parenting

Mar 10 2026

Every Parent Wants a Son Like Paul Skenes

Team USA’s Paul Skenes delivered a commanding performance on Monday night against Mexico in the World Baseball Classic (WBC), an international tournament featuring twenty nations.

The 2024 National League Rookie of the Year and last year’s Cy Young Award winner who plays for the Pittsburgh Pirates, Paul Skenes threw four scoreless innings and struck out seven in Team USA’s 5-3 win.

Speaking with FOX Sports’ Ken Rosenthal after the game, he was asked what it meant to represent the United States.

“That’s what we do it for,” he replied. “This is the greatest country in the world.”

The pitcher’s patriotism didn’t start in Houston but was nurtured and amplified during his two years as a cadet at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. Born and raised in California, the All-Star pitcher was inspired to pursue military service growing up around two uncles, one who graduated from the Naval Academy and one who served in the Coast Guard.

“Everything I saw from them — how they lived their lives and the values they represented — I had the utmost respect for those who serve,” Skenes wrote this week.

Arriving at the Air Force Academy in the summer of 2020, the then fourth-class cadet said he was moved when taking the “Oath of Enlistment.”

“I got the chills reciting that pledge,” he recalled. “Just from how proud I am of this country. I’m actually getting chills right now remembering back to that time. Because when you love something so much that you’re willing to lay down your life for it? It’s pretty meaningful stuff. And, truth be told, as much as I love the game of baseball … that’s much bigger than any sport.”

It wasn’t a surprise that Paul Skenes pitched well for the Air Force Falcons, but nobody expected him to dominate as he did, especially in his freshman year. After enjoying two commanding seasons, he realized he had a life-altering decision to make. Were he to remain at the Academy, Cadet Skenes would be obligated to serve five years as an Air Force officer following graduation. This was an attractive option given that he had chosen the Academy to pursue his dream of being a fighter pilot. But it would also mean that his chances of playing Major League Baseball would be greatly diminished if not dashed all together.

Ultimately, Skenes decided to transfer to LSU, a school with a highly regarded baseball program. He helped his team win the National Championship in 2023. After graduation, he was drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Prior to pitching on Monday night in Houston, Skenes wrote, “A Letter to All Little Leaguers Out There,” a heartfelt reflection detailing his love of America and his hope to somehow encourage younger players to follow in his footsteps:

Everyone on this team, they’re all here because they do something different than everybody else. And I’m all about finding out what that exceptional trait is. Whether it’s Bobby, or Bryce, or Tarik, and on down the line. It’s been so much fun for me to be able to do that. I’ve enjoyed every minute of it.

But this tournament is not about me. It’s not about any of us, really.

It’s bigger than any one person. It’s about country.

Paul Skenes went on to stress that the secret to any success is sacrifice and dedicated effort:

I’ll finally give you that tip I mentioned. (And I hope your parents are reading this, too.)

“How does my kid make it to the bigs?”

I’ve been asked that so many times. It’s like your parents are looking for a cheat code or something. But I’ll tell you all right now….

It’s not magic. It’s not luck. It’s work!

Hard work is the minimum if you want to be successful in anything. That’s baseball, and that’s life. Please always remember that. And take that with you wherever you go in this world.

It will serve you well, I promise.

Careful viewers and fans of Paul Skenes may have noticed a not-so-subtle clue that might explain the star pitcher’s stability and confidence both on and off the mound.

On the pinky finger of his baseball glove, you’ll see “2 Timothy 1:7.”

Wrote the Apostle Paul, “For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline.”

Whether serving at the Air Force Academy or playing baseball for LSU, the Pittsburgh Pirates or Team USA, that biblical guidance has served him well.

It’s an open question if Team USA will prevail in the World Baseball Classic, and Paul Skenes isn’t alone with his patriotism and faith. But in a world that so often seems upside down, it’s refreshing to see the spotlight shine so brightly on a young man who so clearly loves his country, believes in hard work, and who appears to unapologetically and openly declare his Christian faith.

Mar 09 2026

Do Strict Parents Have a Better Relationship with Their Kids?

Do strict parents have better relationships with their kids? According to new research from the Institute for Family Studies, the answer may be yes.

The Institute surveyed more than 24,000 parents with over 40,000 children and found something surprising — families with clear rules and firm expectations reported stronger parent-child relationships.

For years, parents have been told that having too many rules could push their children away.Some parenting advice suggests that fewer rules, fewer conflicts and more freedom create a stronger connection between parents and children.

But this new research challenges that assumption.

The data shows that families who enforce bedtimes, curfews, household expectations, screen-time limits, and homework time, and require more outdoor play were more likely to report closeness between parents and children.

Even more surprising, it wasn’t just the parents who reported a better relationship — so did the teenagers.

The survey shows that setting boundaries didn’t damage the relationship; it appeared to strengthen it.

Setting rules and consistently enforcing them is often one of the most difficult aspects of parenting. It can create conflict in the moment and requires persistence and patience. But according to the research, those efforts appear to pay off in the long run.

Easier and Harder Stages for Moms and Dads

The survey also found that parenting feels easier for mothers and fathers during different stages of childhood.

Fathers reported that parenting was most difficult when children were under the age of two and easiest when children were between the ages of nine and eleven.

Mothers reported the opposite pattern. For many moms, the early years felt easier, while parenting became most challenging when children were between the ages of four and seven.

These shifting challenges reflect the reality that every stage of childhood brings its own unique demands, and moms and dads experience them in different ways.

Parenting Easiest with Support

Not surprisingly, the survey also found that parenting feels easier when parents have strong support systems. Both mothers and fathers reported lower levels of stress when they felt supported by their spouse and community.

For mothers especially, the support of a husband made a significant difference in how manageable parenting felt.

Importance of Loving Leadership and Firm Expectations in the Family

This research offers an important reminder — loving leadership from parents in the household is not harmful to children — it is often exactly what they need. Children flourish when they are guided with wisdom, consistency, and love.

Parenting is not easy, and setting boundaries is often one of the hardest parts of the job.

But when parents enforce rules and correct behavior, they are communicating trust, security, respect and love to their children.

Mar 05 2026

Barrett v. Kagan: Key Takeaways From Supreme Court Ruling on ‘Transgender’ School Policies

The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Mirabelli v. Bonta was an important victory for parents, ruling against California policies that required schools to hide information about a child’s sexual identity confusion.

The emergency ruling has implications for thousands of parents whose local schools implemented “Transgender Model Policies,” which radical activists helped create. Those policies forced educators to accept false “gender ideology” and directed them to affirm students’ “gender identities” — behind parents’ backs.

Mirabelli will affect the many similar cases already making their way through the courts and could open the floodgates to even more lawsuits from parents. It’s a significant turning point in the battle against schools indoctrinating students with “gender ideology.”

The decision reinstates the district court’s permanent injunction, protecting parental rights while the lawsuit plays out. It was not a decision on the merits of the case.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote an opinion supporting the per curiam ruling, which overturned a Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision that had stopped a lower court decision blocking California schools from continuing these harmful policies.

Justice Elena Kagan wrote an opposing dissent.

Here are some key arguments and quotes from the decision and the opinions by the two justices.

California Violated Parents’ Religious Freedom

Some parents had religious objections to schools withholding information about their child’s sexual identity confusion. These parents’ faith teaches that God created only two sexes, male and female, and children can’t change to a different “gender.”

Of course, this is also biological reality.

The Court highlighted two significant cases that affirm parents’ constitutional right to religious freedom over coercive state policies, Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972) and Mahmoud v. Taylor (2025).

The ruling said:

We conclude that the parents who seek religious exemptions are likely to succeed on the merits of their Free Exercise Clause claim. California’s policies likely trigger strict scrutiny under that provision because they substantially interfere with the “right of parents to guide the religious development of their children.”

The Mirabelli decision also pointed out that the Ninth Circuit ignored the recent Supreme Court ruling in Mahmoud v. Taylor, adding this comment:

The intrusion on parents’ free exercise rights here — unconsented facilitation of a child’s gender transition — is greater than the introduction of LGBTQ storybooks.

Justice Kagan argued that the First Amendment violation was irrelevant, arguing it only covered some California parents, not all. She said the legal doctrine of “substantive due process,” a doctrine developed from the Fourteenth Amendment, was the only legal basis for the right “to direct the upbringing and medical care of their children.”

“The Court made its free exercise ruling superfluous, because the due process ground protects every parent, whether or not religious,” Kagan wrote.

Which brings us to the second reason the Court ruled as it did in Mirabelli.

California Violated Parents’ Right to Raise Their Children

Parents also objected that school secrecy policies violated their Fourteenth Amendment right to due process. That amendment’s due process clause says, “nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”

Not every human right is expressed or listed in the Constitution, but the Court, as Barrett explained, “has crafted a demanding test for recognizing unexpressed rights.”

She wrote,

When rights are unstated, how do judges know what they are?

The obvious risk is that judges will use their own values as a guide, thereby jeopardizing the People’s right to self-governance. To mitigate this risk, the Court has crafted a demanding test for recognizing unexpressed rights: They must be “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition” and “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.”

The right to parent one’s child is one such right. It is not given to parents by the state but is a natural, fundamental right which good governance recognizes and protects.

Mirabelli cited two longstanding Supreme Court decisions that acknowledge parental rights, Pierce v. Society of Sisters, from 1925, and Meyer v. Nebraska, from 1923. These hundred-year-old cases ruled that parents have the fundamental right to provide for the care, nurturing and moral and religious upbringing of their children.

The Pierce decision famously declared:

The child is not the mere creature of the State; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.

Mirabelli said that parents who object to schools hiding information about their children’s mental health would likely win:

The right protected by these precedents includes the right not to be shut out of participation in decisions regarding their children’s mental health.

Even Justice Kagan, who dissented from the decision, seemed to agree that parents might win on constitutional grounds:

None of this is to say that the Court gets the merits here wrong. … I have no doubt that parents have rights, even though unenumerated, concerning their children and the life choices they make.

She added that states have an interest “in the care and education of children,” but admitted that California’s regulations “could have crossed the constitutional line.”

But The Court Moved Too Quickly …

Kagan complained that the Court was acting hastily on a case that “so cries out for reflection and explanation.” She said the majority decision showed how the Court’s “emergency docket can malfunction,” adding:

The ordinary appellate process has barely started; only a district court has ruled on the case’s merits. The Court receives scant and, frankly, inadequate briefing about the legal issues in dispute.

The justice said Mirabelli should have gone all the way through the years-long judicial process before arriving at the Court for oral arguments and deliberations, “as procedures dictate.”

Kagan added that, in ruling on Mirabelli, the Court ignored almost 40 other cases raising similar issues:

The Court resolves the issues raised through shortcut procedures on the emergency docket even though it has had — for months now — the option of doing so the regular way, on our merits docket.

The justice referenced Foote v. Ludlow School Committee, a Massachusetts case from 2022, where parents say the local school “transitioned” their 11-year-old daughter against their express wishes.

Foote has been brought up at the justice’s conference meeting nine times since November 2025, including an upcoming conference on March 6, where the Court could still decide to take up the case.

The Daily Citizen, too, would like the Court to give a full hearing to a similar case — or combine several cases together — where parents’ rights have been so outrageously harmed by a school’s transgender secrecy policy.

Allowing California Policies to Continue Causes Irreparable Harm

Justice Barrett responded to Kagan’s argument against the emergency decision, saying that parents would be harmed if schools continued to exclude them from issues that affect children’s health and well-being:

Granting interim relief is not a sign of the Court’s “impatience” to reach the merits. Instead, the grant reflects the Court’s judgment about the risk of irreparable harm to the parents. …

Under California’s policy, parents will be excluded — perhaps for years — from participating in consequential decisions about their child’s mental health and wellbeing. Thus, the parents are likely to suffer irreparable harm if California enforces its policy while this litigation winds its way through the courts.

The Court recognized that parents’ rights were abrogated by California school policies, saying the continued denial of constitutional rights “during the potentially protracted appellate process constitutes irreparable harm.”

Parents are harmed when schools work to transition children, especially without their consent. But children are harmed, too, when schools inculcate them into false ideologies and move them toward a lifetime of costly and debilitating medical procedures.

We are thankful for the Court’s ruling in Mirabelli, and we hope other families will see justice done as they push back against gender dogma.

Related articles and resources:

Read Mirabelli v. Bonta

BREAKING: Judge Issues Preliminary Injunction Says California School District Cannot Force Teachers to Lie to Parents About Their Children’s ‘Gender Identity’

California Teachers Told to Hide Information About Students’ ‘Gender’ From Parents – They’re Suing

California Schools May Not Hide Students’ ‘Gender Identity’ From Parents

‘Equipping Parents For Back-To-School’ – Updated Resource Empowers Parents

Exclusive Interview: Colorado Parents Expose ‘Gender Cult’ at Public School in New Documentary

Florida Parents Sue School for Helping Teen ‘Transition’ – Without Their Knowledge or Consent

Homosexuality Resources

Montgomery County Must Pay $1.5 Million to Religious Parents After Supreme Court Ruling

Supreme Court Affirms Parents’ Rights Over California’s ‘Transgender’ School Policies

Supreme Court Declines to Hear Colorado Case on Parental Rights, Still Considering Two Similar Cases

Supreme Court Defends Religious Freedom, Parental Rights Over ‘LGBT’ Curriculum

Supreme Court Sympathetic to Opt-Outs for LGBT Curriculum

Transgender Resources

What’s Your School District’s ‘Transgender’ Policy?

Mar 03 2026

Supreme Court Affirms Parents’ Rights Over California’s ‘Transgender’ School Policies

The United States Supreme Court struck a blow against the California Department of Education and schools that hide information from parents about a child’s sexual identity confusion.

In a 6-3 per curiam [by the Court] decision, the justices struck down a Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision that had blocked a lower court decision affirming parents’ rights over school “transgender parental exclusion policies.”

The case, Mirabelli v. Bonta, involved California teachers who were forced to lie to parents about children’s “transgender” ideation, as well as the parents whose rights were violated by those lies.

In a press release announcing the victory for parental rights and religious freedom, the Thomas More Society called the decision “historic and groundbreaking,” saying the ruling “dismantles California’s secret gender transition regime.”

“Transgender identity” is a serious mental health issue, often accompanied by other significant mental, social and psychological problems. Children wrestling with sexual identity confusion often have deep-seated hatred of their bodies, accompanied by the mistaken belief that they can somehow change their sex with dangerous and experimental medical interventions.

Of course schools should inform parents if their children are wrestling with these challenges.

Following the Court’s ruling, California schools can no longer hide this vital information from parents while this case continues to make its way through the courts.

The Thomas More Society, which fights on behalf of life, family and freedom, explained the significance of the ruling:

The landmark 6-3 decision is the most significant parental rights ruling in a generation. The Court found that California’s secret transition regime likely violates parents’ rights under both the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, holding that the state “cut out the primary protectors of children’s best interests: their parents.”

The opinion has important ramifications, as almost 40 similar cases are making their way through the courts.

The case began in April 2023 when Thomas More brought a lawsuit on behalf of two middle school teachers, Elizabeth Mirabelli and Lori Ann West, against the Escondido Unified School District “over policies requiring them to keep secrets from, and even lie to, parents about their minor-age students.”

In its recent decision, the Supreme Court explained how the case grew from there:

During litigation, the school district claimed that state law, as interpreted by the California attorney general and Department of Education, required it to adopt these policies. So the teachers added state officials as defendants, and parents of California schoolchildren joined the lawsuit as plaintiffs.

One set of parents, “John and Jane Poe,” rejected transgender dogma, including the idea that children have a “gender identity” different from their sex. But their school affirmed their seventh-grade daughter’s use of a male name and male pronouns.

Sadly, as the opinion explains:

At the beginning of their daughter’s eighth-grade year, she attempted suicide and was hospitalized. Only then did her parents learn from a doctor that she had gender dysphoria and had been presenting as a boy at school.

The parents moved her to a different school, but educators there also affirmed her delusion,“citing their obligations under California state law.”

Similarly, a school hid another seventh-grade girl’s shift to using a male name and pronouns from her parents, “John and Jane Doe,” who also joined the case.

From these beginnings, the case grew into a class action lawsuit on behalf of all California parents and educators who disagreed with state transgender mandates, for religious or other reasons.

The California Department of Education had based its parental exclusion policies on state anti-discrimination and privacy statutes. The department argued that telling parents about children’s sexual identity confusion violated students’ right to privacy and was discriminatory.

But parents and teachers countered, saying their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights were violated. Judge Roger T. Benitez of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California agreed, issuing a preliminary injunction.

He ruled that the school district and the state could not enforce the “offensive policy while the case is under court consideration.”

The Ninth Circuit overturned that ruling in favor of the state, so plaintiffs appealed to the high Court.

This decision only overturned the Ninth Circuit ruling on behalf of parents and did not discuss the issue of educators being forced to lie.

Per curiam decisions are usually anonymous and unsigned, but several Justices signaled their agreement with this one: Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito said they would have granted the request to overrule the Ninth Circuit in full; Sonia Sotomayor would have denied the application; and Neil Gorsuch was part of the 6-3 majority.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote a concurring opinion discussing the religious freedom and substantive due process issues, with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh joining her.

Justice Elena Kagan, joined by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented from the decision, saying the Court had acted precipitously and could have chosen one of the almost 40 similar cases to fully evaluate the issues.

The case is Mirabelli v. Bonta.

Related articles and resources:

Thomas More Society: Mirabelli, et al. v. Bonta and U.S. Supreme Court Delivers Historic, Groundbreaking Victory for Parental Rights, Dismantles California’s Secret Gender Transition Regime

BREAKING: Judge Issues Preliminary Injunction Says California School District Cannot Force Teachers to Lie to Parents About Their Children’s ‘Gender Identity’

California Teachers Told to Hide Information About Students’ ‘Gender’ From Parents – They’re Suing

California Schools May Not Hide Students’ ‘Gender Identity’ From Parents

Exclusive Interview: Colorado Parents Expose ‘Gender Cult’ at Public School in New Documentary

Florida Parents Sue School for Helping Teen ‘Transition’ – Without Their Knowledge or Consent

Homosexuality Resources

Six California School Districts Pass Parental Notification Policies for Children Confused About Their Sexual Identity

Supreme Court Declines to Hear Colorado Case on Parental Rights, Still Considering Two Similar Cases

Transgender Resources

What’s Your School District’s ‘Transgender’ Policy?

Feb 10 2026

New Research Shows How Fatherhood Uniquely Boosts Child Health

New medical research from a group of Penn State scholars provides new evidence on the unique importance of a father’s role in boosting the physiological health of his children. Appearing in the journal Health Psychology, this longitudinal research is the first of its kind to document how warm and engaged fathering in early childhood raises “children’s later cardiometabolic health.” Put in plain language, this is one’s essential cardiovascular and metabolic system involving healthy blood pressure, cholesterol levels, insulin resistance and protection from inflammation.

These scholars noted that these physical health benefits “were unique to fathers, underscoring the pivotal role of father-child relationships in shaping children’s long-term physiological health” which “highlights fathers’ unique contributions to family systems and child development.”

This long-term study examined 292 families consisting of (largely) married mothers and fathers and their children, examining them at ages ten months, two- and seven years old. The six scholars found that father-warmth at younger ages positively and uniquely impacted heart and metabolic health in the long-term.

“We of course expected that family dynamics, everybody in the family, fathers and mothers, would impact child development — but it was only fathers, in this case,” Dr. Alp Aytuglu, the lead author of the study told The New York Times.

The Times explained, “Fathers who engaged more sensitively with their babies were better at co-parenting; and the children whose parents more easily co-parented had lower levels of C-reactive protein, or CRP, and glycated hemoglobin, or HbA1c.” This means fatherhood positively impacts the smallest, most remote parts of a child’s body. We are indeed fearfully and wonderfully made.

These developments have very long-term implications on a child’s health, affecting their adult health into middle age and beyond. These findings strongly challenge the long-held assumption that it is mothering which most greatly affects child well-being.

A large body of research has long shown the unique importance of fathers for healthy child development. Dr. Kyle Pruett, a leading scholar on the topic, has long established that fathers are critical in the lives of their children because their parenting practices are unique compared to mothers and these differences provide importantly diverse developmental experiences.

In his book Fatherneed: Why Father Care Is as Essential as Mother Care for Your Child, Pruett explains in chapter one that “Fathers Don’t Mother.” Thus, involved fathers give their children experiences that are unique from mothers. While mothers tend to quiet children down, giving them an essential sense of security, fathers are more likely to rile their children up, giving them a sense of excitement and adventure. Dad builds confidence. While mothers necessarily protect their children from the world, fathers are more likely to prepare their children for the world. Children need both.

Research also shows that fathers are more likely to stimulate greater vocabulary development in their children because they are not as likely to moderate their speech to the child’s level. Mom’s way of speaking to her children facilitates easy and immediate communication. Dad’s way creates a vocabulary lesson. Children benefit from both.

An important 2001 survey of empirical research on the impact of fathers in healthy child development published in the Review of General Psychology found, “The influence of father love on offspring’s development is as great as and occasionally greater than the influence of mother love.” These authors add, “Overall, father love appears to be as heavily implicated as mother love in offsprings’ psychological well-being and health, as well as in an array of psychological and behavioral problems.”

More recent research supports these conclusions.

A 2026 meta-analysis published in Early Childhood Research Quarterly, reviewing 65 studies in English and Chinese from 2000 forward, reports, “There is growing evidence demonstrating that father involvement is closely and positively linked to children’s social-emotional development, playing a crucial role in fostering emotional well-being, social competence, and emotion regulation in early childhood.”

And a 2025 study conducted jointly by the University of Virginia and the National Center for Black Family Life at Hampton University documents how boys and girls “are more likely to flourish — to do well in school, enjoy greater emotional and relational well-being, avoid poverty and avoid trouble with authorities — when they have active and engaged fathers” in their lives.

These scholars also tell us, “What’s more: men are more likely to thrive themselves when they have active relationships with their own children.”

A large and robust body of university-based research continues to inform us how indispensable fathers are in the lives of their children. His importance extends far beyond fertilization. His children need him every day, for their psychological, emotional, academic, physiological and verbal development. Every community is enriched in innumerable ways when the level of fatherhood involvement grows, rather than declines. We should make sure everyone appreciates just how true this is.