The family is irreplaceable. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street with the point.

According to new census data, the number of parents living with their own children dropped again to 40% in 2021, from 44% in 2011 and 48% in 2001.

At the same time, as Brad Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project tweeted, elite colleges are disproportionately made up of students from intact families.

According to the Institute for Family Studies, 75% of graduates from selective schools have married birth parents.

Well, this counters that divorce is better for the kid's narrative, which is repeated in op-eds,

and which prioritizes adult happiness over children's rights.

In a recent piece in the New York Times entitled, Divorce Can Be an Act of Radical Self-Love,

the author claims, quote, children benefit because happier mothers are better parents.

This children need happy parents, not married parents' argument,

was widely used to advance no-fault divorce at a time when we didn't have data.

But now we do.

Even as the number of children not living with married parents increases,

the data continues to show that's where kids are most likely to thrive.

There are are of course

exceptions, but they only prove the rule. The family is God's idea. For the Colson Center,

I'm John Stone Street.