clarion Ledger, June 10, 2011 "The importance of fatherhood was the subject of the book, Fatherless America, written by the more noted David Blankenhorn, president of the Institute for American Values. This book has been described by many sociologists as the "bible" of the Fatherhood movement. It makes the case that fathers are critical to the family structure, and to society, but that fatherhood is under attack by current cultural norms. Divorce and unwed child bearing are the leading culprits that rob so many children of the positive impact of a committed father, married to their mother." Good Marriage = Good Fathers United Press International, June 17, 2011 "'The best predictor of father presence is marital status,' a report from the Institute for American Values says. The report says when a father's romantic relationship with the child's mother ends, this often ends his involvement with their children as well." Is Marriage Dying, Or Just Changing? Margaret Hartmann, Jezebel, May 26, 2011 "W. Bradford Wilcox, [Institute senior fellow and] the director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, argues that the retreat from marriage is bad for society because it means less security for children. 'It's troubling because those kids are much more likely to be exposed to instability, complex family relations and poverty,' he said." Loving v. Virginia, Apples v. Oranges Glenn T. Stanton, The National Review Online blog The Corner, June 15,2011 "As David Blankenhorn sagely pointed out in his book, The Future of Marriage, some Southern racists redefined marriage to make it something it was never supposed to be about -- racial purity -- when race is not any part of marriage. It was about making marriage do something it was never intended to do for the sake of their own narrow social ideals. Likewise, same-sex marriage advocates today are drafting marriage into their own narrow social cause, as a way to elevate the social standing of homosexuality. Like keeping the races apart then, marriage has no place in this special-interest-based re-engineering." Marriage Melt Down: A Fatherless America Zia H. Shah, The Muslim Times blog, June 7, 2011 "It's dismissive of the human experience, says David Blankenhorn, president of the Institute for American Values, to suggest that kids don't suffer, extraordinarily, from divorce: 'Children have a primal need to know who they are, to love and be loved by the two people whose physical union brought them here. To lose that connection, that sense of identity, is to experience a wound that no child-support check or fancy school can ever heal.'" New Zealand Marriages; US Births Marcus Roberts, MercatorNet blog Demography Is Destiny, June 20, 2011 "Demographic Intelligence, a website founded by [Institute senior fellow] Dr. Brad Wilcox, provides information on current and future fertility trends in the States. In April, the Demographic Intelligence sponsoredUS Fertility ForecastTM projected that US births would fall to 4.015 million in 2010. Last week, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention released its preliminary figures and it turns out that the actual number of births in the US last year was 4.007 million. Put another way, the US Fertility ForecastTM was99.8% accurate." Romance, Scandal and Royals Rita Watson, The Providence Journal, June 5, 2011 "The same week that Maria Shriver divorce stories surfaced so too did the new U.S. Census Bureau figures showing that divorce is on the decline. And the head of the Marriage and Family Project at the University of Virginia [and Institute senior fellow], Dr. W. Bradford Wilcox, confirmed that infidelity -- which has remained low and steady for over 20 years -- has also declined slightly." Setting Marriage Straight Slate Magazine, June 26, 2011 "In his much-debated 2006 article 'What's Love Got To Do With It? Equality, Equity, Commitment and Women's Marital Quality' (PDF), W. Bradford Wilcox, a sociologist at the University of Virginia and resident scholar at the Institute for American Values, argued that 'women are not happier in marriages marked by egalitarian practices and beliefs.' And it's their fault: 'We suspect that higher expectations of intimacy and equality among women, especially more egalitarian-minded women, have led them to view their husbands' emotion work more critically; we also suspect that these expectations have increased marital conflict and -- in turn -- dampened men's marital emotion work.' More church attendance, higher male earnings, and lower female expectations are instead the key to family happiness, Wilcox concludes." The Decline of Fatherhood and the Male Identity Crisis Ray Williams, Psychology Today, June 19, 2011 "'If present trends continue', writes [Institute senior fellow] David Popenoe, a professor of sociology at Rutgers University, 'the percentage of American children living apart from their biological fathers will reach 50% by the next century.'" The Hidden Effects of Divorce On Children Larry Bilotta, Children Health Guide, June 20, 2011 "A long term study released in 2002 by the Institute for American Values found that 'unhappily married adults who divorced were no more likely to report emotional or psychological improvements than those who stayed married.'" The Rights of the Donor-Conceived Elizabeth Marquardt, The National Review Online blog The Corner, June 20, 2011 "More than 15 years ago my colleague [and Institute president] David Blankenhorn, in his book Fatherless America, argued that fatherhood was being fragmented. The emerging cultural view he documented was that children didn't necessarily need their biological father in their home, married to their mother, caring for them. Rather, children could suffice with a 'visiting' father, a 'nearby guy,' or a 'sperm' father." There Are Good Reasons to Honor Fathers Today Dr. Stanley Watson, Picayune Item, June 18, 2011 "Daughters wait until they reach maturity to marry and have children. Girls who reach puberty without fathers are more than twice as likely to have children during their teen years when compared to daughters from intact families according to The Good Family Man by David Blankenhorn [Institute president]." Thoughts on Gay Marriage in NY Aaron Goldstein, The American Spectator, June 25, 2011 "John Guardiano argues that the institution of marriage is threatened. Amongst other things, he cites Rich Lowry of National Review Online who in turn cites [Institute senior fellow] Brad Wilcox of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia claims that intact marriages amongst moderately and highly educated have fallen almost in half (from 73% to nearly 39%.)" PUBLIC CONVERSATION See the most recent event held in our Center for Public Conversation: Will Inflation Gut the American Saver? A Conversation on June 9th with William P. Mumma, President and Chief Executive Officer of Mitsubishi UFJ Securities (USA), Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, Director of the Templeton Center for Thrift and Generosity at the Institute for American Values, and Sean Fieler, [Institute board member and] Managing Member of Equinox Partners, LP. |
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