More fathers married when their first child is born? Probably not

A startling data brief from the National Center for Health Statistics reports that the percentage of fathers who weren't married at the time of their first births fell from the 1980s to the 2000s. Here is the first "key finding": "The percentage of fathers aged 15–44 whose first births were nonmarital was lower in the 2000s (36%) than in the…

Why I called it The Family, and what that has to do with Cosby

First, a note on language In American English books from 1910 to 1950, about 25% of the uses of "family" were preceded by "the." Starting about 1950, however, "the family" started falling out of fashion, finally dropping below 16% of "family" uses in the mid-2000s. This trend coincides with the modern rise of family diversity. In her classic…

What drives the rise of stay at home fathers?

A real upward trend for stay at home fathers, but the hardcore version remains very rare.

Father care: The more things don’t change, the more they stay the same

Since the mid-1990s: Nothing.

Exaggerating gender changes

Inaccurate, misleading, distorted numbers on the coming dominance of women.

Pounding the news with Maslow’s hammer

According to Maslow's hammer, when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.* After reading the New York Times magazine's report on an outbreak of neurological symptoms among high school girls in Le Roy, New York, David Blankenhorn blogged it this way: Blankenhorn is president of the Institute for American Values, a…