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Family Unfriendly: How Our Culture Made Raising Kids Much Harder Than It Needs to Be

Parenting seems harder these days, and millennials and Generation Z don’t seem up for it. Why? It’s easy to blame cost or selfishness, but kids have long been an economic drag, and adults have always been selfish. The question is: What’s changed? The answer is culture. Our culture is less friendly to parenting than it used to be—and should be.

When we were kids, no one was watching us every moment. That was a good thing: It meant our parents felt confident in the society around us.

That was the past. Today, the mode of parenting is about hyper-control. Kids must constantly be cosseted, entertained, trained, scheduled, and catechized as little activists and influencers. Timothy P. Carney argues that we need to lighten up and return to the virtues of old-fashioned parenting. We need to give kids space to fail and succeed, have adventures and gain unexpected knowledge, and enjoy unscheduled time.

This means escaping the travel-team trap, abandoning helicopter parenting, strengthening communities, changing the workplace, and ultimately restoring the belief that humans—adults, kids, and babies—are good.

It’s no wonder birth rates have dropped and our kids are suffering unprecedented anxiety and depression. Our culture sets unreasonable standards for parents, diminishes the value of family, and makes us feel bad for existing.

Drawing on rigorous research—both as a reporter and as a dad of six—Carney demonstrates why modern parenting is so misguided. The high standards set for modern American parenting are unrealistic and setting parents—and our kids—up to fail.

Society and Culture

Reviews

Americans are overwhelmed by the idea of raising kids—and understandably so. Tim Carney’s Family Unfriendly is the book we all need to understand the problems, and then meet them head-on with hope and joy.
—Arthur Brooks, Harvard Kennedy School; coauthor with Oprah Winfrey of Build the Life You Want

Family Unfriendly is provocative, funny, warm, and moving. Even when Carney and I disagree, he makes me think hard about what kind of writer, mother, and neighbor I want to be. If more lawmakers and institutions adopted the same curiosity and joy that Carney displays here, American families would be a lot better off.
—Alyssa Rosenberg, columnist for the Washington Post

Tim Carney takes an unblinking look at the impact of contemporary culture on marriage, procreation and demography, and family life. He documents what at some level we all know: our culture—and much of our public policy—is decidedly family unfriendly. The results? Declining marriage rates, fewer children, less childhood happiness, and more parental anxiety. But Carney doesn’t stop there, as so many conservative cultural critics do. Rather, he points the way to reform and renewal.
—Robert P. George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University

Family Unfriendly is a treasure: studded with valuable facts that every policymaker needs to know; and sparkling with wit that will delight parents and nonparents alike. Anyone interested in creating a happier home, or a better America, should read this book.
—Mary Eberstadt, author of Primal Screams: How the Sexual Revolution Created Identity Politics and Adam and Eve After the Pill, Revisited

With practical views and advice, Carney offers a road map toward better parenting.
—Kirkus Reviews

Excerpt

Drawing on rigorous research—-both as a reporter and as a dad of six—-Timothy P. Carney demonstrates why modern parenting is so misguided. The high standards set for modern American parenting are unrealistic and setting parents—-and our kids—-up to fail.

Reviews

Excerpt

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