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In this conversation, John Anderson travels to Portland, Oregon to interview Katy Faust and Stacy Manning, co-authors of Them Before Us (2021), a book that argues for a revolution in how we think about the family, and a re-focus on the needs of children above the desires of parents.

Today, another highlight from Conversations with John Anderson, a channel I commend to all who love to think through some of the big issues. John’s guests always seem to lift my spirit even while dissecting some tragic challenges within society.

This video opens with John’s observation that both the left and right of politics have stopped talking about the family when framing their policy statements. It’s as if now that same-sex marriage is legal in both the US and Australia, there is nothing further to say. But John’s guests strongly disagree. Faust, the natural grace exponent, and Manning the natural justice advocate talk through their book that has done really well in both Christian and secular communities and has already been translated into five languages other than English. They say, the truth has a ring to it and people want to hear it.

Faust and Manning have recognised that the modern family has been all about the dreams and desires of the adults that have forced children’s rights to come a clear second best. They argue that this is highly detrimental to their growth and development, and someone needs to stand up for the voiceless here and say enough is enough.

Children need a male and female parent. Women have higher levels of oxytocin that maximise bonding, particularly for the under threes, while males have higher levels of testosterone that maximise adventure, exploration, and fun.

Talking of the US – but I bet it’s similar here in Australia – 70-80% of males in state prisons are fatherless. That statistic just gets me. These ladies went on to say men who have had effective fathers don’t go to prison. Prisons are holding tanks for fatherless men. They went on to say, of boys in particular, if your father is gone, you’re going to struggle in school.

Rates of abuse and neglect, skyrocket when there is someone other than the biological parent in the home. Divorce does not solve the issues that we think they solve; in fact, the no fault divorce is at fault. Prior to that, there was always someone at fault, meaning that the innocent could be protected.

There was a brilliant discussion about the meaning of marriage. It’s not about love, but rather a commitment to love. Social liberalism, the absence of commitment, is costing the economy big time, but no one talks about this! They went on to compare small government, that has high personal responsibility with the exercise of conscience. As opposed to big government that takes away personal responsibility and requires the constabulary.

Manning and Faust argue that children have rights. Their central argument is that children have a right to a mother and a father. Sociologists have agreed, for decades, long before the recent waves of liberalism, that:

1. Biological parents are advantageous to the well-being and development of children.
2. Men and women offer complementary benefits, it’s not parenting at all that’s important per se but mothering and fathering.
3. Kids with a lone parent suffer trauma.

So, let’s do all we can to start turning the tide and putting family, with a biological mother and a biological father at the centre of society rather than continuing to marginalise what humans have championed for all of time.

Towards the end of the discussion there was an excellent section on in-vitro fertilisation (IVF), making babies in glass vessels. Manning and Faust applauded IVF for couples using their own gametes to raise their own family, but they had grave concern for the children raised where their father’s name was doner.

Too much, perhaps all, of the liberation policies have simply pampered to the wishes and desires of adults and the children have been an afterthought. We are now raising generations with extremely unstable roots. Our young men, particularly, are extremely vulnerable. Let’s start the pushback with a campaign for the rights of the child, not just their right to life but also their right to a home with biological parents.

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Photo: Screenshot of John Anderson/Youtube.