Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth, for the Colson Center. I'm John Stone Street. Recently, Stranger Things actress Millie Bobbie Brown has faced the ire of critics, but not for the typical behavior that lands a celebrity in trouble, like drunken behavior or having an unpopular political view. Rather, she got married and adopted a child, and according to critics, that was irresponsible behavior for someone so young. See, today marriage and family have been reimagined in contemporary culture as capstone achievements to be enjoyed, if at all, after having success, not as cornerstones on which to build a life with another.
Rather than marrying young and having a bunch of kids, people talk today about doing some living before settling down, as if having a spouse and kids is the end of freedom and the end of happiness. Postponing, even foregoing marriage, is the path to the good life, according to this view. But in fact, study after study attests the opposite is true. For example, a 2024 study from the Institute of Family Studies found that 40% of married mothers aged 18 to 55 describe themselves as very happy. Compared with only 25% of single childless women in the same age group.
Since the 1970s, the University of Chicago General Social Survey has asked Americans about their happiness. Married people were persistently 30 points happier than unmarried people, whose average scores hovered near zero. And study after study finds that the best predictor of future financial, medical, and mental success for a child is when the child is raised by two married biological parents. In other words, in almost every way, our culture is getting this one exactly backwards. Those thought to be living their best life are often the most miserable.
Those thought to be trapped by responsibilities of marriage and family are consistently doing the best. The truth about marriage and family should be told. The myth should be exposed. And that's exactly what my friend Tim Gagline has done in his latest book, What Really Matters, Restoring a Legacy of Faith, Family, and Freedom. In it, Gagline, the vice president of external and government relations for Focus on the Family and his co-author Craig Osten take readers back to the basics about what makes a life and a culture flourish.
In this collection of commentaries and articles from the past few years, readers are reminded that so-called traditional wisdom of the past, working hard, saving for tomorrow, getting married, having kids, spending time with them. With kids, being part of a wider community, especially a religious community, is called traditional wisdom for a reason. It's the most well-attested path to a good life. There's no need to reinvent the wheel of God's created design for marriage and family. Throughout scripture, from Genesis to Psalms, from Proverbs to Jeremiah, Malachi to Matthew, and nearly 100 other verses, the Bible articulates what are the fundamental building blocks of a healthy culture.
In contrast, the so-called liberating revolutions of the 20th and 21st centuries promised flourishing and freedom and delivered neither. Increasingly, when they are untethered from the various agendas of these social revolutionaries, the social sciences reflect the truth of God's design. We're not designed to live for ourselves. Autonomy is a myth. Our best life comes by living according to God's design, embracing what Gagline calls a less me-centric worldview.
Back in 1961, following a heartbreaking loss in the NFC championship game the previous season, Vince Lombardi began training camp for the Green Bay Packers with this simple line: Gentlemen, this is a football, and our society needs a cultural version of that same kind of common sense. That's what really matters, restoring a legacy of faith, freedom, and family is. Gagline and Osten offer just this: America, this is a family, this is faith, this is freedom, these are the keys to everything we hope to find. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street with Breakpoint. Today's Breakpoint was co-authored with Dr.
Timothy Padgett. If you're a fan of Breakpoint, leave us a review where you download your podcast. And for more resources or to share this commentary with others, go to Breakpoint.org. Hi, I'm Dave from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. I grew up in the church but left when I was 19.
I stayed away for the next 50 years when I lost my wife to a heart attack. The church helped me through my grief and I realized my deeper need for the Lord. I was listening to breakpoint commentaries and subsequently became a Coulson Fellow. I felt led to invest in the kingdom through the Coulson Center because the mission is too important to ignore. Please prayerfully consider joining myself and over a thousand others in becoming a cornerstone partner.
Visit colsoncenter.org forward slash cornerstone.
