Turns out fathers matter and two parent households matter too.

Jay Weber Show transcript 7-10-25

There’s a new study out of Virginia that should surprise no one- 

And it strikes me as the type of study that- until about the godless Clinton era…would have been national news because it’s findings would have been more alarming to most American adults and almost all our political leadership regardless of party.

What the study finds is: fathers’ matter…and two parent households’ matter.   

This is a comprehensive study done at the University of Virginia that included scholars from the American enterprise institute, the Brookings Institute and other research groups.

What it finds is:

The research, which analyzed U.S. census data from over 1,300 children across Virginia, revealed that children with engaged dads were more likely to earn top grades, less likely to have school behavioral problems and less likely to exhibit depression.

Girls in particular were more likely to get better grades with engaged dads (53% compared to 45% without) and were far less likely to have diagnosed depression (1% vs. 10%), according to the report. Boys were far less likely to get into trouble at school. Only 22% of boys with involved fathers had school behavior issues — compared to 35% of boys with less engaged dads.

I agree we need all of those things. This study doesn’t mention the increasing lack of religion in the average US household. And in single parent households…etc. But that’s another significant factor, obviously, if we compare a country that used to have more intact families. More ‘present’ and dominant fathers. And more overall focus on child-rearing.

Religion has been the single biggest building block of societies for the lessons that it teaches when it comes to a set of morals, values, and priorities that the people who make up that society should have. And way too many adults under the age of about 50, today, don’t have that- and/or aren’t really involving their children in religious instruction. Let’s not pretend that that doesn’t matter here, as well.

And this study had me thinking about an analysis done by Clinton’s old pollster and advisor Mark Penn….who in today’s America…sounds shockingly ‘normal’ and even ‘conservative’ in a lot of his analysis these days.

Mark Penn pops up on Fox and ABC and elsewhere…and runs the Harris polling outlet.

This week- he’s wondering whether ‘this’ generation of young people are going to fall into that age-old pattern of starting out young, naive, and liberal…but then getting older, wiser, and more conservative as they get married and take on responsibilities.

One feature of ‘gen z’ recently- has been- a slightly higher number of them voting republican over the last few elections. Mostly male gen-zers. However-

As a group -our young people between the ages of about 18 and 30 are still more liberal- and in this era- an alarming percentage of them either say they are socialist…or at least support socialistic policies.

Mark Penn is wondering-will today’s kids outgrow this radicalism?

Good question.

Each new generation of young people needs to learn these lessons over and over again-and the best way to learn about the universal misery, death, and loss of freedoms that come along with socialism and communism is to ‘teach the history’. That’s a far better option than having each new generation make these same mistakes…and must live thru the ruin and the false promises.

But we aren’t teaching this history to our young people, anymore. At least not at adequate levels.

A lot of this stuff should be mandatory material in our middle, high school, and/or college curricula-and isn’t.  

We aren’t even really teaching u-s history related to the founding of the country, or the American revolution or civil war like we used to, much less teaching about World War Two…the lessons out of Vietnam’s failures…etc.

It’s why we have so many young people today buying into the false narratives related to socialism and the newly minted-and idiotic- abundance’ agenda of today’s left.

Quote ‘by and large, these young adults aren’t hard-core ideologs', they’re merely ignorant.

I agree with that- but I’d also emphasize that today’s young people are -much, much more- of an ‘i already know everything’ generation that the rest of us older, wiser adults can’t seem to say anything.

Their minds and ears are closed early, early on.

This is a terrible symptom of helicopter parenting and an educational system that is go bent on boosting their self-esteem that they are never told they are wrong…or corrected. And it’s a terrible, terrible problem now.

As anyone who deals with young people just out of college: they’re indoctrinated, close-minded, lazy, arrogant brats.

Our educational system -and our university system-used to be about opening and informing minds. Now it’s about indoctrinating them into one way of thinking. And it’s a huge problem.

This is all related: how -and what-we are teaching our new generations of young people. Why are so many of them closed-minded- and deeply indoctrinated into socialism and leftism so early.

photo and story credit: Fox News

audio version of the segment here > Turns out fathers matter and two parent households matter too.