Family Unfriendly: Do Americans Hate Children? | Timothy P. Carney

Updated:

May 18, 2026

•

Published:

May 19, 2026

Faith and family are civilizational cornerstones. Remove them and the structure loses its integrity. American culture—and much of the West—has done exactly that as we’ve become increasingly “family unfriendly.”

Timothy P. Carney wrote Family Unfriendly: How Our Culture Made Raising Kids Much Harder Than It Needs to Be because he believes America is failing our families and that this failure is the biggest story of the next 30 years. I couldn’t agree more.

A culture that idolizes individuality does so at the cost of community. We have abandoned our obligations to others—especially to children and parents. Parenting is already hard, and yet our culture seems determined to make it harder. Having kids has become just another lifestyle choice—a far cry from historical norms and biological realities.

What changed? According to Carney, the answer is culture itself. Ours has become less friendly to parenting than it used to be—and should be. He joins Dave Hanegraaff on Commitment to Reality to talk about how we got here, what we’ve lost, and what it would take to build a culture that actually loves children.

Thank you for joining Commitment to Reality, hosted by Dave Hanegraaff. Follow Commitment to Reality wherever you get your podcasts.

Also discussed on this episode:

Why parenthood is a cheat code for virtue
Helicopter parents vs. free-range parents
Why we owe our children freedom
The myth of “chosen families”
How to win culture wars by building culture
The Israeli kids waiting at street corners — and what it says about our cultural failures
Why we should have lower expectations for our kids (and higher ambitions)
Where the government should never be neutral
Why “babies everywhere” would be a better world

(Timestamps below.)

0:00 — Do Americans hate children?

6:00 — Why America becoming less family focused is the biggest story of the next 30 years

12:00 — When kids are around, people are better

14:50 — Reintroducing virtue to our society

21:00 — Why we need to depend more on others

25:30 — Helicopter parents vs free range parents

28:30 — The abandonment of social responsibility

33:00 — We owe our children freedom—otherwise we are harming them

35:30 — The problem with life hacks is they often avoid real life

39:25 — The myth of “chosen families”

46:00 — Have lower expectations for your kids (and high ambitions)

50:05 — Cultural institutions need to step up

57:00 — You win culture wars by building culture—Friday Night on the Field

1:08:30 — The reality is that families need cultural support

1:12:10 — Where are we most eager to ignore reality?

1:13:10 — In a world that feels increasingly unreal—what feels most real?

We are living through one of the most disorienting periods in human history—leaving many to wonder: What is reality? As artificial intelligence accelerates and institutional trust erodes, our shared sense of what is real continues to crumble.

A commitment to reality is a dedication to discerning what is true and developing the discipline to live in alignment with that truth—with reality. This podcast is an apologetic for reality—each episode serving as an intentional act of grounding our existence together as we commit to what is beautiful, good, and true.

Subscribe to A Commitment to Reality on YouTube for the full episodes + clips, and follow wherever you get podcasts.

We are currently available at the following other podcast platforms with more being added daily! You can help spread the word about this new podcast by giving us a rating and review from the other channels we are listed on and telling others!

Equip.org YouTube Apple Podcasts