Family Unfriendly: Do Americans Hate Children? | Timothy P. Carney

Family Unfriendly: Do Americans Hate Children? | Timothy P. Carney

From A Commitment to Reality by Christian Research Institute

May 19, 2026 · 1h 15m

About this episode

Timothy P. Carney discusses the challenges of parenting in a culture that has become increasingly unfriendly to families.

Faith and family are civilizational cornerstones. Remove them and the structure loses its integrity. American culture—and much of the West—has done exactly that as we’ve become increasingly “family unfriendly.” Timothy P. Carney wrote Family Unfriendly: How Our Culture Made Raising Kids Much Harder Than It Needs to Be because he believes America is failing our families and that this failure is the biggest story of the next 30 years. I couldn’t agree more. A culture that idolizes individuality does so at the cost of community. We have abandoned our obligations to others—especially to children and parents. Parenting is already hard, and yet our culture seems determined to make it harder. Having kids has become just another lifestyle choice—a far cry from historical norms and biological realities. What changed? According to Carney, the answer is culture itself. Ours has become less friendly to parenting than it used to be—and should be. He joins Dave Hanegraaff on Commitment to Reality to talk about how we got here, what we’ve lost, and what it would take to build a culture that actually loves children. To learn more about receiving Family Unfriendly: How Our Culture Made Raising…

People in this episode

Host: Dave Hanegraaff

Guest: Timothy P. Carney

Topics covered

  • family
  • culture
  • parenting
  • community
  • individuality
  • civilization

Keywords

  • family
  • parenting
  • culture
  • community
  • individuality
  • children
  • civilization

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Christian Research Institute

Books & works: Family Unfriendly: How Our Culture Made Raising Kids Much Harder Than It Needs to Be

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