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Them Before Us: Why We Need a Global Children's Rights Movement
You probably know the adult viewpoints on marriage, infertility, reproductive technologies, same-sex parenting, divorce, and adoption. But have you ever considered the kids’ perspective?
Them Before Us has flipped the script on adult-centric attitudes toward marriage, parenthood, and reproductive technologies by framing these issues around a child’s right to be raised by both their mother and father. Set against a backdrop of sound research, the compelling stories throughout each chapter confirm that a child’s mental, physical, and emotional well-being depends on being loved by the two people responsible for their existence. It’s a paradigm shift that will impact the personal and the political, and reframe every marriage and family conversation across the globe.
Them Before Us dispels many prevalent, harmful myths concerning children’s rights, such Are you tired of a culture that views adults as victims in family matters, when it’s clear that kids are the ones who truly pay the price? If so, we are your people, and this is your movement.
Them Before Us has flipped the script on adult-centric attitudes toward marriage, parenthood, and reproductive technologies by framing these issues around a child’s right to be raised by both their mother and father. Set against a backdrop of sound research, the compelling stories throughout each chapter confirm that a child’s mental, physical, and emotional well-being depends on being loved by the two people responsible for their existence. It’s a paradigm shift that will impact the personal and the political, and reframe every marriage and family conversation across the globe.
Them Before Us dispels many prevalent, harmful myths concerning children’s rights, such Are you tired of a culture that views adults as victims in family matters, when it’s clear that kids are the ones who truly pay the price? If so, we are your people, and this is your movement.
304 pages, Paperback
Published November 8, 2022
124 people are currently reading
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July 5, 2022
If you grew up with your biological parents who remained married and they got along relatively well (no pun intended), that is, they loved each other and you and provided you stability, you can count yourself among the fortunate, the blessed who received what ALL children deserve by right.
Children have ‘rights’? Well, yes, they do, Natural Rights, the ‘Right to Life’, being paramount. But beyond a child’s right to life, ‘children also require three nutrients in their socioemotional diet: their father’s love, their mother’s love and stability. The marriage of their mother and father is a child’s best chance for household stability. When a father leaves, stability often leaves with him, and the risk of childhood traumas that lie at the heart of so many of our social problems skyrockets. … Every country on the planet understands how critical mothers and fathers are to children. The United Nations, an institution in which consensus is as rare as a winged unicorn, enshrined children’s rights to be known and loved by both parents in the Convention on the Rights of the Child—the most widely ratified human rights treaty in history.’
Children are subjects of rights, not objects of them. What is the difference? It is huge and it is exactly how many children are seen today, as commodities, things to be desired, sought, designed, acquired, fought and bargained over and sadly, also disposed of.
The authors, Katy Faust and Stacy Manning, formed Them Before Us when they realized there was no Children’s Rights organization anywhere. They looked around, listened to the narrative surrounding traditional marriage and the emerging “marriage equality” movement and realized a lot of people were not telling the truth. This was way back 2012. Neither woman was a ‘homophobe’. Both have gay friends, Katy lives in the uber-liberal Seattle area and hates conflict, but she still believed that traditional marriage offered the best and safest option for children to grow up in. She says she started an anonymous blog because she is a chicken. She called it askthe“Bigot” and she took on all the naysayers for traditional marriage and learned a lot. Her partner, Stacy, is the writer extraordinaire who turns Katy’s ideas and research into readable words.
In time, the blog began to collect stories of more and more adult ‘children’ whose lives had been shattered, wounded, upended, marred, traumatized, and forever devastated by adults who put themselves and their own desires ahead of their children’s basic needs—RIGHTS—to parental love and stability.
The stories in this book will haunt you. (I stayed up most of last night finishing this book, something I rarely do with a non-fiction book.) I don’t think I will ever be able to forget these children who have endured emotional pain I cannot begin to imagine. They have longed to know their Daddy, to have a Mommy, to have their Mom or Dad come back, or that their Mom and Dad would stay together. If the children belong to a same sex couple they wanted their Mom (or Dad) to understand why they needed a REAL Dad (or Mom) and not another parent of the same sex. Often, they do not even know why they feel this need so strongly. Other children just want to know if their real parent cares for them, or if they could know who their donor parent was, or that Dad would stay Dad, and not try to change into a woman and on and on. I couldn’t get over how many stories Katy and Stacy have already collected.
Each story is another child maimed, another life destroyed, and you can’t help wondering if the pain will stop with them, or will they pass their pain on down to the next generation and so on. Meanwhile, our media and courts continue celebrating the increasing rights of adults to do whatever they like, to have whatever child they want whenever. The chapter on Donor Conception is the hardest to read. I certainly sympathize with anyone who wants a child and cannot conceive.
I happen to know a beautiful young woman in her mid-30s who is going through that now. She and her husband would do just about anything to have a child. They are devoted to each other, happily married for over ten years, deeply religious, intelligent, owners of their own successful Asian restaurant and yet, she has a serious conception issue, which if not resolved shortly will result in an early hysterectomy to remove a dangerous pre-cancerous tumor. They want children very much, but their own values will not let them ‘buy’ a child or an egg or a surrogate through Big Fertility. Perhaps she will get pregnant before their time runs out. Let’s hope so. If not, the next best hope would be if there would be a child who needs a home, and they would be fortunate enough to be right for that child. If so, then I pray they will be selected. But knowing them, that would be the only way they would want a child—if it was BEST for the child.
Children’s rights come before ours.
Them Before Us!
EXCELLENT BOOK!
Our selfishness as adults in demanding unlimited 'rights' - to abortion, divorce, homosexual marriage, donor conceived children completely ignores the RIGHTS of a whole group of people, the most innocent, CHILDREN.
There was a time when adults put children's needs ahead of their own desires and society understood that. Now, society cheers when an individual 'comes out', 'finds/discovers him/herself' and/or makes whatever change in lifestyle is necessary according to the desire of the older person regardless of the impact on the child(ren).
Consider the long- or even short-range effects such self-focused choices have on a child... The closest most people come to this is, "Well I am sure my child would want ME to be happy!" Really? Are you? Maybe your child would rather have a father and a mother, under the same roof, who are kind to each other, adults the child can look up to and be proud of, even/especially if it is a sacrifice and a struggle...
Children are not a commodity to be bought and sold, to be flushed down a toilet or cut out if they aren't 'convenient'. Children have rights (to life and to good parents) and adults have responsibilities, one of the first being to raise up their children to become responsible adults. When exactly did we lose sight of this and swap things around?
Children have ‘rights’? Well, yes, they do, Natural Rights, the ‘Right to Life’, being paramount. But beyond a child’s right to life, ‘children also require three nutrients in their socioemotional diet: their father’s love, their mother’s love and stability. The marriage of their mother and father is a child’s best chance for household stability. When a father leaves, stability often leaves with him, and the risk of childhood traumas that lie at the heart of so many of our social problems skyrockets. … Every country on the planet understands how critical mothers and fathers are to children. The United Nations, an institution in which consensus is as rare as a winged unicorn, enshrined children’s rights to be known and loved by both parents in the Convention on the Rights of the Child—the most widely ratified human rights treaty in history.’
Children are subjects of rights, not objects of them. What is the difference? It is huge and it is exactly how many children are seen today, as commodities, things to be desired, sought, designed, acquired, fought and bargained over and sadly, also disposed of.
The authors, Katy Faust and Stacy Manning, formed Them Before Us when they realized there was no Children’s Rights organization anywhere. They looked around, listened to the narrative surrounding traditional marriage and the emerging “marriage equality” movement and realized a lot of people were not telling the truth. This was way back 2012. Neither woman was a ‘homophobe’. Both have gay friends, Katy lives in the uber-liberal Seattle area and hates conflict, but she still believed that traditional marriage offered the best and safest option for children to grow up in. She says she started an anonymous blog because she is a chicken. She called it askthe“Bigot” and she took on all the naysayers for traditional marriage and learned a lot. Her partner, Stacy, is the writer extraordinaire who turns Katy’s ideas and research into readable words.
In time, the blog began to collect stories of more and more adult ‘children’ whose lives had been shattered, wounded, upended, marred, traumatized, and forever devastated by adults who put themselves and their own desires ahead of their children’s basic needs—RIGHTS—to parental love and stability.
The stories in this book will haunt you. (I stayed up most of last night finishing this book, something I rarely do with a non-fiction book.) I don’t think I will ever be able to forget these children who have endured emotional pain I cannot begin to imagine. They have longed to know their Daddy, to have a Mommy, to have their Mom or Dad come back, or that their Mom and Dad would stay together. If the children belong to a same sex couple they wanted their Mom (or Dad) to understand why they needed a REAL Dad (or Mom) and not another parent of the same sex. Often, they do not even know why they feel this need so strongly. Other children just want to know if their real parent cares for them, or if they could know who their donor parent was, or that Dad would stay Dad, and not try to change into a woman and on and on. I couldn’t get over how many stories Katy and Stacy have already collected.
Each story is another child maimed, another life destroyed, and you can’t help wondering if the pain will stop with them, or will they pass their pain on down to the next generation and so on. Meanwhile, our media and courts continue celebrating the increasing rights of adults to do whatever they like, to have whatever child they want whenever. The chapter on Donor Conception is the hardest to read. I certainly sympathize with anyone who wants a child and cannot conceive.
I happen to know a beautiful young woman in her mid-30s who is going through that now. She and her husband would do just about anything to have a child. They are devoted to each other, happily married for over ten years, deeply religious, intelligent, owners of their own successful Asian restaurant and yet, she has a serious conception issue, which if not resolved shortly will result in an early hysterectomy to remove a dangerous pre-cancerous tumor. They want children very much, but their own values will not let them ‘buy’ a child or an egg or a surrogate through Big Fertility. Perhaps she will get pregnant before their time runs out. Let’s hope so. If not, the next best hope would be if there would be a child who needs a home, and they would be fortunate enough to be right for that child. If so, then I pray they will be selected. But knowing them, that would be the only way they would want a child—if it was BEST for the child.
Children’s rights come before ours.
Them Before Us!
EXCELLENT BOOK!
Our selfishness as adults in demanding unlimited 'rights' - to abortion, divorce, homosexual marriage, donor conceived children completely ignores the RIGHTS of a whole group of people, the most innocent, CHILDREN.
There was a time when adults put children's needs ahead of their own desires and society understood that. Now, society cheers when an individual 'comes out', 'finds/discovers him/herself' and/or makes whatever change in lifestyle is necessary according to the desire of the older person regardless of the impact on the child(ren).
Consider the long- or even short-range effects such self-focused choices have on a child... The closest most people come to this is, "Well I am sure my child would want ME to be happy!" Really? Are you? Maybe your child would rather have a father and a mother, under the same roof, who are kind to each other, adults the child can look up to and be proud of, even/especially if it is a sacrifice and a struggle...
Children are not a commodity to be bought and sold, to be flushed down a toilet or cut out if they aren't 'convenient'. Children have rights (to life and to good parents) and adults have responsibilities, one of the first being to raise up their children to become responsible adults. When exactly did we lose sight of this and swap things around?
April 18, 2021
This is an awful book from a C-list anti-LGBT hate group activist. It gets one star as a study on how bigots use junk science and anecdotes to mislead. The book's main author, Katy Faust, was attached to the sham International Children's Rights Institute, an anti-LGBT hate group that masqueraded as a "children's rights" organization. Her current Them Before Us is more of the same. Faust cites the American Academy of Pediatrics for her Adoption chapter (they condemned the US-Mexico child border issue), but when it comes to gay marriage, she doesn't cite the academy (they say parents do just as well with gay parents). Instead, she cites a (widely debunked) study from Paul Sullins which was never properly peer-reviewed. She even cherry picks legitimate studies, one of which, if you look at the study itself, states that it should not be used as a reference for children raised by same-sex couples. It should be noted that the author is NOT a medical professional nor an academic. Even the logo used in the book is sketchy--the woman who designed it got into hot water for exploiting children (just Google "Mary Summerhays exploits") and most recently was part of the capitol rally. None of the anecdotes used in the book have been verified. As for the anecdotes of children of gay parents, it is the same 5 or so people that appeared before gay marriage became the law of the land in Australia the US (like Heather Barwick and Millie Fontana -- both of whom seemed to have fallen off the face of the earth since we last heard from them back in 2015). All in all, this is an ugly book designed to harass single, gay, and trans parents, or any other families the author doesn't like.
December 29, 2022
Did you grow up with divorced parents, or are you the child of a surrogate mom, or were raised by same-sex parents, or in a single parent home, or were you an IVF baby? Basically, were you raised by anyone other than your biological, married, mom and dad? I was, and Faust’s book used a natural law approach to show some of the ways children are impacted when adults put their wants before the rights of children to be raised by their own biological parents. Lots of data, but also lots of first-person testimony. Very helpful.
May 28, 2021
Wow. Katy Faust (whose parents divorced when she was young and she thereafter lived with her mom and her mom’s lesbian partner) shows how children are harmed when they are victims of divorce or other adult choices that deprive them of a biological parent (surrogacy, egg or sperm donation, same-sex parenting, single parenting). She relates personal experiences of many children who suffer from extreme feelings of loss and also discusses research showing outcomes for children in different family situations. (Children raised by their biological parents do better in all areas.) Faust has also adopted a son. Adoption is HEALING a wound, not intentionally creating a wound by depriving a child of a parent. Very thought-provoking book. Her children’s rights movement is worth following. (thembeforeus.com).
From book summary: “Featuring the real-life stories of hundreds of children, Them Before Us makes the irrefutable case that a child’s mother and father are critical to their mental, physical, and emotional well-being…, identifies the wide-ranging harms resulting from mother- and father-loss, and provides a roadmap for effective children’s rights advocacy.”
Quotes:
“Emotionally starved kids are at-risk kids. If a tragedy is the cause of a missing father or mother, then it’s grounds for mourning. But if a mother or father is absent because adult desire took priority over child rights, an injustice has been done. Two women, ten women for that matter, cannot replace a father… We either deny children the security of the home embodied by Mom or the adventure and opportunity of the world embodied by Dad. Men and women bring vastly different but equally critical benefits to child development… Pretending mothers or fathers are optional wrecks the foundation of a child’s heart.”
Divorce: “The correlation between divorced parents and their childrens’ compromised health are so direct, any serious plan to reduce the cost of health care should begin with reducing the divorce rate.”
Same-sex parenting: “When the voices of the children cut through the noise-making adults, it was painfully obvious marriage equality for adults would result in childhood inequality…
“Outcomes for children of same-sex couples are suboptimal because of biology, a factor for which there are no substitutions. We do a great disservice to children when we pretend redefining concepts and court rulings can stand in for a missing parent…
“Insisting that marriage and parenthood involve both a man and woman is not anti-gay; it’s pro-child.”
“Kids suffer when they lose a biological parent. No adult gets a pass, whether single or married, gay or straight.”
Surrogacy: “Using a third party to create children is, by its very nature, undeniably sacrificing childrens’ rights on the altar of adult desires. Donor conception always puts US before THEM, because it shifts the emotional burden from the adult to the child. It transforms an adult’s longing for a child into a child who is longing for his or her missing parent….Infertile or not, adults must conform their desires to the rights of children.”
Surrogacy vs. adoption: “Adopted children are raised by adults who seek to mend the child’s primal wound, while surrogate-born and donor-conceived children are raised by adults responsible for inflicting the primal wound… Adoption is intended to support childrens’ loss. Surrogacy forces children to bear loss in support of adult desire….There is a big difference between seeking to mend parental loss and paying six figures to create it.”
“No adult emotion can justify forcing children to lose a connection with their biological parent.”
From book summary: “Featuring the real-life stories of hundreds of children, Them Before Us makes the irrefutable case that a child’s mother and father are critical to their mental, physical, and emotional well-being…, identifies the wide-ranging harms resulting from mother- and father-loss, and provides a roadmap for effective children’s rights advocacy.”
Quotes:
“Emotionally starved kids are at-risk kids. If a tragedy is the cause of a missing father or mother, then it’s grounds for mourning. But if a mother or father is absent because adult desire took priority over child rights, an injustice has been done. Two women, ten women for that matter, cannot replace a father… We either deny children the security of the home embodied by Mom or the adventure and opportunity of the world embodied by Dad. Men and women bring vastly different but equally critical benefits to child development… Pretending mothers or fathers are optional wrecks the foundation of a child’s heart.”
Divorce: “The correlation between divorced parents and their childrens’ compromised health are so direct, any serious plan to reduce the cost of health care should begin with reducing the divorce rate.”
Same-sex parenting: “When the voices of the children cut through the noise-making adults, it was painfully obvious marriage equality for adults would result in childhood inequality…
“Outcomes for children of same-sex couples are suboptimal because of biology, a factor for which there are no substitutions. We do a great disservice to children when we pretend redefining concepts and court rulings can stand in for a missing parent…
“Insisting that marriage and parenthood involve both a man and woman is not anti-gay; it’s pro-child.”
“Kids suffer when they lose a biological parent. No adult gets a pass, whether single or married, gay or straight.”
Surrogacy: “Using a third party to create children is, by its very nature, undeniably sacrificing childrens’ rights on the altar of adult desires. Donor conception always puts US before THEM, because it shifts the emotional burden from the adult to the child. It transforms an adult’s longing for a child into a child who is longing for his or her missing parent….Infertile or not, adults must conform their desires to the rights of children.”
Surrogacy vs. adoption: “Adopted children are raised by adults who seek to mend the child’s primal wound, while surrogate-born and donor-conceived children are raised by adults responsible for inflicting the primal wound… Adoption is intended to support childrens’ loss. Surrogacy forces children to bear loss in support of adult desire….There is a big difference between seeking to mend parental loss and paying six figures to create it.”
“No adult emotion can justify forcing children to lose a connection with their biological parent.”
March 6, 2021
My friends wrote a book and it is one of the bravest most gutsy and incredible things I have ever seen happen.
Katy, who is a force of nature, started a children's rights movement dedicated to the work of putting the needs of kids over the desires of adults.
Chances are if you read this book, you will get angry. Either because of how what is happening in the world affects children, or because you deeply disagree with it.
This is not a religious book, and Faust and Manning have done an excellent job of combining data from studies and narrative of many men and women who experienced loss and then were asked to celebrate that loss to uphold the happiness and bear the burden of relational stability.
Faust and Manning are a different voice in the global conversation we are having about what it means to be a human, often an unwelcome voice, but it does something that very few people are doing- putting the kids first and asking us to consider the humanity of the most vulnerable population here on the planet.
They seek to answer the question, Are the kids really alright? "Where does resiliency really come from?"
I have learned so much watching my friends stand up for something they believe in so fiercely and unapologetically. It's also been incredible to see people of many different faiths and identities and education levels come together to support the children. It's mind blowing actually.
What an accomplishment and an incredible resource for people who want to support children's rights.
(FYI- I am not related to Robert George, who wrote the forward)
Katy, who is a force of nature, started a children's rights movement dedicated to the work of putting the needs of kids over the desires of adults.
Chances are if you read this book, you will get angry. Either because of how what is happening in the world affects children, or because you deeply disagree with it.
This is not a religious book, and Faust and Manning have done an excellent job of combining data from studies and narrative of many men and women who experienced loss and then were asked to celebrate that loss to uphold the happiness and bear the burden of relational stability.
Faust and Manning are a different voice in the global conversation we are having about what it means to be a human, often an unwelcome voice, but it does something that very few people are doing- putting the kids first and asking us to consider the humanity of the most vulnerable population here on the planet.
They seek to answer the question, Are the kids really alright? "Where does resiliency really come from?"
I have learned so much watching my friends stand up for something they believe in so fiercely and unapologetically. It's also been incredible to see people of many different faiths and identities and education levels come together to support the children. It's mind blowing actually.
What an accomplishment and an incredible resource for people who want to support children's rights.
(FYI- I am not related to Robert George, who wrote the forward)
January 20, 2023
An absolute must read in our current culture for everyone, both Christian and non Christian.
June 24, 2025
Excellent read. Faust uses a wide range of research and data to poke holes in a lot of the arguments and situations in which adults would say “oh kids are resilient.” She brings a helpful, corrected, and child-centric perspective to difficult topics like Big Fertility, divorce, adoption, and blended-families.
March 15, 2024
Them Before Us is an organization seeking to reframe the conversation around divorce, gay marriage, single-mothers-by-choice, surrogacy, "intended" parents, the freezing of embryos and eugenics that can accompany IVF, and closed adoptions in a way that restores rights to children. I learned more than I ever imagined I would and to be quite honest, I'm horrified and impassioned all at once. I never realized how much America chooses to acquiesce to the desires of adults at the expense of children. There are a lot of intricacies with these topics, especially IVF and adoption, so please read the book if you want to know specific details about where the organization stands on these things.
Before I became a SAHM, I spent the prior few years advocating for the rights of children in foster care. I've been pro-life my whole life and have taken part in many events for that cause. I assumed I could be classified as someone adjacent to an advocate for children's rights. But after reading Them Before Us, I realize how much more there is to it. Even though I agreed already with every premise of this book, I really didn't understand just how serious this battle is until reading it. Now I do and I am fired-up and fully committed to fighting for the rights children have to their biological parents, and also to providing stability in my own home. We can do so much just by caring for our marriage and making sure that our children are living in a conflict-free home. We can also pray for the generations of children growing up in a state of genealogical bewilderment, who tragically are being separated from their mothers and fathers at a rate that is unregulated and unprecedented. These precious souls are entering the world at a severe disadvantage and the very least we can do is be their voice and to lift them up in prayer to the God who sees them.
"The lens through which you view the world will shift when you start to view family matters through the filter of children's rights."
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Before I became a SAHM, I spent the prior few years advocating for the rights of children in foster care. I've been pro-life my whole life and have taken part in many events for that cause. I assumed I could be classified as someone adjacent to an advocate for children's rights. But after reading Them Before Us, I realize how much more there is to it. Even though I agreed already with every premise of this book, I really didn't understand just how serious this battle is until reading it. Now I do and I am fired-up and fully committed to fighting for the rights children have to their biological parents, and also to providing stability in my own home. We can do so much just by caring for our marriage and making sure that our children are living in a conflict-free home. We can also pray for the generations of children growing up in a state of genealogical bewilderment, who tragically are being separated from their mothers and fathers at a rate that is unregulated and unprecedented. These precious souls are entering the world at a severe disadvantage and the very least we can do is be their voice and to lift them up in prayer to the God who sees them.
"The lens through which you view the world will shift when you start to view family matters through the filter of children's rights."
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
May 4, 2021
“Adults need to do hard things.” Start with reading this book. With objective research, statistics and personal stories, Faust paints a tragic and brutally honest picture of the cost kids are paying for adults who are making choices that satisfy their own needs or desires with the attitude that “the kids will be fine”. Covering topics including marriage and divorce, infertility, reproductive technologies, same-sex parenting, and adoption, this book tells the seldom heard perspective of kids caught in a world that doesn't have their best interests in mind.
The book presents the problem but doesn't stop there. Faust outlines the policies, considerations, and the difficult choices adults need to make to put children and their rights first. This is a must-read for all of us who care about kids.
The book presents the problem but doesn't stop there. Faust outlines the policies, considerations, and the difficult choices adults need to make to put children and their rights first. This is a must-read for all of us who care about kids.
July 21, 2022
Loved the book! I found their collection and summary of studies extremely helpful on understanding the adverse effects of surrogacy and divorce. My only reason why I did not give it five stars is because I really wish that the authors had at least dedicated one chapter on why from the Bible divorce, surrogacy, same-sex “parenting,” and no-fault divorce is so damaging and wrong. She made the argument that it is all from “natural law,” but natural law did not come out of thin air, it came from God.
June 18, 2021
Right wing "family values" anti-gay nonsense.
September 18, 2024
Faust seeks to reframe the debate on the issues such as divorce, LGBTQ parenting, and IVF from the desires of adults to the needs of children. The central contention is that adults must do hard things so children don't have to. In our age, what is seen as necessary is whether adults are fulfilled, or living pleasurable lives. Children are suffering brutally as a result, whether they are aborted when in the womb as they are not wanted, or frozen forever in a laboratory because more embryos were produced than the family had planned to have children. Or even abused and neglected by parents' new boyfriends or girlfriends after a tragic divorce. All of these issues are typically framed from the perspective of the parent's enjoyment and the children must simply put up with it.
Faust's book is a systematic and sustained critique of this approach that seeks to awaken our culture from its selfishness and to put children first. She shows how the adult-first approach damages both children and society.
Framing the issues in terms of rights is very intelligent as these days everything is seen as a question of rights, I'm not sure I would use the concept quite as freely as Faust does, however.
From a Christian political perspective, this book is easy to read and understand and because it provides so many vital insights into many of the dilemmas we are facing should be read by everyone interested.
Faust's book is a systematic and sustained critique of this approach that seeks to awaken our culture from its selfishness and to put children first. She shows how the adult-first approach damages both children and society.
Framing the issues in terms of rights is very intelligent as these days everything is seen as a question of rights, I'm not sure I would use the concept quite as freely as Faust does, however.
From a Christian political perspective, this book is easy to read and understand and because it provides so many vital insights into many of the dilemmas we are facing should be read by everyone interested.
December 23, 2021
Explores the issues created when adults live for themselves instead of the children they have begotten. Faust accomplished her purpose of laying the "law" of the natural right of children to two biological parents. The text is light on the gospel of forgiveness, which may however been a baseline assumed by the authors.
I am excited and nervous as both political parties in America appear to be on an arms race to become the pro-family party. I pray that the winner is the pro-child party.
"Sometimes the most ethical thing for adults to do is to not satisfy a want."
I am excited and nervous as both political parties in America appear to be on an arms race to become the pro-family party. I pray that the winner is the pro-child party.
"Sometimes the most ethical thing for adults to do is to not satisfy a want."
June 23, 2021
I went into this book knowing I’d agree with its premise: kids have rights and therefore adults should be willing to make sacrifices on behalf of this vulnerable section of our population. What I was not expecting was how the data, info, and stats would strengthen my position on topics like surrogacy, divorce, etc. This should be required reading for every adult, whatever your beliefs.
March 22, 2021
Very thought provoking!
June 7, 2022
Wow, this book was more convicting than I thought it would be. It shifted the lens for me on how normal it has been for me to talk about adult desires with my friends, and not make mention or consideration for the impact of these choices on kids. They set up the research through the idea of natural rights (pre-government; no one has to provide it; is distributed equally to everyone)- those that all people every where at all times have - namely that every child has a parent-child r/s; nobody provides children with their biological parents, if a child exists, so do his or her mother & father; everyone has the same quantity of mother & father (one each) (6-7).
xviii: if we understand marriage correctly, it will be in part because we understand-that children are not properly regarded as lifestyle accessories; they are not products or commodities; they are not-they should not be-mere objects of adult consumer preference. And if we understand the, then we will understand why establishing and maintaining a healthy & flourishing marriage culture is so important, & why rebuilding a healthy, flourishing marriage culture should be at the top of the cultural and political agenda for us all.
xxii: To imply that kids don't care if they've lost a r/s with their mother or father, and to claim that gender is irrelevant to parenting is dangerous & nonsensical. As someone who has been working with kids for two decades, I know these claims are politically motivated lies. Nearly all the kids I've known who've lost a r/s with their mother or father, whether through death, divorce, abandonment, or donor conception, have been left suffering a lifelong wound.
xxix: We are on a mission to advance social policies that encourage adults to actively respect the rights of children rather than expecting children to sacrifice their fundamental rights of the sake of adult desires. We aim to equip all adults with the tools to defend the rights of all children. Or more simply, we believe adults need to do hard things so kids don't have to
xxxiv: The children have been required to make sacrifices to accommodate the adults.
Whether it is the result of a parent's "coming out" and leaving the marriage, the use of an egg or sperm donor, or a dad's running off with his secretary, the loss of a parent bc adult desire was prioritized over the child's rights requires the child to do the emotional heavy lifting. Every one of these kids is expected to understand & accommodate the parent's romantic and sexual desires in the resulting household.
That's exactly backward. Adults, the humans with the fully formed brains & emotional intelligence are supposed to do the hard things. Adults are supposed to understand, accommodate, & support their children-not vice versa. ...we are inundated by tales of what adults want in family matters.
1: Elizabeth Smart Retraumatized as Dad declares his "coming out" was "more difficult" for him than her abduction and rape
-Pamela Anderson's adult children struggle to maintain stable relationships as Anderson divorces fifth husband after 12 days
-"my two dads split after one of them fell for my boyfriend, and now they're 'pregnant' with triplets. I'm devastated."
-"I grew up in a home with four men and didn't know which one was my dad." This aint love!
--headlines and pull quotes would read if the world viewed marriage and family from the child's perspective
2: The children are rarely mentioned in stories about a celebrity parent's "coming out," a couple's journey through surrogacy, or a 5-page spread celebrating the thrill of an open marriage...most often we're treated to adults justifying their behavior to the tune of, "if I'm happy, my children will be happy"...this adult-centric narrative drives more than headlines; it drives public policy. Adult feelings are front and center, whether the topic is the definition of marriage or the laws affecting adoption agencies. Adult intent justifies new laws which allow unrelated adults to be listed as parents on a child's birth certificate or the effort to legalize polygamy, the motivation is solely the feelings of the adults involved.
24: The most popular objection to the case for children's right to their mother and father sounds something like, "My mother was so abusive, I would have loved being raised by two gay men." Or, "My father was such a violent asshole, I would have done anything to be raised by a single mom." Such objections are intended to push back against the importance of a mother and a father but, in truth, these objections illuminate the critical nature of the parent-child relationship. Such protestations lay bare the lifelong pain experienced by adult children who se parents failed to love them rightly. ...I reject the assertion that these two extremes are the only options...third option - children require parents to adult on their behalf, to seek professional help when necessary, and to check their selfish desires so their children can have the best possible shot at launching a successful adult life. Our culture/laws must incentives/encourage adults to conform their behavior to the needs of their children if we are to have any hope of a healthy thriving society.
25: How do we put Them Before Us? The answer is simple, though not easy to implement: Adults must do hard things to honor our children's fundamental right to be known and loved by both their mother and father.
27: Throughout his thousand of sessions counseling hundreds of families, Fagan observed a universal dynamic. When children witnessed their own mother and father loving one another, they felt like their parents were loving them. In Fagan's opinion, the mother-father bond is the only human relationship through which someone can experience love indirectly, a love felt exclusively by a child.
31: in a collaborative effort, the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and the Brookings Institution report "most scholars now agree that children raised by two biological parents in a stable marriage do better than children in other family forms across a wide range of outcomes."
49: If adults won't conform their lives to a child's right to their biological parents, they willfully and wantonly subject children to increased risk, disconnectedness, and struggles with their identity. No other family structure approximates the benefits provided to children when they're raised by their married, biological parents-not by two loving adults nor by just any married man and woman, not even by their own unmarried parents. Biology is a wrecking ball to the concept of the modern family. Whether you are an infertile couple seeking sperm and egg donors, a same-sex couple who wants kids, a single mother by choice who believes your child will be "just fine," or a divorcee planning to assemble a Brady-Bunch-style blended family, you cannot outwit Mother Nature and you won't outmaneuver biology. It's difficult for some to accept that biology matters bc to accept this truth, real-life change must follow. Intellectually honest adults would be forced to reorder their priorities and make different relational and sexual choices.
51: Unborn babies are first in line to slay the assertion that social pressures are responsible for the differences between men and women. 2019 MRI scans studied human fetuses in utero, and they discovered structural differences between male and female brains despite ether fact this population had zero exposure to societal pressures or the patriarchy...
53: Schmitt found that male and female differences extended beyond choices and preferences into physical nature. He noted "even sex differences in physical traits such as height, body mass index, obesity, and blood pressure are larger in cultures with more egalitarian sex role socialization and greater sociopolitical gender equity.
If gender is a social construct and men and women are basically interchangeable, there should be little to not distinction between male and female career choices, preferences, and body types. Instead, egalitarian societies produce, on the whole, acutely feminine women and intensely masculine men as a result of their free-to-choose environment, not despite it.
60: Mothers and fathers differ in smell, voice, physique, and their interactions with kids. So distinct and discernible are these differences, children as young as eight weeks old respond differently to their male parent and their female parent.
72: per ch 1, children have a right to be known and lived by both their mother and father.
per ch 2, non-biologically related parents are less connected to, protective of, and invested in the children.
per ch 3, men and women are both critical to parenting.
It's understandable if this is the first time you've considered that marriage might be an institution intended to protect children rather than an endorsement of adult emotions; modernity has done a great job of obscuring marriage's foundational purpose behind celebrations of love, passion, romance, and adult satisfaction.
73: In this age of emotionalism, of personal narratives that begin with "my truth," we've mistakenly come to believe that the state's marriage license is the gov'ts stamp of approval on the relationship that gives us all the feels. In truth, the gov't's concern with marriage is not meant to be sentimental The state's interest lies solely in the biological reality neither judicial fiat nor a vote o the people can change: Heterosexual sex produces the next generation of citizens with rights the state is responsible for protecting.
75: Marriage is the solution every culture and religion throughout history has used to legally require a father's presence from conception through adulthood. As recently as 1996, the federal gov't recognized its role marriage by passing the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)...DOMA was not intended to address the emotional attachments of adults in r/s, its sole purpose was the protection of children
80: From the beginning of time, all across the world, children have suffered the tragic loss of their mother or father. We once universally recognized such a tragedy as something to be avoided at all costs. Now, for the first time in history, advanced nations are endorsing and incentivizing motherlessness and fatherless in the name of progress. ...whether or not the law affirms children's right to their parents, it's impossible to legislate away a child's longing for his or her mother and father.
81: Neither Heather nor Millie nor I believe that gay men and lesbians are incapable of being good parents. My mother provided an exceptional example of how to be a mother, & I credit her with teaching me my best mothering skills. What I am saying is neither my mother nor her partner could have been a father to me.
82: The problem with gay parenting isn't the gay parents; it's the missing parent. Children raised in same-sex-headed homes will always be missing one adult to whom they have a natural right.
83+: WA states Uniform Parentage Act (UPA) of 2018 legalized commercial surrogacy and allows intent to be the basis for parenthood when children are created using reproductive technologies. The folly of this child-commodifying parenthood law is clearest when contrasted with the long-established best practices of adoption. (then she illustrates the differences when considering the child's best interests, willful separation from parents, the right to safe placement, the right to be born free, not purchased, the right to kinship bonds)
89: even when the cohabiting couple is a kid's unmarried bio parents, child outcomes suffer. Compared to children living with married parents, children with unmarried parents are 3x more likely to see their parents breakup, 4x more likely to suffer physical/sexual/emotional abuse, 4x more likely to live in poverty, more likely to use drugs, suffer from depression, & drop out of school
112: Parental divorce has been linked to heart disease, diabetes, & asthma. It's also been shown to double the likelihood kids will have trouble with their gut, skin, nervous system, genitals, and urinary organs. The correlation between divorced parents and their children's compromised health are so direct, any serious plan to reduce the cost of healthcare should begin with reducing the divorce rate.
116: A 2002 report from the Institute for American Values found 2/3 of unhappily married adults who chose to stick it out reported happier marriages five years later. Conversely, unhappy couples who divorced are no happier, on average, than those who stayed together.
127+: interesting discussion on Regnerus's research New Family Structures Study talking to adult children with gay or lesbian parents about their upbringing....then Sullins's data - 9.3 % of children with same-sex parents were likely to suffer emotional or behavior difficulties, a percentage more than twice the 4.4 percent rate for children in dual gender families, experienced definite or severe emotional problems at a rate of 14.9 % versus 5.5%, were diagnosed with ADHD at a rate of 15.5% vs 7.1 %, struggled with learning disabilities at a rate of 14.1% vs 8%, received special ed and mental health services at a rate of 17.8% vs 10.4%. Lest you credit stigmatization or bullying due to family structure for the significantly higher percentages, Sullins sought out the relevant data for bullying as well, concluding that "there is no difference between children with opposite-sex & same-sex parents in exposure to bullying; in fact, contrary to the assumption underlying this hypothesis, children with opposite-sex parents are picked on & bullied more than those with same-sex parents."
130...in other words, biology matters. Heterosexual marriage doesn't pose an advantage to kids bc straight folks are naturally better parents or have more money or live in better school districts. The advantage comes from the heterosexual household itself which ensures kids' access to their own biological parents.
137: When kids are beset on all sides-familial, cultural, and now legal-by the refrain "love makes a family," they begin to doubt their instinctual want of a mother or father. Children lack the sophistication to realize it's at the cultural and legal landscape which has failed them, not their own feelings. Sometimes blame for the failure belongs at the feet of their own parents. When Millie Fontana voiced her father hunger, each of her two mothers would tell her, "you don't need a dad; you have another mom." She remembers, "I suffered guilt, bc who was I to reject this other parent? And, oh my gosh, if she is really what is supposed to fulfill me, how horrible must I be to reject that notion?"
138: (another daughter of a lesbian couple) goes on, bemoaning how her feelings won't align with the ubiquitous lies our culture has told her, describes feeling like a "terrible bitch" for wishing she had a dad in her life. I submit that such intense pressure on kids with same-sex parents to endorse a worldview that runs counter to their most basic instincts may be at the root of the diminished outcomes in Sullins' studies.
147: Great section on IVF not being child friendly
151: These donor-conceived children are describing what professionals call "genealogical bewilderment," which is best characterized as a disenfranchisement from their own body as they struggle with the universal existential question, "who am I?" For many children born of sperm and/or egg donation, the revelation f their conception begins the difficult, soul-searching work of rebuilding a new identity adrift from half their kinship network.
177: Erickson's crime was not feeling babies to non-biologically-related adults, which is a common occurrence for Big Fertility. Hers was a crime of process. You see, Erickson's timing caused her prison sentence. Her enterprise would have been entirely legal had the surrogacy contract been signed before conception; signing the contract after conception falls into the baby-selling category. Only a profit-blinded industry could behave as if the thing of a contract would alleviate a child's genealogical bewilderment, feelings of commodification, & mother-loss trauma.
181: In contrast a disturbing number of parents appear comfortable donating their frozen children for use in research labs. A defender of children's rights looks at it this way: Adults who want to donate their own body to research. Godspeed. Adults donating their neighbor's body to research? Hard no. No one should have the power to consign someone else's body to research, including the bodies of surplus embryos, even when the person is responsible for the creation of those bodies.
184: Wanting a child and loving a child are two different actions; the first is a natural desire of one's drive to continue the world in your own way. The second is giving your very life so that someone can thrive. Creating, freezing, and abandoning embryos to any option other than raising them yourself is not giving your life for their cause; it is sacrificing them to yours.
202+: Adoption honors children's rights because it satisfies a child's need for parents; donor conception and surrogacy violate children's rights because they sever children's connection to their parents.
then she has a great look at who's the client, how adoption mends a wound but third party reproduction inflicts a wound. In adoption adults fill a void for the children, in third party reproduction, the children fill a void for the adults. Adoption is sometimes necessary; third party reproduction is never necessary.
219: Victim misidentification is a problem...We lament the deafening tick-tock of the forty-something career woman's biological clock and are deeply sorry she never found a quality man. She may be the victim of her own choices, but she becomes the victimizer when she chooses the single-mother-by-choice-route. The victim is the child she intentionally makes fatherless.
We believe homosexual couples should be free to form consensual relationships without fear; however, gay couples by their very nature cannot produce children, and this biological reality does not mean they are victims. The children forced to lose their mother or father in order to conform to the romantic feelings of same-sex couples are victims.
An infertile heterosexual couple might be victims of their circumstance and deserve our sympathy, but in turning to an egg donor to get pregnant, they are victimizing the child who will lie in bed at night wondering about the woman who gave him those blue eyes & penchant for music.
When our sympathy for adults who suffer morphs into believing they are victims,
xviii: if we understand marriage correctly, it will be in part because we understand-that children are not properly regarded as lifestyle accessories; they are not products or commodities; they are not-they should not be-mere objects of adult consumer preference. And if we understand the, then we will understand why establishing and maintaining a healthy & flourishing marriage culture is so important, & why rebuilding a healthy, flourishing marriage culture should be at the top of the cultural and political agenda for us all.
xxii: To imply that kids don't care if they've lost a r/s with their mother or father, and to claim that gender is irrelevant to parenting is dangerous & nonsensical. As someone who has been working with kids for two decades, I know these claims are politically motivated lies. Nearly all the kids I've known who've lost a r/s with their mother or father, whether through death, divorce, abandonment, or donor conception, have been left suffering a lifelong wound.
xxix: We are on a mission to advance social policies that encourage adults to actively respect the rights of children rather than expecting children to sacrifice their fundamental rights of the sake of adult desires. We aim to equip all adults with the tools to defend the rights of all children. Or more simply, we believe adults need to do hard things so kids don't have to
xxxiv: The children have been required to make sacrifices to accommodate the adults.
Whether it is the result of a parent's "coming out" and leaving the marriage, the use of an egg or sperm donor, or a dad's running off with his secretary, the loss of a parent bc adult desire was prioritized over the child's rights requires the child to do the emotional heavy lifting. Every one of these kids is expected to understand & accommodate the parent's romantic and sexual desires in the resulting household.
That's exactly backward. Adults, the humans with the fully formed brains & emotional intelligence are supposed to do the hard things. Adults are supposed to understand, accommodate, & support their children-not vice versa. ...we are inundated by tales of what adults want in family matters.
1: Elizabeth Smart Retraumatized as Dad declares his "coming out" was "more difficult" for him than her abduction and rape
-Pamela Anderson's adult children struggle to maintain stable relationships as Anderson divorces fifth husband after 12 days
-"my two dads split after one of them fell for my boyfriend, and now they're 'pregnant' with triplets. I'm devastated."
-"I grew up in a home with four men and didn't know which one was my dad." This aint love!
--headlines and pull quotes would read if the world viewed marriage and family from the child's perspective
2: The children are rarely mentioned in stories about a celebrity parent's "coming out," a couple's journey through surrogacy, or a 5-page spread celebrating the thrill of an open marriage...most often we're treated to adults justifying their behavior to the tune of, "if I'm happy, my children will be happy"...this adult-centric narrative drives more than headlines; it drives public policy. Adult feelings are front and center, whether the topic is the definition of marriage or the laws affecting adoption agencies. Adult intent justifies new laws which allow unrelated adults to be listed as parents on a child's birth certificate or the effort to legalize polygamy, the motivation is solely the feelings of the adults involved.
24: The most popular objection to the case for children's right to their mother and father sounds something like, "My mother was so abusive, I would have loved being raised by two gay men." Or, "My father was such a violent asshole, I would have done anything to be raised by a single mom." Such objections are intended to push back against the importance of a mother and a father but, in truth, these objections illuminate the critical nature of the parent-child relationship. Such protestations lay bare the lifelong pain experienced by adult children who se parents failed to love them rightly. ...I reject the assertion that these two extremes are the only options...third option - children require parents to adult on their behalf, to seek professional help when necessary, and to check their selfish desires so their children can have the best possible shot at launching a successful adult life. Our culture/laws must incentives/encourage adults to conform their behavior to the needs of their children if we are to have any hope of a healthy thriving society.
25: How do we put Them Before Us? The answer is simple, though not easy to implement: Adults must do hard things to honor our children's fundamental right to be known and loved by both their mother and father.
27: Throughout his thousand of sessions counseling hundreds of families, Fagan observed a universal dynamic. When children witnessed their own mother and father loving one another, they felt like their parents were loving them. In Fagan's opinion, the mother-father bond is the only human relationship through which someone can experience love indirectly, a love felt exclusively by a child.
31: in a collaborative effort, the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and the Brookings Institution report "most scholars now agree that children raised by two biological parents in a stable marriage do better than children in other family forms across a wide range of outcomes."
49: If adults won't conform their lives to a child's right to their biological parents, they willfully and wantonly subject children to increased risk, disconnectedness, and struggles with their identity. No other family structure approximates the benefits provided to children when they're raised by their married, biological parents-not by two loving adults nor by just any married man and woman, not even by their own unmarried parents. Biology is a wrecking ball to the concept of the modern family. Whether you are an infertile couple seeking sperm and egg donors, a same-sex couple who wants kids, a single mother by choice who believes your child will be "just fine," or a divorcee planning to assemble a Brady-Bunch-style blended family, you cannot outwit Mother Nature and you won't outmaneuver biology. It's difficult for some to accept that biology matters bc to accept this truth, real-life change must follow. Intellectually honest adults would be forced to reorder their priorities and make different relational and sexual choices.
51: Unborn babies are first in line to slay the assertion that social pressures are responsible for the differences between men and women. 2019 MRI scans studied human fetuses in utero, and they discovered structural differences between male and female brains despite ether fact this population had zero exposure to societal pressures or the patriarchy...
53: Schmitt found that male and female differences extended beyond choices and preferences into physical nature. He noted "even sex differences in physical traits such as height, body mass index, obesity, and blood pressure are larger in cultures with more egalitarian sex role socialization and greater sociopolitical gender equity.
If gender is a social construct and men and women are basically interchangeable, there should be little to not distinction between male and female career choices, preferences, and body types. Instead, egalitarian societies produce, on the whole, acutely feminine women and intensely masculine men as a result of their free-to-choose environment, not despite it.
60: Mothers and fathers differ in smell, voice, physique, and their interactions with kids. So distinct and discernible are these differences, children as young as eight weeks old respond differently to their male parent and their female parent.
72: per ch 1, children have a right to be known and lived by both their mother and father.
per ch 2, non-biologically related parents are less connected to, protective of, and invested in the children.
per ch 3, men and women are both critical to parenting.
It's understandable if this is the first time you've considered that marriage might be an institution intended to protect children rather than an endorsement of adult emotions; modernity has done a great job of obscuring marriage's foundational purpose behind celebrations of love, passion, romance, and adult satisfaction.
73: In this age of emotionalism, of personal narratives that begin with "my truth," we've mistakenly come to believe that the state's marriage license is the gov'ts stamp of approval on the relationship that gives us all the feels. In truth, the gov't's concern with marriage is not meant to be sentimental The state's interest lies solely in the biological reality neither judicial fiat nor a vote o the people can change: Heterosexual sex produces the next generation of citizens with rights the state is responsible for protecting.
75: Marriage is the solution every culture and religion throughout history has used to legally require a father's presence from conception through adulthood. As recently as 1996, the federal gov't recognized its role marriage by passing the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)...DOMA was not intended to address the emotional attachments of adults in r/s, its sole purpose was the protection of children
80: From the beginning of time, all across the world, children have suffered the tragic loss of their mother or father. We once universally recognized such a tragedy as something to be avoided at all costs. Now, for the first time in history, advanced nations are endorsing and incentivizing motherlessness and fatherless in the name of progress. ...whether or not the law affirms children's right to their parents, it's impossible to legislate away a child's longing for his or her mother and father.
81: Neither Heather nor Millie nor I believe that gay men and lesbians are incapable of being good parents. My mother provided an exceptional example of how to be a mother, & I credit her with teaching me my best mothering skills. What I am saying is neither my mother nor her partner could have been a father to me.
82: The problem with gay parenting isn't the gay parents; it's the missing parent. Children raised in same-sex-headed homes will always be missing one adult to whom they have a natural right.
83+: WA states Uniform Parentage Act (UPA) of 2018 legalized commercial surrogacy and allows intent to be the basis for parenthood when children are created using reproductive technologies. The folly of this child-commodifying parenthood law is clearest when contrasted with the long-established best practices of adoption. (then she illustrates the differences when considering the child's best interests, willful separation from parents, the right to safe placement, the right to be born free, not purchased, the right to kinship bonds)
89: even when the cohabiting couple is a kid's unmarried bio parents, child outcomes suffer. Compared to children living with married parents, children with unmarried parents are 3x more likely to see their parents breakup, 4x more likely to suffer physical/sexual/emotional abuse, 4x more likely to live in poverty, more likely to use drugs, suffer from depression, & drop out of school
112: Parental divorce has been linked to heart disease, diabetes, & asthma. It's also been shown to double the likelihood kids will have trouble with their gut, skin, nervous system, genitals, and urinary organs. The correlation between divorced parents and their children's compromised health are so direct, any serious plan to reduce the cost of healthcare should begin with reducing the divorce rate.
116: A 2002 report from the Institute for American Values found 2/3 of unhappily married adults who chose to stick it out reported happier marriages five years later. Conversely, unhappy couples who divorced are no happier, on average, than those who stayed together.
127+: interesting discussion on Regnerus's research New Family Structures Study talking to adult children with gay or lesbian parents about their upbringing....then Sullins's data - 9.3 % of children with same-sex parents were likely to suffer emotional or behavior difficulties, a percentage more than twice the 4.4 percent rate for children in dual gender families, experienced definite or severe emotional problems at a rate of 14.9 % versus 5.5%, were diagnosed with ADHD at a rate of 15.5% vs 7.1 %, struggled with learning disabilities at a rate of 14.1% vs 8%, received special ed and mental health services at a rate of 17.8% vs 10.4%. Lest you credit stigmatization or bullying due to family structure for the significantly higher percentages, Sullins sought out the relevant data for bullying as well, concluding that "there is no difference between children with opposite-sex & same-sex parents in exposure to bullying; in fact, contrary to the assumption underlying this hypothesis, children with opposite-sex parents are picked on & bullied more than those with same-sex parents."
130...in other words, biology matters. Heterosexual marriage doesn't pose an advantage to kids bc straight folks are naturally better parents or have more money or live in better school districts. The advantage comes from the heterosexual household itself which ensures kids' access to their own biological parents.
137: When kids are beset on all sides-familial, cultural, and now legal-by the refrain "love makes a family," they begin to doubt their instinctual want of a mother or father. Children lack the sophistication to realize it's at the cultural and legal landscape which has failed them, not their own feelings. Sometimes blame for the failure belongs at the feet of their own parents. When Millie Fontana voiced her father hunger, each of her two mothers would tell her, "you don't need a dad; you have another mom." She remembers, "I suffered guilt, bc who was I to reject this other parent? And, oh my gosh, if she is really what is supposed to fulfill me, how horrible must I be to reject that notion?"
138: (another daughter of a lesbian couple) goes on, bemoaning how her feelings won't align with the ubiquitous lies our culture has told her, describes feeling like a "terrible bitch" for wishing she had a dad in her life. I submit that such intense pressure on kids with same-sex parents to endorse a worldview that runs counter to their most basic instincts may be at the root of the diminished outcomes in Sullins' studies.
147: Great section on IVF not being child friendly
151: These donor-conceived children are describing what professionals call "genealogical bewilderment," which is best characterized as a disenfranchisement from their own body as they struggle with the universal existential question, "who am I?" For many children born of sperm and/or egg donation, the revelation f their conception begins the difficult, soul-searching work of rebuilding a new identity adrift from half their kinship network.
177: Erickson's crime was not feeling babies to non-biologically-related adults, which is a common occurrence for Big Fertility. Hers was a crime of process. You see, Erickson's timing caused her prison sentence. Her enterprise would have been entirely legal had the surrogacy contract been signed before conception; signing the contract after conception falls into the baby-selling category. Only a profit-blinded industry could behave as if the thing of a contract would alleviate a child's genealogical bewilderment, feelings of commodification, & mother-loss trauma.
181: In contrast a disturbing number of parents appear comfortable donating their frozen children for use in research labs. A defender of children's rights looks at it this way: Adults who want to donate their own body to research. Godspeed. Adults donating their neighbor's body to research? Hard no. No one should have the power to consign someone else's body to research, including the bodies of surplus embryos, even when the person is responsible for the creation of those bodies.
184: Wanting a child and loving a child are two different actions; the first is a natural desire of one's drive to continue the world in your own way. The second is giving your very life so that someone can thrive. Creating, freezing, and abandoning embryos to any option other than raising them yourself is not giving your life for their cause; it is sacrificing them to yours.
202+: Adoption honors children's rights because it satisfies a child's need for parents; donor conception and surrogacy violate children's rights because they sever children's connection to their parents.
then she has a great look at who's the client, how adoption mends a wound but third party reproduction inflicts a wound. In adoption adults fill a void for the children, in third party reproduction, the children fill a void for the adults. Adoption is sometimes necessary; third party reproduction is never necessary.
219: Victim misidentification is a problem...We lament the deafening tick-tock of the forty-something career woman's biological clock and are deeply sorry she never found a quality man. She may be the victim of her own choices, but she becomes the victimizer when she chooses the single-mother-by-choice-route. The victim is the child she intentionally makes fatherless.
We believe homosexual couples should be free to form consensual relationships without fear; however, gay couples by their very nature cannot produce children, and this biological reality does not mean they are victims. The children forced to lose their mother or father in order to conform to the romantic feelings of same-sex couples are victims.
An infertile heterosexual couple might be victims of their circumstance and deserve our sympathy, but in turning to an egg donor to get pregnant, they are victimizing the child who will lie in bed at night wondering about the woman who gave him those blue eyes & penchant for music.
When our sympathy for adults who suffer morphs into believing they are victims,
July 23, 2025
The authors clearly think people are reading isolated chapters because in every one they reiterate the main points of the book—-so it’s quite repetitive to read cover to cover. The authors make a well supported assertion that the natural family is the best environment for rearing children. However, I have little confidence that this truth can turn the tide, and not just because of political correctness. People are basically selfish and short-sighted. A lot of adults struggle to make good choices for their own well-being, let alone that of others. (Why else would vaping and pork rinds be a thing?) I doubt no fault divorce could ever be reversed, and Big Fertility is too big an industry to overturn. A cogent observation was how those seeking surrogate or donor eggs/sperm do not face the same scrutiny as adoptive parents. Perhaps the logic of this could at least encourage some safeguards.
March 31, 2025
I don’t even know the first way to go about reviewing this book. I spent 2 hours reading and crying over the content of this book last night. I believe it might be impossible to hear some of the stories of children ripped away from their parents and not get emotional.
I’ve always considered myself to align with most of the opinions in this book, but after reading it, I can say I care a lot more than I did before reading it. Big Fertility and the devastation it causes needs to be stopped.
Final score: 6/5 stars
I’ve always considered myself to align with most of the opinions in this book, but after reading it, I can say I care a lot more than I did before reading it. Big Fertility and the devastation it causes needs to be stopped.
Final score: 6/5 stars
May 21, 2025
So good! Katy Faust explores why we as a society need to value the natural rights of children. We need to prioritize their need for a married mother and father over adult desires to bring children into the world in such a way that purposefully denies them of one of their parents. Everyone should read this!
September 8, 2025
I’m a big fan of Katy Faust and the work of Them Before Us. I appreciate how this book laid out the case for children’s rights. It was the perfect balance of statistics and personal experiences. Though I was very similarly aligned with Faust on many issues already, I appreciate understanding them even more from the perspective of children’s rights, and despite coming from a similar point of view already, my views were still challenged in the best of ways. I feel much more equipped to speak on this subject after listening to this book.
October 7, 2021
3.5/5
I was pretty conflicted about this book. On the one hand, I agree that, in general, modern Western culture places the desires of adults above the needs of children, to disastrous effect. One need only briefly examine the devastating statistics of broken and single-parent homes to know this. On the other hand, the militant character of the book turned me off as a reader.
I realize that Ms. Faust is obviously very passionate about her cause, which I respect. Unfortunately, her passion is paired with a less mature writing style that (in my opinion) works against her. The author tries to lighten the mood with a sense of humor that comes across as off-color at best, sarcastic and condescending at worst. It might have made a difference that I listened to the audiobook, read by the author, and she read in a very clipped manner that seemed patronizing. The personal stories and statistics were impactful, but organized in a way such that the book tended to have one long block of tragic stories, then a long list of statistics, in a compartmentalized fashion that may have worked much better as an integrated whole.
In addition, I felt that it could have been quite a bit shorter than it was. Certain points were repeated ad nauseam, with little new information discussed each time.
Finally, it bothered me that Ms. Faust never fully addressed the issue of the UN statement on children's rights. She mentions it at the beginning as a sort of "proof" that the world is waking up to the needs of children, but later denigrates the UN for taking a stand against children due to its stances on abortion and non-traditional parents. I was hoping for a more informed, in-depth discussion about the pros and cons of allowing an international agency to become involved in the debate, but there was no further examination of the subject.
Overall, I think it's an important beginning point for the conversation about how modern lifestyle trends are impacting children, but the tone of the book is likely to alienate anyone that doesn't have the same passion and views on the issues as the author.
I was pretty conflicted about this book. On the one hand, I agree that, in general, modern Western culture places the desires of adults above the needs of children, to disastrous effect. One need only briefly examine the devastating statistics of broken and single-parent homes to know this. On the other hand, the militant character of the book turned me off as a reader.
I realize that Ms. Faust is obviously very passionate about her cause, which I respect. Unfortunately, her passion is paired with a less mature writing style that (in my opinion) works against her. The author tries to lighten the mood with a sense of humor that comes across as off-color at best, sarcastic and condescending at worst. It might have made a difference that I listened to the audiobook, read by the author, and she read in a very clipped manner that seemed patronizing. The personal stories and statistics were impactful, but organized in a way such that the book tended to have one long block of tragic stories, then a long list of statistics, in a compartmentalized fashion that may have worked much better as an integrated whole.
In addition, I felt that it could have been quite a bit shorter than it was. Certain points were repeated ad nauseam, with little new information discussed each time.
Finally, it bothered me that Ms. Faust never fully addressed the issue of the UN statement on children's rights. She mentions it at the beginning as a sort of "proof" that the world is waking up to the needs of children, but later denigrates the UN for taking a stand against children due to its stances on abortion and non-traditional parents. I was hoping for a more informed, in-depth discussion about the pros and cons of allowing an international agency to become involved in the debate, but there was no further examination of the subject.
Overall, I think it's an important beginning point for the conversation about how modern lifestyle trends are impacting children, but the tone of the book is likely to alienate anyone that doesn't have the same passion and views on the issues as the author.
November 14, 2023
Easily the best book I've read all year -- and I've read several great books from which I learned a lot. While the following review summarizes some of the main points I want to remember from Them Before Us, it is really worth reading on its own, and sharing.
Everyone should think seriously about the need for a children's rights movement, and what consequences our actions bear on our neighbors...especially the youngest and most vulnerable. Honestly, everyone should read this book, if only to think critically about what children suffer when they are intentionally robbed of one or both parents by divorce, surrogacy, ART/IVF, or placed in homes where adults place their wishes above a child's need for a mother and a father. Katy Faust and Stacy Manning powerfully and winsomely explore these issues, outside of any political or religious affiliation.
Children have a universal need and right to their mother and father. Full stop. That is the basis of this book and movement, and it is thoroughly explored from many, many sides. The conclusion? The best protection for children's wellbeing is for their biological mother and father to be married, share a home, and sacrifice for their children. For children to have to sacrifice to protect their parents' feelings, as is increasingly common in our world, is a tragedy.
Women and men are different physically, mentally, emotionally. Women and men have different strengths (and weaknesses). Women and men complement each other, and our differences actually build and support a strong family. Children are intrinsically tied to their biological parents, and to lose one through any means is a tragedy. Children are at higher risk when unrelated adults live in their home. All these facts and more are repeated via narratives, real people's stories, and statistics throughout Them Before Us.
There are countless brokenhearted children in desperate need of a family, a family willing to try to care for their hurts and seek to address the gaping wounds caused by maternal and/or paternal abandonment. We shouldn't willfully create more gaping wounds by our actions as adults.
Everyone should think seriously about the need for a children's rights movement, and what consequences our actions bear on our neighbors...especially the youngest and most vulnerable. Honestly, everyone should read this book, if only to think critically about what children suffer when they are intentionally robbed of one or both parents by divorce, surrogacy, ART/IVF, or placed in homes where adults place their wishes above a child's need for a mother and a father. Katy Faust and Stacy Manning powerfully and winsomely explore these issues, outside of any political or religious affiliation.
Children have a universal need and right to their mother and father. Full stop. That is the basis of this book and movement, and it is thoroughly explored from many, many sides. The conclusion? The best protection for children's wellbeing is for their biological mother and father to be married, share a home, and sacrifice for their children. For children to have to sacrifice to protect their parents' feelings, as is increasingly common in our world, is a tragedy.
Women and men are different physically, mentally, emotionally. Women and men have different strengths (and weaknesses). Women and men complement each other, and our differences actually build and support a strong family. Children are intrinsically tied to their biological parents, and to lose one through any means is a tragedy. Children are at higher risk when unrelated adults live in their home. All these facts and more are repeated via narratives, real people's stories, and statistics throughout Them Before Us.
There are countless brokenhearted children in desperate need of a family, a family willing to try to care for their hurts and seek to address the gaping wounds caused by maternal and/or paternal abandonment. We shouldn't willfully create more gaping wounds by our actions as adults.
August 3, 2023
Poorly researched, incredibly biased, and focused on pushing a singular narrative regarding what type of home children should be in. There’s so many logical fallacies and misinterpreted data in this book.
There are many places where I don’t necessarily disagree with the authors on the existence of issues in society. I have deep concerns about the fertility industry and would strongly support donor conceived people-led legislation and regulation of the industry. I don’t, however, think that the authors accurately represents the donor conceived peoples rights movement.
The authors also very conveniently skirt around the movements led by adopted children to abolish the adoption for profit industry.
That being said. This book actively advocates for “traditional marriage,” uses extremely ableist and transphobic message, and uses smoking pot and attending therapy as two markers that people have a negative life.
I read this because I find it’s important to be informed about the opinions of people who support legislation that would negatively impact society. It’s so scary to know that there are people spreading such misinformation through manipulation of data. I hate that the name children’s rights has been co-opted by the anti abortion movement, especially because the primary recipient of “late term abortions” are young children who have been abused, often by the biological family members that the authors herald as the end all be of who should be allowed to parent.
There are many places where I don’t necessarily disagree with the authors on the existence of issues in society. I have deep concerns about the fertility industry and would strongly support donor conceived people-led legislation and regulation of the industry. I don’t, however, think that the authors accurately represents the donor conceived peoples rights movement.
The authors also very conveniently skirt around the movements led by adopted children to abolish the adoption for profit industry.
That being said. This book actively advocates for “traditional marriage,” uses extremely ableist and transphobic message, and uses smoking pot and attending therapy as two markers that people have a negative life.
I read this because I find it’s important to be informed about the opinions of people who support legislation that would negatively impact society. It’s so scary to know that there are people spreading such misinformation through manipulation of data. I hate that the name children’s rights has been co-opted by the anti abortion movement, especially because the primary recipient of “late term abortions” are young children who have been abused, often by the biological family members that the authors herald as the end all be of who should be allowed to parent.
January 2, 2022
EVERYONE needs to read this book!
I found Them Before Us incredibly enlightening and data filled. Man, this country sure is a mess.
One thing I wish she had expounded on more was the Big Adoption Machine in America. Infant adoption is big business and the manipulation of birth mothers by adoption agencies to give up their babies (who truly don’t want to) is a huge problem.
Otherwise, this book was very eye opening and I’d encourage everyone who cares about children to read it.
I found Them Before Us incredibly enlightening and data filled. Man, this country sure is a mess.
One thing I wish she had expounded on more was the Big Adoption Machine in America. Infant adoption is big business and the manipulation of birth mothers by adoption agencies to give up their babies (who truly don’t want to) is a huge problem.
Otherwise, this book was very eye opening and I’d encourage everyone who cares about children to read it.
January 23, 2024
A book full of uncomfortable statistical truths that are, in some cases, hard to hear and hard to feel. Watching children's lives deteriorate for the adults' satisfaction is disheartening. This book illuminates issues I would have never imagined and encourages putting the needs of children above that of adults. One thought that stuck out was that divorce is the transfer of an adult's issue or feelings to the child(ren) to bear the weight of for perpetuity. We need to stop prioritizing adult desires over the needs of children.
December 9, 2022
This book was very thought provoking and was a cool balance of research and people's stories/quotes. Super helpful for understanding children's rights in general, plus a lot of the ethical considerations and differences between things like surrogacy, donor conception, and adoption. These were all presented from the perspective of children's rights, which is not the perspective from which they are often presented in our society.
June 8, 2024
"Them Before Us: Why We Need a Global Children’s Rights Movement" is a deeply deceptive book. Written by evangelical Christians Katy Faust and Stacy Manning, the book presents itself as a secular defense of children’s rights and a call to listen to children’s voices on issues like marriage, divorce, and adoption. In reality, the book is an attempt to defend evangelical beliefs about family by highlighting the voices of bigoted adults.
June 29, 2021
Trash science
December 26, 2025
Cannot recommend this book enough. So often, children’s natural rights are sacrificed on the altar of adults’ desires- even good, godly desires to raise children. But we must ask how practices like IVF and surrogacy impact children. Every child has a right to their biological mother and father. Becoming a parent by any means possible is not a “right”. While adoption redeems a broken situation, practices like surrogacy and IVF often create broken situations. (Do we realize there are almost 2 million embryos - human image bearers- souls on ice- in America alone today??) We have commodified wombs in the name of fulfilling adults’ desires to become parents. But are we, especially the Church, looking at these practices with a critical eye? Just because something is possible with advanced science does not mean it is ethical. I could go on and on and on. I will say that I was completely ok with surrogacy and IVF 10, even 5 years ago. But listening to Katy Faust and Jennifer Lahl, and learning the statistics and applying a little critical thinking has made me completely do a 180° on this topic. This book is a must read. 🔥
March 6, 2025
Them Before Us is the only nonprofit I know that focuses on ALL children first and their natural rights. They go beyond typical conservative or evangelical talking points and show how everyone can be on board with fighting for the rights of children, no matter their religion (or lack thereof) or political leanings. I love their mission and support it wholeheartedly. For anyone curious about what they do, this book is the perfect first stepping stone to understanding and joining the movement.
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