Census Bureau data published in November indicates that just 18% of American households comprise two married parents with children. That's down from 40% in 1970 – and the fewest number of "nuclear family" homes (23.1 million) since 1959. Christian apologist Dr. Alex McFarland is dismayed by the drop, but not surprised.
"We've seen five decades-plus of an America in which the family has not been appreciated and affirmed," he tells AFN.
That's not all that the census data show: Women today are not getting married until they're about 28 and a half years old; men, about two years older – and they're not having as many children. McFarland says the culture has taken a chainsaw to the nuclear family.
"From political incentives to pop culture to the classroom, we've … seen [since the late 1960s/early 1970s] the divorce rate skyrocket; the family has been, at best, ignored; and then certain camps like Hillary Clinton and Black Lives Matter and others … have indicated the traditional nuclear family is part of what's wrong with the world," he laments.
According to McFarland, BLM and others are bringing their socialist worldview to bear on families, looking to destroy the institution – and sadly, he says, in some ways it's working.
"There has been childbearing over the last five decades, but the vast majority of it has happened out of wedlock," he notes.
And McFarland points out that because the declining birthrate is hard to hide, even liberal influencers are starting to talk about families having kids.
"The Left will beat a drum and go after a narrative for decades on end until the damage is done – and then suddenly they'll pop up with the solution, which is usually fixing the thing that they've spent years and years denigrating," he concludes.
