culture

Research Shows Young Men Want Marriage Yet Lack Confidence in Dating

An important new survey from the Institute for Family Studies (IFS) on the marital and fatherhood interests of young men in America tell us that only 6% of those age 18 through 23 are married and just 25% of those between 24 and 29-years of age have a wedding ring on their finger. And less than one-third of unmarried men are currently in a romantic relationship. For those young men who do marry, most of them marry after age 30 as the average age of first marriage for men is 30.2.

As IFS notes, “Young men, in sum, are having a hard time in matters of love.”

So, are young men even interested in marriage and fatherhood? That is an extremely important question for the family formation prospects in the United States, and the news might be better than most imagine.

This new IFS data indicates that young men still have a high interest in marrying with 68% saying a definite “yes” while only 21% are “not sure” for various reasons and only 11% express no desire to marry at all. Conservatives are notably more likely than moderates or liberals to indicate an interest in marriage, as well as those currently in a relationship.

Religious young men are notably more likely to show an interest in marriage over their secular or nominally religious peers. The differentials are 88%, 60% and 71% respectively.

Those who have earned or are pursuing a college education are more likely to be interested in marrying. Not surprisingly, those who are not currently working are much more likely to be unsure or not interested in marrying. This is significant as the number of young men classified as NEET – not employed, pursuing any education or training – has increased, doubling since 1990.

For the minority of men who are not sure or not planning to marry, the leading reasons given were “hard to find the right person” (44%), “other life priorities” (40%), “unnecessary” (38%), and “not ready to make a commitment” at 36%. Only 32% listed finances as a leading hinderance.

Desire to be Dads

A strong majority of young American men (62%) say they would like to have children one day. Only 19% said they definitely would not, while 20% said they were not sure. Married men were more likely to say they wanted children (76% vs 61% for unmarried), once again showing that marriage is one of the greatest promoters of national fertility.

Conservative-leaning men are the most likely to say they want children at 76%, while only 48% of liberal men said they definitely want children. Just 10% of conservative men said they were sure they did not want children, while 30% of liberal and 15% of moderate-leaning men said they did not.

Like marriage, religion is a very positive factor driving greater interest in fatherhood. Eighty-three percent of religious men said they wanted to become fathers with only 6% of them saying they had no interest. In fact, religion was the most powerful differential followed by conservatism. Only 51% of secular men desire to be fathers, while a quarter said they did not desire this and 24% were “not sure.” Nominal believers fell right in the middle between these two.

The Dating Hurdle

Of course, young men cannot get married and become married fathers if they never meet the girl who will become their wives. There is a very real dating drought in America. 

Yet this new IFS data tells us that young single men are very interested (74%) in dating and religious (82%) and conservative men (80%) are far more likely to be interested in dating than their secular (71%) and liberal (71%) peers. Full-time employed and college students were highly likely to be interested in dating as well, at 77% and 79%.

So, what is keeping these men from getting out there and meeting their romantic interest? IFS explains, “About half indicate that it has been difficult to find someone who will go out with them, and nearly 6 in 10 report that that the fear of being turned down makes them reluctant to ask.” This matches with a recent IFS report that said 29% of men reported feeling “confident when approaching someone I’m interested in.” Only 39% of young men believe, “I am attractive to potential dating partners.”

A mere third of men confessed they were good at picking up on social cues on a date, while 42% said they were “good at managing my emotions when on a date.” And just 39% of men said, “I trust my judgement when it comes to choosing a romantic partner.” Sadly, only 31% of men were able to stay positive after a bad date or a relationship setback. These are very sad findings.

So, the real problems facing men meeting their future wife and mother of their children is not one of desire or interest. It is a lack of confidence in one’s potential as a desirable partner and ability to be an interesting, poised date.

This is hopeful news because the desire for dating, marriage and fatherhood is clearly present in young men. We just need to help them build the confidence and skills needed to meet, propose to, and marry the woman who will be their future wife. Family formation in America rests on us doing a better job at helping these young men develop these basic adult skills. We must get busy coming up with sure ways to build this confidence in young men. This polling data reveals they are asking for that help!

Related Articles and Resources: 

The American Dating Drought and Hope for Fixing It

New Study: Online Dating Produces Fewer Healthy Relationships

Young Person Explains Why Young People Aren’t Getting Married

Who Falls in Love Faster, Men or Women?

Make Dating for Marriage Great Again

Don’t Believe the Modern Myth. Marriage Remains Good for Men

Important New Research on How Married Parents Improve Child Well-Being

How Marriage Fights Against Deaths of Despair

New Research: Marriage Still Provides Major Happiness Premium

Harvard Evolutionary Biologist Brilliantly Explains Necessity of Monogamous Marriage

VP Vance: ‘You have kids, you figure it out.’

With three children and a fourth expected to be born later this year, Vice President JD Vance’s strong endorsement of parenthood is a matter of personal conviction.

Speaking with the popular podcaster and commentator Benny Johnson last week, the former senator and current vice president acknowledged his only regret was not having more children than he and his wife, second lady Usha Vance, currently have.

“I wish that we had started early and had more, because it’s the most rewarding, it’s the coolest thing,” he said. “Now that our kids are at the ages 8, 6, and 4, where they’ve got their own little personalities, and they’re so quirky and fun. They’re all into different sports, and it’s just an amazing thing.”

Vice President Vance and Mrs. Vance met while students at Yale Law School. Usha Vance was an editor of the Yale Law Journal. They were friends before beginning their courtship. Born in Ohio and raised by his grandparents in Kentucky, JD served in the Marines before attending and graduating from Ohio State University. 

During last week’s sit-down interview with the vice president, Johnson asked him for his best advice to young Christian men regarding fatherhood. 

“My advice to young men who are thinking about becoming fathers, who are about to have babies, is: you’re never ready,” replied Vance. “There’s no point at which you can sort of get all your little ducks in a row and get all your financial situation in a row. Whenever you have a baby, whatever stage of life, it will be shocking, it will be crazy. It will be the most difficult and the most rewarding thing that you’ve ever done.”

The vice president went on to relay a story about a friend who confided in him that it was only after seeing the sleep-deprived Vances in the aftermath of their first child that the friend realized he and his wife could do it, too.

“Example is not the main thing in influencing others,” wrote Albert Schweitzer. “It is the only thing.”

It would be impossible to overestimate the powerful witness that married Christian couples with large families can make to a younger generation that ignores, is unsure, or is otherwise intimidated by the prospect of having children. Couples may not be motivated to have lots of kids to make a cultural point – but that’s an effective benefit and outgrowth of a big family.

“I think our society tells young men that you only have kids after everything in your life is perfect,” observed Vance. “And I think that’s a ridiculous attitude. You have kids, you figure it out. They’re the thing that perfects life.”

Delaying children until you have the degree or a certain amount in a retirement account belies the reality of the way the Lord often blesses His people. He uses our struggles to teach, instruct, inspire and draw us closer to Him. The tragic risk of waiting until all the pieces are in place before marrying and having children is that you might just wait until it’s too late.

One of the great lies of modern life is that men and women are in control. It’s the fantasy that we can call our own shots, right down to the number of children, the month they’re born, and sometimes even their sex and color of their eyes. The Lord does give us some agency, but He is sovereign and always has the final say.

If you’re young and married, take Vance’s wise advice: Ask the Lord to bless you with children. Lots of them. With His help, you and your spouse will figure it out.

State Legislation Roundup: California, Idaho, Missouri and Pennsylvania

Important measures are being debated in many states right now, including bills that affect life, marriage, families and religious freedom. 

Legislative efforts often spread from one state to others, so it’s important for Christians concerned about culture and policy issues to pay attention to what’s happening around the country — as well as what legislators propose in their own state. 

Here’s a quick rundown of bills in four different states — California, Idaho, Missouri and Pennsylvania — dealing with key issues.

California Bills Would Protect Infants

The California Legislature is currently considering two bills that would help protect infants. AB 1628, The Keeping Infants from Danger (KID) Act would increase the amount of time in which a mother can surrender her child to a safe surrender site, from 72 hours to 30 days. Mothers who deliver their child to a safe site would not be charged with child abandonment. 

A second bill, AB 2073, would authorize unmanned “infant safety devices,” commonly known as “infant drop boxes,” to be used at safe surrender sites, like public or private hospitals. The sites would maintain the anonymity of the mother who surrenders the child, and an alarm would notify those monitoring the site when an infant is left in the drop box. 

The pro-life California Family Council endorsed the laws in an article, saying: 

Together, the proposals provide additional safeguards for vulnerable infants and greater flexibility for women facing overwhelming circumstances. In moments of crisis, the answer is not abandonment or abortion; safe alternatives exist. By building on California’s current Safe Surrender framework, these bills aim to ensure that when a mother seeks help, she is met with safety, dignity, and compassionate care.

The family policy council, a Focus on the Family ally, provides an easy way for Californians to contact legislators and encourage them to support the measures.

It’s incredibly rare to see good legislation like this considered in the California Legislature. 

Idaho Legislation Would Guard Safety and Privacy in Public Restrooms

Idaho’s House Bill 607, Protecting Privacy and Safety in Public Buildings, requires sex-segregated restrooms and changing facilities in all government buildings and businesses that provide public accommodations. According to the Idaho Family Policy Center (IFPC), the state already has safeguards in place for those using “bathrooms and changing facilities in public schools, colleges, correctional facilities, and domestic violence shelters.” 

The Focus on the Family-affiliated organization says HB 607 would broaden these safety measures to include government facilities, like state campground shower facilities, city swimming pool locker rooms and highway rest area bathrooms. It would also include restaurants, shops, gyms and retailers that provide facilities for the public. 

The bill defines terms like “sex,” “male” and “female” based on biology — a person’s reproductive system; provides some exemptions for minor children and others who need assistance; and gives individuals the right to bring a civil suit against government entities and businesses that violate the law. 

HB 607 passed the House by a vote of 56-13-1 and has now been introduced in the Senate. In a recent email, IFPC Policy Director Joel Fischer stated, “Planned Parenthood is actively campaigning against our bill to protect the privacy and safety of girls in every public restroom,” and he urged concerned citizens to take action to support the measure. 

Missouri Legislation Would Permanently Protect Girls and Women’s Sports

The Missouri House of Representatives voted 98-37 to pass HB 1663, a measure that permanently protects girls and women’s sports from male athletes.

Missouri originally passed legislation in 2023 safeguarding girls sports in public and private schools from kindergarten through college, but that law is set to expire in 2027. HB 1663 would eliminate that deadline. 

The Missouri Catholic Conference testified in favor of the bill, saying: 

Preventing biological males from competing against biological females protects the dignity of female athletes, respects justice and the common good, and ensures that our laws comport with a proper understanding of human nature; this measure would achieve this laudable purpose conclusively.

According to the Missouri Independent, 

During Monday’s debate, House Democrats said that the provision gave lawmakers time to consider research on transgender athletes and determine whether restrictions were fair. That learning process, they argued, is not complete.

But we already know what the research says: Boys and men, even when given puberty blockers and hormones, have distinct physical advantages in athletics. The bill now goes to the Senate for deliberation. In a post on X, the group Gays Against Groomers encouraged concerned citizens to call their state Senators and ask them to pass the measure. 

Pennsylvania’s HB 300 Threatens Religious Freedom and Girls Sports 

HB 300, mislabeled The Fairness Act, would add “sexual orientation,” and “gender identity or expression” (SOGIE) to Pennsylvania’s 70-year-old Human Relations Act, a law prohibiting discrimination in housing, employment, education and public accommodations. 

Adding SOGIE protections to nondiscrimination laws wreaks havoc on free speech, religious freedom, girls sports, and safety and privacy. Such laws elevate sexual behaviors and identities to the same level as constitutionally protected freedoms. 

Pennsylvania Family, a faith-based family policy council, details some of the egregious consequences that arise when these laws are passed. The Focus on the Family-allied organization explains that HB 300 would: 

• Force doctors to prescribe puberty blockers and perform “sex-reassignment” surgeries.

• Require women’s shelters to accept biological males.

• Redefine freedom by forcing people to use someone’s preferred pronouns.

• Allow biological males to play in women’s only sports and enter female-only restrooms, showers, locker rooms and changing rooms. 

• Force hospitals and medical professionals to participate in mutilating and sterilizing children who reject their male or female bodies. 

• Threaten churches and religious schools and ministries with lawsuits for hiring based on their shared mission.

While Pennsylvania’s Human Rights Commission has already redefined sex discrimination to include SOGIE in its regulations, The Fairness Act would codify these into law. 

Pennsylvania Family explains that the damaging legislation is being rushed through the legislature and urges Christians and conservatives to speak out against HB 300. 

Related articles and resources: 

California Family: Safe Surrender, Not Abandonment: California Lawmakers Advance Life-Affirming Reform

DOE Wants to Redefine ‘Sex’ in Title IX – Erasing Women, Threatening Privacy and Safety, and Endangering Schoolchildren

How to Get In Touch With Your State Policy Group

Idaho Family Policy Center: Protecting Privacy and Safety in Public Buildings Act

Pennsylvania Family: HB 300: The Alarming Truth Pennsylvania Must Face

Responding to “SOGI” Laws—Tone and Truth

Transgenderism Trumping Parents’ Rights

When Sexuality Trumps Religious Freedom — The Problem With “SOGI” Laws

‘LGBTQ+’ Identity Likely Hits Peak Saturation in U.S.

Data continues to demonstrate we have likely hit the apex of trans and queer identity in the United States. That is worth celebrating.

The idea that anyone can be an “LGBTQ+” person — with all of its self-contradictory and exclusionary letters — is incoherent. Leading activists have been admitting this for years.

But young people have been adopting this “identity” in increasing numbers, often without any demonstrable evidence for their claim. They just claim it. This ever-expansive alphabet soup became an increasingly trendy political identifier, rather than anything denoting any actual change in behavior.

Liberal comedian Bill Maher famously poked fun at this reality years ago.

Gallup reported LGBT identification ticked up to 7.1% in 2022 from just 3.5% ten years earlier. Of course,  just ten years or more before that, hardly anyone identified this way because the ridiculous, ever-growing string of letters was just being invented. But it wasn’t done rising. Gallup reported it reached 9.3% in 2025.

Gallup is now reporting LGBT identification has declined slightly for first time since its relatively recent creation, from 9.3% last year to 9.0% today.

Other data supports this welcome development.

Late last year, the Daily Citizen reported here and here that “trans” identity and gender ideology was thankfully slipping among young Americans. This data came from University of Buckingham’s Eric Kaufmann, who documented “the decline of trans and queer identity among Young Americans” and San Diego State University scholar Jean Twenge’s finding that “identifying as nonbinary is in free fall among teens as young as 13.”

She added,

With three nationally representative samples showing a decline in transgender or nonbinary identity since 2023, its clear things have shifted just in the last few years. And now we know the change isn’t just among young adults – it extends to even the youngest teens.

The false shine of gender ideology appears to be fading.

We can pray this means we will never see as many of our young people supporting deceptive and meaningless “LGBTQ+” politics as we saw last year. Afterall, you can only artificially prop up a lie for so long. Eventually, it reveals itself for what it is. 

This is precisely what is happening with gender ideology.

Additional Resources:

A Singularly Christian View of the Transgender Problem

Why Christians Can’t Avoid the “Trans” and Gender Redefinition Issue

Yes, Transgenderism is a False Belief System

What Does it Mean to Be Trans, Anyway?

How the “Trans” and Gender Redefinition Issue Attacks the Family

Do Not Fall for the ‘Affirm Them or They Will Die’ Lie

My Impassioned Testimony Before the Colorado State Senate

Last Wednesday, I went to the Colorado State House to testify against a particularly pernicious bill. There have been a great many of these lately, and more are coming.

It was a very interesting experience.

This particular bill that Focus on the Family had its sights on last week was SB 26-018, which would have forced all parents to affirm their child’s subjective and inventive “gender identity” or risk losing custody of that child. Of course, the ideology driving this bill dictates that affirmation of “trans” identity is the only option for any parent. Try to lovingly help your child with their delusion and the state could take them from you. It is one of the most harmful anti-family bills we have seen.

Here is what I told Colorado legislators considering this new law:

Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee,

I am Glenn Stanton, and I work as a researcher at Focus on the Family where I have studied adolescent gender identity for over two decades.

SB-18 is an ill-advised bill. Governor Polis had to pull this proposal at the final hour last year because of negative media and community blow-back. If this bill is so essential for child well-being now, why not last year? 

This bill will cut a vulnerable child off from the parent or parents they need the most: Those that do not unquestionably accept a child’s new identity. 

The reasons are clear.

1) The best research regularly documents that overwhelmingly, most youth who believe they are “trans” come to live with their biological sex before reaching puberty. Something that is most likely to change is not a “protected class”!  

2) The American Psychiatric Associations readily admits “transgender” is neither a medical nor psychiatric diagnosis. It is not something science can recognize because it is a subjective self-perception and ideological construct. This is why desistance rates are, thankfully, so high.

3) Two major medical organizations that were once supportive now refuse hormonal or surgical interventions for gender confused children and adolescents. The American Society of Plastic Surgeons and the American Medical Association announced on Feb 3 there is “insufficient evidence” to guarantee such interventions are not seriously harmful. 

But a parent who says any of this in Colorado could lose their child because of this ill-informed legislation.

The research is clearly on the side of the parent who is lovingly skeptical of a child’s new gender claim. The fact is, there is no such thing as a “transgender” child and gender identity is not a scientifically documented reality. 

It is a psychic conception.

Colorado has no right to sever the natural parental bond over a minor’s often temporary belief.

But before any testimony was heard, that section — which the bill itself claimed was “necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health or safety” — was stricken from the bill at the direction of Colorado’s openly gay governor. Even he knew it was too radical. 

The governor’s spokeswoman told The Denver Post he “opposed the contradictory and troublesome family law provisions in the legislation, which were substantially the same as those he opposed last year.” Some trans activist groups in the state also warned the bill was politically problematic.

Yet radical legislators in the Colorado State House ran that bill last year, they tried to bring it back this year, and they will most certainly try again next year. That is why Focus on the Family, along with so many other good citizens across Colorado, testified strongly against this bill. In fact, those testifying against the bill outnumbered those in favor by about 90%. Yet, the bill was passed onto the full Colorado Senate by the judiciary committee.

Focus on the Family will continue to track and oppose such bills across the country.

Related Articles and Resources: 

Colorado Bill Would Force Parents to Accept Child’s New ‘Gender Identity’

Colorado Legislature Passes Radical ‘Transgender’ Bill with Amendments

Colorado Law Mandates Health Insurance Coverage for ‘Transgender’ Mutilations

Focus on the Family Testifies Against Nightmare Bill, Colorado’s Radical ‘Trans’ Legislation Advances

Meet Three Heroes Working to Protect Colorado Children

Parents’ Rights Groups Sue Colorado Over Radical Trans Law

Protect Kids Colorado

Radical Colorado ‘Transgender’ Bill Threatens Parents’ Rights and Free Speech