WATCH: “MARRIAGE IS THE MOST CHILD-FRIENDLY INSTITUTION THE WORLD HAS EVER KNOWN”

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Katy Faust is a leading US advocate for the rights of children to grow up with their married mother and father. I spoke to her about her new book ‘Them Before Us’ and the challenging messages it contains. You can listen to our detailed discussion here:

After her mother and father divorced, Katy grew up with her lesbian mother and her mother’s partner. “She was and is an incredible mother”, Katy says, “but neither of them satisfied my need for fatherly love”. The book makes the argument that “children have a natural right to the two people responsible for their existence”.

After studying family structure “for decades”, the book gathers “all of the best data”, along with stories about children who “dare to express any pain or loss”. She adds that “the stories of those kids are very hard to find because they are very expensive to tell”.

Exploring the importance of biological links, the book points out that marriage is the safest and most stable institution for children. Divorce and cohabitation take that stability away. Faust says that children need three things to be emotionally nourished: “mother’s love, father’s love, and stability”. She calls them “the three staples of child’s social and emotional diet”.

On no-fault divorce, Katy says “the statistical case is fundamentally against you, divorce will damage your kids in every way that kids can be damaged”.

Moving forward as a society, she says “you’re never gonna fix any of the social issues, you’re never gonna achieve social justice, until you can secure individual justice for individual children… Marriage is the best institution that does that for us”.

“We really should look at policy issues and personal decisions, when it comes to marriage and family, through the lens of children’s rights and children’s needs.” She concludes: “We’re not against adults, we’re for children.”

At C4M, we agree that real marriage is best for children, adults and society at large. That’s why we will continue to promote and support it in the public square and among policy-makers. Thank you for standing with us.