In this shocking report, Kimberly Ells tells the story of earth's oldest institution—the family—in a way it has never been told before. The Invincible Family challenges current social doctrines, unmasks the annihilation of womanhood in the name of "women's empowerment," and exposes the efforts of United Nations agencies to advance "sexual rights" for children. The Invincible Family is both a call to arms to defend the most essential human institution in its darkest hour and a rich source of encouragement. Kimberly Ells is a researcher on family policy and has spoken at the United Nations and around the country on international threats to children and the family. A graduate of Brigham Young University, she is married and the mother of five children.
Some of it was really interesting and some of it was kind of dull. While it was important information, the presentation felt uneven.
Mrs. Ells first tries to explain why family bonds are naturally strong, but I’m not sure she does a good job at this. She then focuses on several modern forces that seek to dismantle the family and describes the philosophies behind them. This section was more interesting. The anti-family forces include Marxism (and similar totalitarian movements), radical feminism and gender ideology that degrades parenthood, and the sexualization of children being pushed by the U.N. and UNESCO, many of whom have been convicted of child molestation and rape.
My opinion: No matter what, you have a place in a family. I can be with fifty other relatives and know exactly how we’re all connected. Even if someone is an a**hole, they still belong. If you want to make a lasting difference in the world, raise a child. Everything I have ever done at a job will be irrelevant within five years of doing it. Raising kids is relevant forever. If you want to stamp out greed, selfishness, self-centeredness, and immaturity in yourself, be a parent. If society wants kids to flourish and be well-adjusted, we need to ensure that as many as possible are raised by both a mother and a father. Daycare can’t do it. Single parenthood is a hard, hard burden. Aunts and uncles and grandparents are ideal for supporting unfortunate circumstances. An unfeeling bureaucracy cannot raise children. Young adults born through surrogacy are now struggling with a sense of identity, being cut off from ancestors and heritages. There is no adequate substitution for the family, which is why evil seeks to destroy it.
Language: Clean Sexual Content: Mentioned in clinical terms Violence/Gore: Mild Harm to Animals: Harm to Children: Other (Triggers): ["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>
I am also a married mother of five. It is seriously disturbing that in the zeal to defend motherhood and the family, this author seeks to destroy mine.
"No success can compensate for failure in the home." - David O. McKay.
There would be no greater failure in my home than if I were to reject my LGBT child and nephew and deny the existence of their different orientations. But that's precisely what these culture warriors want and are attempting to do through legislation across the US. My motherhood would indeed be crushed, so no, Sister Ells, you can't win.
I loved this book; it is what I have been looking for. Ells discusses the major tactics happening right now for "unseating" women. Doing so is fracturing families, and we can see how this is resulting in a decaying society. There is a creepy movement underway in government schools that is brainwashing children and desensitizing them to sex acts--on themselves and others (among many other things). Chapter 19 provides a specific example in a conservative Utah town. The agenda is working, as parents are unsuspecting. The book ends on a hopeful note with practical advice on how to be aware and advocate. It is heavily annotated.
You might be a parent reading this and think that your child and society is doing just dandy, but please read what is happening "behind the scenes" and how others have already been adversely affected. People love power and money, and those ugly motivations are causing this movement.
Woman are indeed being "unseated" by people of all types--sly, loud, quiet, prim and proper, emotional, etc.-- and I for one, will not fall for it.
I am still reeling from the decision our high school principal made this spring to relabel the Parent-Teacher Conferences "Caretaker-Teacher Conferences". Surely the principal just meant to recognize the substantial role that non-parents can play in child-rearing, and welcome that devotion, yet losing the title "parent" is a really big deal - another chip that dismantles the family unit.
Parenting is one of the world's most critical stewardships, and mark my words, losing the recognition of the family as the ultimate private enterprise will lead to diminished parental autonomy and authority, and to increased calls for government intervention to solve social deficits. Instead of strengthening the family unit, the government will try to be the intercessor and the regulator.
Ells is a passionate voice who aims to increase awareness about the subtle ways well-intentioned programs actually sacrifice the liberty and strength of the family unit. She tells readers to be alert for "anything that dilutes, weakens, fractures, obscures, discredits, recasts, reorganizes, or undermines parenthood" - When parents' ties to their children are weakened, we invite increased government intervention. And then as interventions increase, we lose pieces of the private sanctuary of family.
Ells makes the case that the greatest power in the world comes through the opportunity to influence children. She states that this enormous power is seized by both the most virtuous and the most vile leaders (consider those regimes that have sought to dismantle a culture by supplanting certain ideology in children.) Here are eight of the quotes she cites by a range of different leaders regarding youth as the fount of power: - Aristotle: "All who have meditated on the art of governing mankind are convinced that the fate of empires depends on the education of youth" - Mahatma Gandhi: "If we are to reach real peace in this world...we shall have to begin with children." - Mao Zedong: "The young people are the most vital force in society" - Nelson Mandela: "Children are our greatest treasure. They are our future." - Confucius: "If your plan is for one year, plant rice; if your plan is for ten years, plant trees; if your plan is for one hundred years, educate children." - John F Kennedy: "Children are the world's most valuable resource and it's best hope for the future" - Vladimir Lenin: "Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted." - Adolf Hitler: "He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future."
Ells writes "Nurturing the young in their very first life lessons is the goal of every savvy social reformer, politician, activist, and revolutionary...The great battle is to own the young, and he who wins this battle wins the world." And with that argument, Ells makes the claim that mothers are the very most powerful force on the planet, because they have the opportunity to mold the future. "Mothers are entrusted with virtually unlimited power...Remarkably, they almost always wield this power nobly, frequently at great sacrifice to themselves. There are horrible mothers in the world of course, but they are the exception, not the rule. The vast majority of mothers, imperfect as they are, love their children, do their best to raise them, and would give up anything for them. There's a reason that "a mother's love" is universally recognized as the gold standard of devotion.”
“George Washington credited his mother for his successes: ‘All that I am I owe to my mother. I attribute my success in life to the moral, intellectual, and physical education I received from her.” And Abraham Lincoln famously said “All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.” Ells warns mothers to hold tight to their young, to not relinquish their parenting power to schools, programs, or governments which can never replace the consecration a mother can give.
“Families are a wonder of sociological architecture. Families are the vehicle for sustaining individual people as well as societies at large. The family has long been and will always be the most reliable source of food, clothing, shelter, education, protection, dignity, and love for members of the human family. Families are the reason we have survived for thousands of years without killing each other off or perishing before we could. Imperfect as they are, families are the prime elements that have made life both possible and desirable. If we want to provide the essentials of life, freedom, love, property, and prosperity to the greatest number of people, we must maintain the system of small regenerative groups forged by two unique yet united individuals. If we want to ensure the most human rights for the most people, we must maintain the system…the family”
Here are some of the anti-family flags that Ells asks citizens to be wary of: - Philosophies that unpaid mothering is mindless drudgery and socially unproductive work. - Provision of state-funded care for children in order to “free” women from childcare. - Concepts that frame mothers as unnecessary to families - Or, conversely, attitudes which posit that child-rearing is so crucial that it is best done by professionals, not mothers - Suggestions that the fathers are unnecessary, optional, or even detrimental to families. - Attempts to erase the differences between men and women - Paradigms that deride or demean masculinity; - Encouragement of masculinity in women. - Education programs that de-normalize parents in which parents claim their own children - Presentation of sex as a recreational activity everyone is entitled to, not as the means of forming and sustaining permanent relationships. - Entities that seek to advance “sexual freedom” and “sexual rights” for children - Portrayals of pregnancy as an unnatural, dangerous injustice to women - Promotion of products and services that limit a woman’s ability to conceive and bear life. - Presentation of children as burdens rather than assets - Honor and celebration of women only when they are acting in non-motherhood roles - Denigration of family-based living and exalting of career-focused living - Attitudes that enforce the public sphere as more important than the private sphere.
Ells asks the question “If we all abandon private posts in order to fill public roles…who will be doing the work that is now done in the family?” After citing research that found children in center-based non-parental care “were more likely to engage in risky and impulsive behavior, suffer depression, aggression, anxiety, lack of empathy, and behavioral problems”, the author concludes that schools and care centers cannot do the job of instilling social and emotional wellness as well as mothers and fathers.
I was interested in this presidential response to legislation proposed half a century ago: “US President Richard Nixon vetoed a proposal called the Comprehensive Child Development Act in the 1970s on the grounds that it would commit ‘the vast moral authority of the national government to the side of communal approaches to childrearing over against the family-centered approach.’ The administration said, ‘We cannot and will not ignore the challenge to do more for America’s children in their all-important early years, but our response to this challenge must be…consciously designed to cement the family in its rightful position as the keystone of our civilization. Good public policy requires that we enhance rather than diminish both parental authority and parental involvement with children.”
I felt like Ells had some really important points to make. Though I did not appreciate the hostile voice that permeated the book, I can now be more conscious of the nuanced measures that dismantle the family. The author’s work has allowed her to observe proceedings within the United Nations, and from that experience she exposes many misguided endeavors in that organization to provide human rights. Ells says “the highest and holiest language of our day is the language of rights.” However, the author shows that many of these so-called rights pursued by the United Nations, actually disadvantage the people they are supposed to serve. The hot-button topic for her is Comprehensive Sex Education, which is indeed flawed, but I won’t elaborate in my review here. I will however quote her synopsis of True Sexual Rights: “Women do have unique rights related to sex. You will rarely hear those rights discussed at United Nations events, but the women of the world should know what these rights are… - The right to refuse any person sexual access to her body who does not have her immediate and lifelong well-being in mind - The right to expect a man who desires sexual access to her body to publicly commit to her for life - The right to hold the man who accesses her womb accountable for claiming and supporting any children who emerge from it - The right to avoid sexually transmitted diseases, unsupported pregnancies, and damaging emotional entanglements by reserving sexual intimacy… - The right to expect her fertility, health, and happiness to be top considerations in her sexual relationship with her spouse - The right to conceive, bear, possess, and raise the children she and her husband create together.”
Ells claims that as long as families persist, humanity has a fighting chance. Can family remain enshrined in today’s “self”-obsessed culture? - a culture which speaks much of pleasure and little of parenthood, which “speaks much of rights and little of wrongs”. “We should not be surprised when the throngs of the solitary souls we are creating – who claim neither gender nor family – are unhappy, violent, reckless, diseased, and dying, both body and soul. We should not be surprised if, after we have destroyed it, we find ourselves hungering for the family and trying to reconstruct it from the tatters of humanity we have deliberately, tolerantly, torn to pieces”
I celebrate with the author in declaring that “In (the) home exists the cosmos in miniature….diversity, opposition, and complementarity…tolerance, patience, rage and power…creation, possession, jealousy, and joy. This home is where its inhabitants practice for every other setting in life. This home, and millions like it, is where the world learns to walk, talk, think, eat, laugh, fight, forgive, serve, sacrifice, reason, deliberate, cooperate, labor, take turns, negotiate, dream, and love… This archaic organization, the family,…claims the distinction of being the most enduring and influential institution on earth” The family truly is the laboratory for learning and the classroom for life
Heartbreaking, informative and full of hope! We have to pay attention to the vague policies devoid of details are traps for crushing something as solid as the family. The global push to erase gender roles is underway and it is beautifully exposed in this work by Kimberly Ells. We shouldn’t have to RE teach children at night because they are being indoctrinated at school during the day.
This book is fantastic! Every woman, young and old and in between should read this! Don't be fooled by the radical feminist lies or the false claims of socialists and communists that there's some center or "expert" that can live and teach your children better than you. Mothers are powerful. There is no job on Earth more important! We must stand for the family and the rights of parents and children. The UN and other government entities that are in our schools are vying for our kids and they don't love them like we do! It's time for us as parents to step up and take our kids back! This book has inspired me to more fully and boldly own my calling as a mother! To view it with a greater sense of responsibility and joy! #takebackyourkids
This book is literally hate speech against women and trans women. Which is ironic considering at one point she says that’s it’s practically considered to be hate speech for one to proclaim pride in ones own race. I take that to mean her white power tattoo isn’t getting her the same attention at parties it used to.
If you love conspiracy theories and misinformation you will love this book. If you love thinking patriarchy is the best place for women and children this woman would love to tell you all about it.
What an important read! The topics discussed are so important and I agree that family is so important and we need to fight for it.
It wasn't quite a five star read for me because I felt that when she brought up the counter arguments to her points, they often felt like a strawman argument. I don't know if they even were, that's just how they felt to me sometimes.
I think it's important as a parent to be aware of the fights people are making against the family and motherhood.
This book was alarming, but not surprising. Human nature hasn't changed in thousands of years. Power still corrupts, and intellectual arrogance still kills.
Kimberly did a superb job clearly laying out the strategies and tactics being employed by our officious, ambitious intelligentsia to destroy the family foundation and increase their control over our thought patterns - ostensibly in the name of "progress," but effectually to build and buttress a power structure that richly rewards them.
History, reason, and common sense all work against them, and Kimberly reinforces the hope that while the winter of our intellectual servitude and moral turpitude is dark, spring is coming. We will rise to the occasion to defend truth, goodness, and, most importantly, our children.
This book contains the most comprehensive defense of the traditional family that I have ever read. It also contains the most important and all encompassing defense of motherhood. We all know that mothers need support, but the village can't raise your child.
I am reminded of the the harlots who brought a live child to King Solomon asking him to discern the real maternity of the child. He commanded that the child be divided in half and part given to each women. The fraudulent mother agreed to have the child divided. The real mother would rather give the child away than see him destroyed.
The state cannot mother.
This book is important and should be read by every parent.
The first 2/3 of the book is a little outlandish and repetitive. She had some good points, but could have gotten the message across much quicker. The last 1/3 is very good. I would skip to chapter 18 if interested in reading this.
Say what? The UN is pushing CHILD sexual rights? You must be mistaken. Nope not mistaken. Look up the “International Technical Guidance on Sexuality Education” that was updated by UNESCO and has UNICEFF, UNFPA, WHO and UNAIDS listed on the front page of this document. What does it say, you ask? “Young people want and need sexuality and sexual health information as early and comprehensively as possible.” What does that entail? “Children should have agency in their own sexual practices and relationships.” “Comprehensive Sexuality education can help children. . . form respectful and healthy relationships with . . . sexual partners.” Think you guys should read this craziness for yourself.
I appreciate this book more than I thought I would. I read it directly after reading "Irreversible Damage" by Abigail Shrier. I think the two pair well together, although they are not about the same thing -they are still very pro-women, pro-family books. Another interesting read to add to this would be "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley. I read that a few months ago, and as I was reading "The Invincible Family" I couldn't help being reminded of BNW.
I think any man or woman who values family and motherhood would benefit from reading this book.
First thought: Why is the UN filled with child predators? Second thought: This book is hard to evaluate because I don't know about its purpose when compared to its target audience. It's important information to know and has many good reminders (and some wake up calls), but those who will read and value this book are likely already concerned with the issue. Those who are unconcerned will likely reject the book.
This book is a real eyeopener about how the family is being attacked and what is planned to destroy the family and us as individuals. I highly recommend this book to everyone. We have got to protect our families. Kimberly has been to the UN and fought for the family. She understands what is happening.
Ells lays out the political agendas aimed at attacking the sovereignty of the family. She gives a detailed look at the different organizations that aim to take the influence of parents out of the parents' hands and into the hands of the government. She has an extensive list of resources. This is a must read for anyone who really believes in the power and influence of the family unit.
Rounding up to 4 stars. The first 8 chapters are super boring. This is where the author sets up the historical context and ideas of motherhood, family, society, socialism, etc. Chapter 9 is where it starts to get interesting and discusses more current issues. The last half of the book makes it worth the read despite the boring beginning.
Es un líbro muy útil que habla de la evolución de la cultura/política/sociedad en general para eliminar el derecho de la madre, la influencia del padre y finalmente desbaratar a la familia. Toda feminista debería de leerlo, antes de seguir propagando ideas absurdas que ni siquiera ha podido digerir. Es necesario conocer, comprender y compartir esta información.
Heavy in the middle, but it has many truths and uncovers many lies being fed to us and our children. I highly suggest every person who loves freedom and family relationship to read it. Hopefully that is everyone.
I am so glad I read The invincible Family. I have heard so many things regarding efforts to destroy the family in recent years and it was great to see evidence. I recommend this to anyone who believes the family to be the fundamental unit of society and wants to preserve its standing.
READ THIS BOOK! Fascinating (and disturbing) look into the United Nations and the global assault on motherhood and children. Whatever your beliefs or politics, this book will make you smarter about the world we live in.
Such an important cause. Great information on how the family is being attacked. I had no idea how organized this movement is. I recommend this for anyone who has a family.
We know the family is key to our society surviving.we must remember what they are after and fight hard to stop the destruction that is targeting our children. Must read. We have hope. They cannot destroy the family if we remember why God created it in the first.