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Maternal Health is Declining Because We are Ignoring Mothering

Leading medical research indicates maternal mental and physical health is declining of late in the United States. A recent Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) report explains a cross-sectional study of nearly 200,000 American mothers with children ages 0 to 17 showed “large declines in self-reported mental health and small declines in self-reported physical health from 2016 to 2023.” The medical researchers who conducted the study explain,

“Mental health declines occurred across all socioeconomic subgroups; however, mental and physical health status was significantly lower for single female parents, those with lower educational attainment, and those with publicly insured children.”

Jamie Daw, lead author of the study and a Columbia University professor, explains,

“We found consistently worse health outcomes for mothers compared to fathers, suggesting that mothers may need additional consideration and attention in policies aimed at supporting parental health and especially mental health.”

Declining maternal physical and mental health is a critical cultural indicator because mothers are the fount of humanity. We all came from one, after all, so paying attention to the health and well-being of mothers is vital. But what, we should ask, is affecting maternal health in such a negative way?

Psychoanalyst Erica Komisar, author of Being There: Why Prioritizing Motherhood in the First Three Years Matters, took up this question in an article over at the Institute for Family Studies (IFS) blog. While many elites blame current economic challenges for mothers declining well-being, Komisar takes a different perspective, explaining that blaming the mental health crisis experienced by mothers “on economics alone is a shallow analysis.”

She contends, “While these financial pressures can be debilitating, they are not – in my professional opinion – the primary cause.”

Instead, Komisar blames unrealistic expectations of mothers and motherhood in today’s culture. She explains,

“The more plausible cause of this mental health crisis is the relentless societal expectation – amplified by families, governments, and even mothers themselves – that women should be able to do everything, all at once. Raising children has always been demanding, but today, mothers are struggling in alarming numbers.”

Komisar isolates one particular expectation from an influential source.

“With the rise of the second-wave feminist movement in the 1960s,” she writes, “a new expectation emerged: that women should not only care for their children but also pursue ambitious, high-achieving careers.”

Yes, many mothers find the need to work outside the home to make their household budget work, Komisar acknowledges, “But the expectation that they should simultaneously excel at an intense, fulfilling career while raising young children has pushed many beyond their limits.”

This crashes headlong into motherhood itself, as “mothering is more than a full-time job – it’s a lifelong commitment with no days, weeks, or months off” Komisar admits. Yet she adds, “It’s not surprising, then, that many women find it easier to return to work, leaving their children in day care or with nannies, because working outside the home feels, in some ways, less overwhelming than the relentless demands of 24/7 caregiving.”

But many people don’t fully grasp that “they remain mothers no matter where they are” and that weight of responsibility is not erased because she has a high-powered, widely respected career.

Komisar asserts, “In reality, it sets in that they’ve taken on two full-time roles, often in conflict with each other, while operating with finite time and energy.”

She continues,

Mothers also struggle when they realize that becoming a mother has changed them in ways they didn’t expect – that they want to stay home with their newborns but feel torn between that desire and the promises they’ve made to their partners, their jobs, and themselves. In my field of psychoanalysis, we define depression as a preoccupation with past and present losses, and anxiety as a preoccupation with potential future losses. 

As a result, “Many mothers experience profound regret after giving birth because they did not anticipate this transformation.” Komisar observes, “Instead of bonding with their babies in peace and joy, they’re consumed by internal conflict and arguments with their spouses about whether to return to work.”

She warns that the troubling narrative that career success and monetary achievement are more important than the time-intensive nurturing work of mothering must change.

Komisar concludes with this hopeful insight,

“Unless we recognize the deeper internal and external conflicts women face, we will not reverse this troubling trend. But it’s not too late to change the narrative. We must embrace the wisdom of nature: that nurturing comes first.”

Yes, the way to help mothers become healthier is to better understand and support that which mothers actually do, as mothers. They are present every day to love, protect, care for and nurture their children. It is the natural, motherly instinct to do so. Diminishing the significance of that human necessity by elevating professional attainment as “real work” is unfair to women.

Komisar properly concludes, “By honoring our instincts, we can find our true path and build a more mentally healthy society for mothers, fathers and children alike.”

Let us all do what we can in our families, workplaces, communities and personal lives to encourage, celebrate and make ample room for mothering work. Without it, none of us would be where we are.

Related Articles and Resources

More, New Research in Praise of Mothers

A Uniquely Christian Understanding of the World-Shifting Power of Motherhood

No, Chappell Roan, Motherhood is Not Hell

Thoughts About Mothers

The Important Parenting Differences Between Moms and Dads

Image from Shutterstock.

Young Men Are Returning to Church

In recent months, at two synods for different diocese of the Anglican Church of North America, I encountered a significant number of impressive young men, mostly in their twenties. In one case, they humbly served the clergy and leadership throughout the multi-day proceedings. In the other, they attended a local parish but chose to join and stay for the entirety of an exceptionally long ordination service. I see something similar at my church, where there is often a row of single, young men, faithful, spiritually hungry, and interested in cultivating a deep, personal faith. I should note, that there is no corresponding row of young women, nor did I see similar numbers of young women at either of the aforementioned synods. 

Though these stories are anecdotal, there is growing evidence of a “quiet revival” of Christian belief among Gen Z men. The New York Times reported last fall that, for the first time in American history, men now outnumber women in churches. The trend is especially pronounced among twenty-somethings. Last year, a survey by the Public Religion Research Institute found that 39% of Gen Z women identify as religiously unaffiliated, compared with just 31% of men. Among white evangelicals, young men had begun showing significantly more religiosity than women.

Newer data from the U.K. shows a surprising reawakening across the pond, where church attendance overall has long been much lower than in the U.S. In April, the Bible Society reported that church decline in England and Wales “has not only stopped, but the Church is growing, as Gen Z leads an exciting turnaround in church attendance.”  

This turnaround happened in a short time. In 2018, only 4% of 18– to 24-year-olds in the U.K. attended church regularly. By last year, that number had quadrupled. Among 25– to 34-year-olds, attendance more than tripled, raising the overall rate from 8% to 12% of the population. Though still a low number, it represents a historic reversal of the country’s century-long de-churching. Like in the U.S., young men in the U.K. are leading the return to church. Among the 18 to 24 age group in the Bible Society survey, 21% of men attended at least once a month, compared with just 12% of women the same age. 

As statistician Ryan Burge wrote on X, “It seems very clear now that men are more likely to be regular church attenders than women. And those gaps are the largest among the youngest adults.” He also pointed out that these numbers are not due primarily to immigration, as the white-only sample showed the same trends. 

Why are young men returning to church? And why aren’t young women joining them? The Times pointed to a shift in cultural and political attitudes among men that seems to correspond with their search for traditional faith. As young women have skewed increasingly progressive, young men are now much more likely to call themselves politically conservative. In fact, the partisan gap between men and women has doubled in the past 25 years. Surprisingly, young men are also more likely than young women to say they want to have children someday.  

One pastor told The Times that young men “are looking for leadership, they’re looking for clarity, they’re looking for meaning.” Another college minister at the University of California-Irvine suggested that religion is perceived as traditional, and Christianity in particular as the “one institution that isn’t formally skeptical of [young men] as a class.”  

This trend also corresponds to what Justin Brierly has called the “Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God” among high-profile secular thinkers. It’s a reminder that we can’t predict where the Spirit will blow, that narratives of inevitable religious decline are far from certain, and that we still live in the same world where the Great Awakenings occurred, the Wesley brothers, Whitefield and Spurgeon preached, and where St. Peter saw 3,000 converted in a day. It’s also a reminder that the same God they all served is at work in the world. 

Still, the growing disparity between men and women poses significant challenges. The reversal in the historic tendency of church to be mostly female is proof of how our culture has lied to young women. And it won’t help the decline of marriage or birth dearth much either. 

It’s also possible that some young men are returning to church for the wrong reasons. They still need to hear Christianity taught accurately and in its entirety. Church should not be sold to them as a “based” social club, but as a place that belongs to the God of the universe, and the faith as a way of seeing all of life and reality in surrender to Christ’s loving lordship.   

Even as we praise God for this “quiet revival,” we should ask how we can fan the flames of belief in Gen Z and make disciples rather than just cultural converts. God is up to something. We should be eager to play our part in His providential movement in young hearts.

Married Fatherhood is Key to Recovering Thriving Masculinity

It has been well documented that men are increasingly falling behind women in important measures of life attainment like workforce participation, college enrollment and graduation, general health, hopefulness in life, life expectancy, and overall well-being.

The Institute for Family Studies has an important new article by a professor at the Yale School of Medicine explaining how married fatherhood plays a massive and irreplaceable role in improving the growing masculinity crisis. Dr. Samuel Wilkinson believes the power of married fatherhood is central to reviving healthy manhood because it is essential to what gives life meaning for men. He asks, “What is it about human connection that gives life meaning and purpose?” Wilkinson explains that leading research projects from the world’s most prestigious universities regularly demonstrate meaning comes from intimate connectedness with other humans. He adds, “Why relationships are rewarding has to do with the way nature shaped our family relationships.”

Of course, it cannot be missed that marriage and fatherhood are central to the family and human thriving. Every new person that nature and nature’s God gives us issues directly from one man and one woman. This process is obviously more intimate and direct for the female than the male. Wilkinson notes,

“While women carry and nourish life within their bodies for months, a man’s biological contribution is relatively brief. It’s even possible for a man to conceive a child and not even know it. For a woman, such a scenario is absurd.

He adds, “This biological difference often translates into a more tenuous emotional connection between men and their children.” Therefore, fatherhood must be enforced as a necessary and expected personal and social value. Why? Because the man is naturally less tied to his offspring than is the child’s mother. It is why anthropologist Margaret Mead, in her book Male & Female, described fatherhood as a “social invention.” If the society does not insist on it and actively train young males for it, it is far less likely to happen.

She explains the humanly universal nature of this fact:

When we survey all known human societies, we find everywhere some form of the family, some set of permanent arrangements by which males assist females in caring for children while they are young. … Its distinctiveness lies … in the nurturing behavior of the male, who among human beings everywhere helps provide food for women and children.

Mead notes this practice does not come naturally to men. It must be taught by older men, encouraged and expected by women, and enforced by society. She adds,

“In every known human society, everywhere in the world, the young man learns that when he grows up, one of the things he must do in order to be a full member of society is to provide food for some female and her young.”

It is a sociological fact that it works out best for the man, the woman, and the child, if that child is the offspring of their marital union because “every known human society rests firmly on the learned nurturing behavior of men” Mead explains. And thus, Professor Wilkinson adds, “In short, the quality of a man’s marriage is a strong predictor of the quality of his fathering.” That is how dad remains tied to and encouraged to provide daily for his child and his children’s mother.

Nothing else can change a man into the pro-social contributor like marriage and fatherhood. Wilkinson explains, “Becoming a father can be transformative” as it “can awaken a man to his deepest capacities for love, sacrifice, and responsibility.” This is because, “Fatherhood – when linked to marriage – acts as a catalyst for healthy masculine development.”

Professor Wilkinson is precisely right.

No society has ever discovered how to build healthy manhood apart from its connection to marriage and fatherhood. Military service can come certainly transform men but ultimately fails because its mission is different. The discipline of sports cannot do it, because it does not and cannot tame the male sexual drive, nor does it nurture selflessness. Neither of these trains and encourages men to deny themselves and work to provide for their children and the children’s mother. Only marriage brings that out of men in any effective fashion.

As Nobel prize winning economist George Akerlof explained in a celebrated academic paper, men do better in nearly every measure of male well-being when they marry and become fathers.

Akerlof’s scholarship demonstrates, “Married men are more attached to the labour force; they have less substance abuse, they commit less crime, are less likely to become victims of crime, have better health, and are less accident prone.” This is because, as Akerlof puts it, “With marriage, men take on new identities that change their behaviour.” These new identities are “husband” and “father.” In short, he concludes, “Men settle down when they get married; if they fail to get married, they fail to settle down.”

We must remember these truths in every effort our society undertakes to reclaim essential and healthy manhood.

Related articles and resources:

Are Government Policy and Culture Making Men Weak?

Andrew Tate’s Counterfeit Masculinity

Superman and a Culture in Need of Masculinity

Why manhood doesn’t happen naturally

The Important Parenting Differences Between Moms and Dads

Married Fatherhood Makes Men Better

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

New Research Shows Married Families Matter More Than Ever

Why Men Matter

The Unique Matter of Manhood

How the Left’s Gender War Backfired — Tremendously

The War on Masculinity is Toxic: Exclusive Interview with Prof. Nancy Pearcey

Happy Birthday, America

The 249th birthday of America finds winds of blessing blowing at our backs.

The document adopted on July 4, 1776 is a Declaration of Independence from tyranny. It was created by people who wanted a nation where they could worship God openly, freely, and without government hindrance.

And the flames of religious freedom are burning brightly in America in 2025.

I recently attended the first briefing of the Religious Liberty Commission which President Trump recently established. Experts made presentations on the nature and history of religious freedom, and on the Supreme Court cases that have recently strengthened it.

The other day I connected again with Coach Joe Kennedy, whose Supreme Court case victory in 2022 reversed the so-called “Lemon test,” which burdened religious expression in America for decades. Thanks to the coach’s courage to pray in public despite risk to his job, he strengthened that right for every American.

And earlier this week I joined thousands of other religious leaders on the inaugural Faith Office National Conference Call, where we were joined by President Trump who spent substantial time with us despite the fact that he was leading 11th-hour negotiations with Senators to pass the Big Beautiful Bill.

And all this is just a fraction of what has been happening to strengthen religious freedom in America.

Our Independence Day celebration this year should thank God for all of this, and celebrate it with a deep awareness of the significance of this moment.

Our Founders wanted neither religion without freedom (that is, state-imposed orthodoxy and state-mandated denominations), nor freedom without religion (that is, the ‘naked public square’ pretending to be able to govern itself without the indispensable supports of religion and morality).

Rather, they wanted a nation where the importance of religion was recognized, and where the citizens would practice and proclaim it freely.

And that is the other critical piece of the puzzle. To have founding documents that declare freedom is not enough. It isn’t even enough to have Presidential Administrations and Supreme Courts confirming and emphasizing that freedom.

Along with all that we need citizens courageously exercising that freedom. We cannot afford self-censorship, the muzzle of cowardice, or religious leaders who, out of fear of conflict, dampen the fervor of their congregations rather than stir it into flame. As we celebrate our 249th birthday as a nation, and prepare for the 250th, the door is open wider than ever in America for religious freedom. Now let us open our minds and hearts wider than ever to proclaim that faith publicly, and practice it faithfully and fearlessly, in every aspect of our lives, both private and public.

Happy birthday, America! Thank you for the gift of religious liberty.

Image from Shutterstock.

Liberal Journalist Admits Gender Ideology Built on Manipulative Lies

This is a day Daily Citizen did not think would ever come.

The Atlantic, an increasingly liberal magazine, and one of its leading staff writers, Helen Lewis, have now admitted in print that one of the main schemes for getting parents to go along with gender medicalizing their children was a manipulative lie all along.

What took them so long?

This new piece details how the “Would you rather have a living ‘daughter’ or a dead son?” manipulation uttered by countless health professionals has always been bunk, bluntly explaining, “There is a huge problem with this emotive formulation: It isn’t true.” They use the Biden administration’s solicitor general, Elizabeth Prelogar, as evidence of this baseless manipulation. Prelogar wrongly told the Supreme Court last year in oral arguments that if Tennessee’s law protecting kids from “gender affirming care” stood, it would “increase the risk of suicide, and I think critically, make it much harder to live.” She was wrong.

The Atlantic also detailed how ACLU attorney, Chase Strangio, a transgender-identified attorney who is actually female, in the same oral arguments before the United States Supreme Court “conceded that there is no evidence to support the idea that medical transition reduces adolescent suicide rates.” Helen Lewis, the Atlantic journalist who authored this new piece, documents how Strangio was forced to admit, when questioned by Justice Alito, “There is no evidence in some – in the studies that this treatment reduces completed suicide.” Strangio added, “And the reason for this is that completed suicide, thankfully and admittedly, is rare, and we’re talking about a very small population of individuals with studies that don’t necessarily have completed suicides within them.”

The Atlantic explains dramatically with refreshing honesty,

Here was the trans-rights movement’s greatest legal brain, speaking in front of the nation’s highest court. And what he was saying was that the strongest argument for a hotly debated treatment was, in fact, not supported by the evidence.

So yes, the “Affirm your kid’s gender experimentation or they will take their life!” line has always been a manufactured manipulation to scare parents into acquiescing to gender ideology. It has always been a vile lie and now a major left-leaning magazine read by elites has admitted the fact.

The magazine then adds insult to injury by demonstrating how liberal Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayer employed this already debunked lie in her dissent to the recent Skrmetti case which affirmed Tennessee’s (and all other states’) right to project their children from gender medicine experimentation.

Sotomayer wrongly claimed “access to care can be a question of life or death” because “if left untreaded, gender dysphoria can lead to … suicidality.” Lewis, the Atlantic journalist, corrects the dissenting liberal justice: “Claiming that this is true of medical transition specifically – the type of care being debated in the Skrmetti case – is not supported by current research.” She adds Sotomayer made use of “zombie facts” which are “popular soundbites that persist in public debate, even when they have been repeatedly discredited.”

“These zombie facts have been flatly contradicted not just by conservatives but also by prominent advocates and practitioners of the treatment,” the Atlantic contends, “at least when they’re speaking candidly.”

Then this bomb was dropped: “Many liberals are unaware of this however, because they are stuck in media bubbles in which well-meaning commentators make confident assertions for youth gender medicine – claims from which its elite advocates have long since retreated.”

This admission by the typically left-leaning Atlantic should serve as the death knell to the terribly manipulative claim that parents should submit to transgender ideology if they want their children to live. It is not true now and it never was true. Regardless of how many seemingly knowledgeable people confidently say it is.

A recent review of 14 longitudinal clinical research studies on the efficacy of pediatric gender medicine against depression and suicidality published in the academic journal Acta Paediatrica backs this fact: “The research in this field has been systematically reviewed, and there has been a consensus across the reviews that the certainty of the evidence is low.” This research concludes, “Even notwithstanding the issues of study quality and certainty of evidence, the present review highlighted the inconsistent results among the longitudinal clinical research studies.” The title of the article itself admits “longitudinal studies have not consistently shown improvements in depression or suicidality.”

An earlier systematic analysis of 20 published studies concluded that due to substantial limitations and weaknesses in the research, “We could not draw any conclusions about death by suicide” being reduced by medical interventions.

No parent should ever be bullied into submitting to gender medicalizing their child for fear of suicidal risk by any medical or mental health professional. Professionals who try to manipulate parents in this way are relying on zombie facts.

Image from Shutterstock.