89 Encouraging Singles, Young and Old, Toward Marriage

Summary

Podcast Episode Summary

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Them Before Us – Episode 89: Encouraging Singles, Young and Old, Toward Marriage

Host: Katy Faust
Executive Director & Guest: Josh Wood
Date: April 19, 2026
Podcast: American Family Association – Them Before Us Radio
Length: ~48 minutes

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Episode Overview

This episode focuses on the current crises of declining marriage and fertility rates in Western society and the resultant impact on both individuals and society at large. Host Katy Faust and Executive Director Josh Wood urge the church and older generations to actively encourage younger people—especially singles—to pursue marriage and parenthood. The conversation is rooted in biblical guidance but engages deeply with cultural, demographic, and personal factors hindering marriage, probing both practical solutions and ideological challenges. Later segments examine controversial issues such as surrogacy, donor conception, and social debates around adoption.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. A Biblical Mandate and a Changing Default (00:20–06:04)

• Titus 2 as a Starting Point:
  Katy reflects on biblical instruction, particularly Titus 2:3–5, which presumes that young women will marry and bear children. She challenges the modern church to recognize this assumption no longer holds and adapt its discipleship accordingly.
• Modern Realities:
  The historical expectation of marriage and children as a default is fading, especially visible in plummeting fertility rates (now at 1.57). The church must address not just discipleship of young married women but also the challenge of encouraging young people to date, marry, and build families.

"This verse actually assumes something that we can no longer assume, and that is that younger women are getting married and that when they get married, they are having children."
— Katy Faust (02:13)

2. Demographic Crisis: Social and Individual Impact (03:58–08:16)

• Societal Blind Spots:
  Josh highlights that society wouldn’t hesitate to promote marriage and children if demographic collapse was already felt. The lack of urgency comes from not yet experiencing the full consequences.
• Individual Suffering:
  Katy discusses the loneliness, regret, and missed opportunities experienced by people who delay or avoid marriage and family. Many desire these things but struggle to navigate dating or to build families before it’s biologically too late.

"We're only fighting this conversation and dancing around the edges, not to offend, because we're not feeling the impending demographic cliff."
— Josh Wood (05:45)

3. Church as a Solution: Third Spaces and Relationship Wisdom (06:04–11:41)

• Church as Social Hub:
  The church should be more than a place for married family support. It should become a 'third space'—not home, not work—where singles can meet others with shared values.
• Social Media & Competing Messages:
  Josh critiques the current media culture for bombarding both older and younger women with conflicting life advice—either promoting delay and careerism or hedonistic post-family lifestyles.
• Famine for Wisdom:
  Katy draws on Isaiah to emphasize an acute famine for relational wisdom and structure, particularly regarding relationship formation and maintenance.

"People are starving for wisdom. People are starving. They are dying, actually, because they don't have targeted wisdom."
— Katy Faust (08:18)

4. The Importance of Intergenerational Transmission (09:21–13:37)

• Historical Parallels (Fall of Rome, Monasteries):
  Josh describes the loss of generational wisdom as culturally disastrous, likening its preservation to Christian monasteries after Rome’s fall.
• Embodied Wisdom:
  Katy insists that wisdom and relationship guidance must be transmitted through real-life, embodied mentorship, not just information.
• Practical Advice for Young Moms:
  For new mothers, Katy suggests embracing the narrowing focus on home and family as a good thing, seeking friendship with peers and mentorship from women further ahead in the journey.

"There is just no substitute for embodiment. There is no way to disconnect wisdom from relationship."
— Katy Faust (11:41)

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Segment 2: Culture, Dating, and the Challenges of Modern Pairing (15:05–25:35)

5. Dating Realities for Conservatives (15:05–22:19)

• Why Do Conservative Men Date Liberal Women?
  The team explores a reported trend of conservative men dating liberal women, noting it's more prevalent outside faith-centric communities.
• College as a Crucial Matchmaking Pool:
  Josh and Katy stress the value of religious colleges in helping like-minded young people meet before rigidity sets in, making life-merging more difficult later.
• Marriage Changes People:
  Katy notes that women often become more conservative after marriage, while men grow in responsibility.

"It's very hard to join lives when you guys are both 35. It's a lot easier to merge your lives together when you're both 22..."
— Katy Faust (19:49)

6. Gendered Dynamics in the Marriage Market (22:19–25:35)

• Imbalance for Single Conservatives:
  More conservative men outnumber women (supposed 2:1), making it harder for men to find conservative partners as they age.
• Marriageability Differences:
  Unmarried women in their 30s–40s may be highly skilled and mature, but men who wait are reportedly less marriageable due to lack of socialization.

"Women, civilized men... something about hitching your life to a woman civilizes you."
— Katy Faust (24:12)

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Segment 3: Modern Family Structures – Surrogacy, Donor Conception, and Child Rights (25:36–48:11)

7. Surrogacy & IVF: The Adult-Centric Family (25:35–31:39)

• Case Study: Ollie Locke:
  The hosts discuss British celebrity Ollie Locke’s public struggles with surrogacy and IVF, detailing the medical and ethical costs—including lost embryos, premature twins, and developmental struggles.
• Child Victimization:
  Katy maintains that redefining marriage and family to fulfill adult desires results in children being deprived of their biological parents and enduring unnecessary suffering.

"Gay marriage looks like adult equality, but it's actually child victimization."
— Katy Faust (26:45)

• No Cost-Free Option:
  Josh reiterates that avoiding difficult conversations about child suffering in non-traditional family structures doesn’t mean the costs disappear—they are simply paid by the children.

"There is no cost free option. There is no road you get to take where somebody isn't going to feel mad at you, be angry with you."
— Josh Wood (29:18)

8. Practical Resources for Difficult Conversations (31:14–31:39)

• Them Before Us Substack:
  The show directs listeners to their substack for practical advice on how to balance truth-telling about child needs with grace, especially in dealing with friends and family pursuing IVF, surrogacy, or same-sex parenting.

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'Here for the Comments' Segment (32:09–48:11)

9. Ethics of Donor Conception: The Child's Perspective (32:09–41:33)

• Donor Conception vs. Adoption:
  Sam and Jen discuss the difference between adoption (responding to an unavoidable loss) and donor conception (creating a child with a known deprivation of a biological parent).
• Known Donor Complexities:
  Even with a known donor (e.g., a relative), children may face complex emotional challenges, such as seeing their donor parent raise other children but not them.

"Biology seems really important to you, as it should be... But now when your kid grows up and then asks you the question of, like, wait, who's my biological dad?... That's kind of the first point I would make."
— Jen (34:25)

10. Cultural Messaging on Adoption and Abortion (41:33–47:35)

• Twitter Debates:
  The segment examines an "unhinged" take—that being placed for adoption is less ethical than abortion. Sam reads testimonials from adoptees refuting this, highlighting society’s tendency to devalue the lives of children born into non-ideal circumstances.
• Adoption Not Equivalent to Abortion:
  The hosts refute the view that an uncertain or difficult life is worse than no life, emphasizing that many adoptees are grateful for life.

"It's so funny to see posts like that that say, like, oh, abortion's better than adoption. It's like, easy for you to say you weren't aborted and you weren't adopted."
— Sam (46:11)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Generational Divide:
  "[If] you don't have a church ... where you're going to meet someone who's in their 60s, ... you really do begin to believe the lie that ... an empty house in Lake Tahoe is the pinnacle of society. Drinking wine all by myself."
  — Josh Wood (10:14)

• On Wisdom Transmission:
  "You cannot justify thinking that seeing [your parents] every once in a while is the same thing as waking up in your home and knowing that there's a mom and dad there who love each other."
  — Jen (41:34)

• On Child-Centric Ethic:
  "It's the opposite of child rights, child protection, child advocacy. It's what adults want. And that is the moral line for them."
  — Sam (47:38)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:20–06:04 – Reframing the Church’s Role in Marriage Formation
• 06:04–11:41 – Societal and Individual Crisis; Church as Third Space
• 11:41–13:37 – The Necessity of Embodied, Intergenerational Wisdom
• 15:05–25:35 – Modern Dating Dynamics and Christian Matchmaking
• 25:35–31:39 – Surrogacy, IVF, and Child Harm: Ollie Locke Case
• 32:09–41:33 – Donor Conception and the Rights of the Child
• 41:33–47:35 – Cultural Messaging: Abortion vs. Adoption
• 47:35–48:11 – Closing thoughts and outro

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Conclusion

This episode issues a clarion call for the church and broader culture to rediscover the vital importance of marriage and childrearing—for both individual fulfillment and societal good. Through biblical reflection, sober analysis of demographic trends, and heartfelt advice for real-world dilemmas (dating, surrogacy, adoption), Them Before Us articulates a compassionate but uncompromising child-centric approach, challenging prevailing adult-centered narratives with reason, experience, and faith.

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Transcript

[Radio Announcer]

Welcome to Them Before Us on American Family Radio, where we strive to put children before adults. Our goal is to educate the public on a child centric perspective of marriage and family and represent the rights of children on policy matters. Now here's the host and founder of Them Before Us, Katie Foust.

[Katie Foust]

Welcome to Them Before Us Radio. I'm your host, Katie Foust, here with Executive Director Josh Wood of Then Before Us. And we are going to hit some highlights that have entered our news feed over the last week as it relates to marriage and family. But as always, we start off with a little bit of Bible time. And it's interesting because I was in a conversation. I'm an older woman. I'm about to be 50 years old, so I'm definitely in the solidly older woman category.

[Josh Wood]

And so does that put you in the older woman category?

[Katie Foust]

Oh, older mid century. It's got to be older. I'm definitely not younger woman category. So I was in a conversation with somebody about the importance of this passage in Titus that I think a lot of us are familiar with Titus, Chapter two, verses three through five. And they asked me, I'll just read it for you. I'm sure a lot of you guys are aware. Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live. Okay, make sure that that's on. Make sure that that's boxes checked before you move on to the next part of the verse. Not to be slanders addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. They can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, be self controlled, pure, be busy at home, to be kind and subject to their own husbands so no one will malign the word of God. And I had this older man say to me, how do you feel like this verse needs to be lived out today? And I said, actually, this verse presumes for very good reason, that younger women are going to be married with children. And that's how it's been all throughout history. Younger women, with a few exceptions, would get married young, and then those marriages would often produce children. So this verse actually assumes something that we can no longer assume, and that is that younger women are getting married and that when they get married, they are having children. So we're going to talk a little bit more in this episode about some of the problems, especially as it relates to pairing off and dating. But this is an area where the church needs to understand that we need to go outside of our normal discipleship calling of tutoring and training and encouraging young moms and young married women to align their lives with God's prescriptions. And we need to take a few steps back, even from there, and say, how is it that we can help young women to date and get married and then understand that raising a family is a part of marriage? In the past, throughout human history, in biblical times, and actually in all different civilizations, those two things go together. First you get married, then you have children, and then there was an expectation. Unless you were called to a life of singleness or for the few people who were not able to find love for a lot of different reasons, or not able to find a husband or wife for a variety of different reasons, the expectation and the default was that you get married and have children. That is no longer the case for where we are at in most of Western civilization and especially in marriage. Just this last week, we had the new numbers come out and we've hit an even lower level of total fertility rate, down to 1.57. So now we're at the place as a church where, in essence, we need to sort of reinvent ourselves as people that are not just training young women to love their husbands and children, but encouraging young women to get married and have children altogether. Josh, you play very heavily in this space in terms of your reading and in terms of the people you're in contact with. What are your thoughts on what older women should be doing in the church right now?

[Josh Wood]

And in the space of having four kids, myself, I'm trying to live it out. Well, it does strike me that this conversation only exists because we are so far removed from the type of societal collapse that would happen if we truly did have a demographic problem. If you go 50 years in the future, 60 years in the future, and society starts to have to take whatever you want, mass import citizens to uphold our Social Security, or it has to start really dipping into the treasury to try to pay people to have kids like you've seen in other places, like China, we would not be having debates about whether it is the ideal for people to have children and get married young so that they can do that. We just. We wouldn't. So it does feel like this whole conversation, the hesitancy the church has had, the hesitancy even commentators have had, is not to want to offend people, because there are those people who have not chosen to have kids or those people who haven't chosen to get married. I don't necessarily see that as, you know, something we have to shame. Why would we? But it's crazy for us not to say. But also Society completely depends on you getting married and having kids because, A, getting married is really the route to more children. I believe the fertility rates directly correlate to the number of people married. So the people who are married are the ones having the most kids. But B, if we don't expect for all of those children to end up on the public roles where we as a society are bankrupting ourselves to try to support their broken family structure, again, not a shame thing, it's a stats and figures thing. Then we have to have marriage and kids. But again, the thing that comes back is we're only fighting this conversation and dancing around the edges, not to offend, because we're not feeling the impending demographic cliff that actually the numbers say we're heading right toward.

[Katie Foust]

Well, and it's not just a crisis for society. It really does end up being a crisis for the individual men and women that are failing to form families or forming them very late. We know that people report wanting to be married, but really struggling to find that pathway for dating. We see that even the people that are very serious about marriage and children, they get married so late that often they're not able to have the number of children that they themselves say that they want. So as a church, we need to reimagine our role here. Not just to encourage people once they're married, but really tell them the truth about the nature of their bodies, coach them in terms of healthy relationships, not just in preparation for marriage, but in preparation for asking somebody out on a date. And then churches can be that third space, that non work, non home environment where guys and girls of similar worldviews are able to mingle, get to know one another, connect in a way that helps them determine, hey, this is somebody that maybe I'd like to spend the rest of my life with. We're going to turn to our first. Go ahead.

[Josh Wood]

I want one quick interjection. Don't you feel like social media right now, though, is kind of. If they're targeting two groups, if they're targeting the people that have been married and have older kids like yourself, and they're targeting the people like myself who have younger kids or haven't chosen to have kids yet, it seems like the two messages are, you've got plenty of time. Freeze your eggs and wait. And the other group is, what are you still doing with him? Your life. Do you understand we were joking about this earlier? Do you understand how much tennis you could play? Do you understand how much travel you could do if you would ditch them? The kids will be fine, like 17 and 18. They don't care anymore. They'll just go to both your houses. That does seem to be like, there's this pivot. So you talked about Titus and all these messages for kids or messages from older women to younger women. I'm like, gee whiz. Both of them are getting targeted right now by culture, the older women, not to set an example about what to do in the home and how to have a great family and marriage. But it feels like, hey, I'm going to be an example to how to disintegrate your marriage because you don't need a man and you can do this. And this is how I'm going to be happiest.

[Katie Foust]

You know, there's the passage in Isaiah, I think, where it says there wasn't a famine for bread or for water. It was a famine for the word of God. What does that mean? People are starving for wisdom. People are starving. They are dying, actually, because they don't have targeted wisdom for whatever area of life that they are struggling in. And if there is an area where there is a famine for the word of God, it has to do with relationship formation and then relationship maintenance as well. And this is an area where nobody has better answers than the church, especially older women and older men who have been around the block. Understand what are things that are worth sacrificing your time and energy and resources for, and what are the things that really you need to just let go because they are not going to produce an eternal let, you know, a lifelong, let alone eternal harvest. So this is an area where the church has got to take some of that wisdom that they have that is abundant, free and abundant in the word of God, but then tailor it perfectly to this next generation that is desperate, desperate for some structure and encouragement.

[Josh Wood]

I was gonna. I've been reading. I sometimes go on phases where I'm reading all about a certain topic for a long period of time. And for whatever reason, I've gotten onto a kick about the fall of Rome. I've been all in that it's because

[Katie Foust]

you are a man. And normal men in the United States, I am told, think about the fall of Rome at least once a week. So you're a highly literate man, so of course you need to think about it several times a day.

[Josh Wood]

Why wouldn't I? One thing they talk about a lot, though, is how if they hadn't had monasteries in certain Christian communities, they would have lost all ability to, whatever it may be, read Greek or to have this text or all of it was preserved only by this few groups. And they essentially started talking about how if you don't have that connection, you really do lose all of this progress and all of this. The way ideas stack on each other over time to essentially, you don't have to start where your grandfather started. You get to learn and see. What strikes me, though, Katie, is when you're talking about you and Ryan, great godly family who've raised great children. We were just talking about some of our friends who your friends stayed with at Liberty this past weekend. Great godly family, raised great kids. But these young couples, a lot of them in all sorts of cities trying to get married or thinking about marriage, if you don't have a church or you don't, there's not like a ton of spaces where you can go where you're going to meet someone who's in their 60s, hitting grandkid age. Because they persevered through their marriages, they persevered through relationships, they raised good kids. And now they're like, I'm about to retire and fish with my grandkid for 20 years and I can't think of literally. I mean, these are people who can do anything with their lives and they're like, I'm going to sit on a boat with a four year old and it's going to be the most amazing thing in history. But if you don't hear that, you really do begin. Begin to believe the lie that like, no, an empty house in Lake Tahoe is the pinnacle of society. Drinking wine all by myself. Like, wait a second, what? Like the competing narratives. So there's part of me that goes, how do we like the monasteries? How do we make sure some of this, like, good fruit, this knowledge doesn't get lost in some of this cultural propaganda that's really seeking to destroy these good stories and this good knowledge.

[Katie Foust]

There is just no substitute for embodiment. There is no way to disconnect wisdom from relationship. I mean, it's great to have access to information, but the way to actually impart it has to be through relationship. And that's what I was talking about with this wonderful young man at Liberty who hosted my son and his friend. And yeah, my son and his friend were interested in going to Liberty and they're like, nice campus, love the amenities. Hey, the food's not bad, the dorms are great. But you know what we want? We want to be like that kid. We want to be like that young man who's only two years older than us, but seems to be 10 years beyond us in terms of maturity. There is something about passing on wisdom that has to be embodied, I would say, especially for men. Obviously this passage is talking about how it's really important for women to counsel younger women and say there's some joys in this season of your life even though you're exhausted and there's so much to look forward to. And here's how I'm busy at home on a really limited budget. So there something about that transmission of ideas that has to be intergenerational in some ways. And I think, honestly I think a lot of the social contagion that we have seen taking hold on the left and the right has to do with a siloing of one generation away from the next. And there is a concerted effort, I would say, from elites, especially progressive elites, to cut off young people from their parents specifically. But then older generations in general because they know that the wisdom of the people that have gone before will immediately be able to say that's trash, garbage. Shut that business off right now. Like they won't be able to get past the wisdom gatekeepers in some ways.

[Josh Wood]

Now tell me if you were you've shared about this before, about the you can't have it all at once. But if you're sharing a letter for that 25 year old new mom, what are you sharing to them about the home, the work, the life and the stages?

[Katie Foust]

Well, if she's already married with a kid or two, my advice is always it's okay that your world gets smaller. It is good that your world gets smaller. You don't have to see as many. You do need to have some great friends that you're seeing all the time. You're not going to have the same social life that you did before. You're not going to have the same opportunities to eat out. You should be probably in the house more on a smaller budget because your husband hopefully is providing for you too, while you're not out in the workforce. And that's okay. It's good to let your world get smaller. You don't need to do as much at church. You don't have to go to every invitation that your friends have. You add on you, your life is going to look different and that's good. And I wanted to wring people's neck when they said, oh, it goes so fast. And it goes so fast. It was really hard for me to think I'm not going to be this exhausted forever. But I wasn't that exhausted forever. Find some wonderful women that are right where you are in your stage of life and a few women that are a couple steps ahead of you in your stage of life so they can fortify you and encourage you and really let you love, delight in the home that God is allowing you to make. We are going to hit a few tweets that Josh and I issued this week. Stay with us. There is more to come.

[Radio Announcer]

Welcome back to Them Before Us on American Family Radio.

[Katie Foust]

Welcome back to them before U.S. radio. I'm your host, Katie Foust. Here with Them before us Executive Director Josh Wood. And following up on our conversation about the importance of Titus Chapter two, women not just encouraging younger moms to cultivate a home and love their husbands, we actually need to encourage people to pair off well. We need to encourage them to date. And so the first thing we wanted to talk about was this question that came up of why do so many conservative men seem to prefer dating liberal women? Now, this is not a phenomenon that I have observed personally. I tend to run with the young people that I'm around, are pretty serious about their faith and tend to be pretty political. And so even the young men that I am with probably wouldn't date a liberal woman. But I think that it holds true that a large swath of the United States there are more conservative men that are dating liberal women. And so then, you know, the question is like, why is that? Why, if worldview is so important, which I think it is, why is there so many conservative men that are specifically, specifically dating liberal women? And why not the other way around? So, Josh, first just give me your hot take on that. Is it true and why is it happening?

[Josh Wood]

Gosh, I was trying to think through that. So I do think you've got two different. I think you've got two different conversations here. And this honestly impacts parenting a great deal. For those of us who went to Christian college, who chose to immerse ourselves in a smaller group where the majority of the people there shared your values and beliefs, this was far less of a conversation because the political spectrum, even the religious spectrum, was so much narrower. So the most politically liberal person on campus or progressive or anti family was just narrowed. Even the floor was so much higher then what I saw. So for those of us, I can probably name 10 of my friends, we all got married within a year or two of school. That's the phenomenon of going to a Christian school is that you just live in a suit or tux or your wife lives in a bridesmaid dress for 10 years after school because you're just going to all your friends weddings and you see all your friends, you don't need reunions because you see them three times a year at the weddings. That's awesome. Great feature of Christian culture. But the part B is my friends that didn't that delayed for whatever reason it was so hard for them. And so in their 30s or in their 35, 40 just to find someone who hadn't had a really traumatic divorce or that didn't have kids or that shared their worldview. Again, not that having kids is the end of the world, but you have to really calculate the complexity of the situation I'm about to walk into. And is this person open to having more kids or are they ready to start a family? Am I going to be co parenting with another person? I mean there's just, it's not for everybody. There's a lot of complications and for them just the whole spectrum changed once they left that pool that we had in school in college. And so I would say this take feels a lot more true of those men and women trying to date in that post college atmosphere. And so you do joke about I got an Mrs. Degree at college, I just went to meet someone. I'll tell you, there's a lot of truth to like, is there something more value than finding a really value aligned spouse who you're actually. This is another thing. You're choosing to get married at 23. My wife and I grew up together. We learned each other as 22 year olds, as 18 year olds, as 30 year olds, we know all. It's like just the value in that is incalculable too. Versus I'm joining a life with someone at 30 or 35 who might have a number of challenges or ways of doing things that really make things complex. Not impossible, but it's certainly a whole different ballgame.

[Katie Foust]

Yeah, I call myself a failed matchmaker because I really tried to bring people together who were wonderful, like godly, virtuous, that wanted to get married and have children and had missed. I mean these were people that had missed or, or maybe didn't have the opportunity to meet somebody like minded in that saturation of four years of, of especially Christian college where you are in a pool of people that already agree on the vast majority of things that are going to matter when it comes to forming a life together and the reason why it didn't work. I thought the problem was people can't find each other. But the problem is it's very hard to join lives when you guys are both 35. It's a lot Easier to merge your lives together when you're both 22. And like you said, you can grow up together. But there's some rigidity that sets in when you're in your 30s and certainly in your 40s. You become inflexible as it relates to the kind of things that you're looking for. And it makes sense. You've already built a life and a career. You've got a job. You know, you already have an identity that is a little less flexible as it relates to, well, I can't marry somebody like that. So I agree that this is probably more of a problem, this sort of more conservative men dating liberal women once you're outside of college. But some of the reasons for that is there's more conservative men than there are conservative women. I think that conservative men outnumber conservative women 2 to 1. So if men want to date, oftentimes they're going to have to go for a woman that is not as conservative. Now, interestingly, we do see that marriage changes women. Marriage changes men, and marriage changes women. But what does marriage change for men? It tends to change their habits and their behavior and their ability to shoulder responsibility. So married men drink less, gamble less, play fewer video games, they earn more degrees, they earn more money, they work more overtime. There's something about another person, like a wife and children depending on you, that shapes male behavior. But how does marriage shape women? They tend to become more conservative. I know plenty of girls who would have called themselves feminists or maybe apolitical, who got married and became hardcore conservatives because they're like, I don't want the business. I don't want the government interfering in my relationship with my child. I would actually like my husband to bring more money home because we don't see him enough. And I don't want all of our time apart to be going towards taxes. So there's something about the marriage world and mindset that drives women to be more conservative. So I think single women tend to be more liberal for a variety of different reasons. And conservative men, there certainly is a political divide between the two. So I understand why there is some cross dating happening. But I will say it's definitely an area that deserves great caution, because if you're going to disagree about some major fundamentals as it relates to the nature of the world, the nature of what's government for, you really got to iron some things out before you hit your life to each other.

[Josh Wood]

It does seem like, too, Katie, that when a guy is. If he waits till 30 or 35, it does seem like the pool of women available to him. Finding a conservative woman can be very, very hard in that pool because it does seem like a lot of it does seem like as women go farther and farther along, does seem like they're getting more and more progressive. And then also if you are an amazing conservative young woman wanting to get married in your 20s, it does seem like they tend to get married and so they're just not available at 30 and 35. And so, gosh, I don't know. The more and more I watch my family and friends go through this, the more and more I'm convinced that keeping your kids concentrated in very Christian spaces where the pool is limited and value aligned and by association you're more around like minded people. I just think that that is increasingly a huge, huge asset to your kids and growing your family and ensuring their future.

[Katie Foust]

It's literally the reason why I'm sending my 18 year old son to Liberty. It is about as far away as you can get. The farthest I've ever sent one of my kids for college and they've all gone to school on the east coast so far. But he doesn't need to go to college to earn money like he, he, he's, he was laying tile yesterday. He built a shed from scratch. It's still right outside my bedroom door in the backyard because he's trying to sell it like he has marketable skills. But I want him to get his Mr.

[Jen]

Degree.

[Katie Foust]

I am sending him there because I want him to be exposed to a huge pool of wonderful girls and that are value aligned that are chasing the same thing and he'll never get another chance. I will say I think you're, I think that it, I know, I know that it's easier for conservative men who are responsible great self managers have an established career to find conservative women in their 30s. It is very hard for conservative women to find well managed, mature conservative men who are unmarried and don't have a past littered with mistakes. And why is that? It is because I think that women can continue to mature in terms of how they use their money. They can drive a career they excel these days. They're excelling not just at bachelor's degrees, but upper like graduate degrees as well. But men who are 35 or 37 or 40 who have never been married are not as marriageable because there is something about that socialization that is women, civilized men, you know, like the sociologists, they will tell you women, civilized men, something about hitching your life to a woman civilizes you. Whether it is again, the ability to reject some of those bad habits that can latch on to young men or just the ability to have an appropriate conversation or dress in a way that is presentable. There's something about a wife that will mature you in all different aspects of your, of your manliness in a way that's socially appropriate. So when I have my matchmaking sheet, I have at least five to one wonderful conservative women for every one great conservative guy.

[Josh Wood]

Well, you want to hit the next story. This is a guy named Ollie Locke. He shared insight into humiliating financial woes as he revealed a half a million dollar, half a million pound loss or cost and says his IVF twins are non verbal, need expensive speech therapy. I don't, I, I saw that you tweeted. Normalizing a false definition of marriage harms children. These men married in 2020. They wanted to have children, so they hired a surrogate after surrogate. Six children lost their lives before their five hundred thousand dollar attempt to make a motherless child succeeded. Twins were finally born nine weeks early, as is often seen with IVF pregnancies. The babies are now three years old, haven't spoken a word. Maybe because of preemie development delays, maybe because the nanny they employ so the men can support a lavish lifestyle unsurprisingly, cannot make up for the developmental benefits. A full time mother. Their attempt to replicate what nature prohibits has come at a cost paid by children both living and dead. Gay marriage looks like adult equality, but it's actually child victimization.

[Katie Foust]

Yeah, Ollie Locke, I don't follow celebrity culture and certainly not celebrity UK culture, but I think he's like a, I don't know, I think he's a miniseries star over there and he's married to a guy and they wanted babies. Welcome to the world of gay marriage. This is not just about marriage. They want children. And so because they cannot have children on their own, they went through six different failed attempts. And by failed attempts, what we mean what he was saying is like they were pregnant six times the surrogates were pregnant and they died because surrogacy and IVF is high risk pregnancies. So they're burning through babies, they're burning through surrogates, and then they finally get a surrogate whose pregnancy is successful with twins, but then she delivers nine weeks early, which. Welcome to the world of surrogacy. Like, it's highly likely that surrogate pregnancies are premature. Delivered premature and preemies have a lot of health concerns. Too many to list here, but things that can often Last for life. So now we've got this guy lamenting in the pages of, like, the Daily Mail about, he's so depressed, we don't have enough money, we're in debt, we can't afford our home. We're working all the time. We have nannies coming in and out. And, oh, by the way, our twins haven't spoken a word and they're three years old. Okay, take a look at that picture, people. We have normalized a form of family that biology prohibits. And now these men are attempting to get what nature says you can't have. And six dead children and two nonverbal twins are paying the price because we have lied about the nature of marriage and the importance of mothers and fathers.

[Josh Wood]

Yeah. What's crazy is the reason people don't speak out against this is that they do hear these kind of stories and they think these two guys, like, it feels mean to tell them they can't have kids. It feels mean to. But you're looking truly at the cost that it's always important to remember. You don't get a choice to avoid hurting someone's feelings. Like in this debate, there will be children created intentionally deprived of mother and father, but also like we've seen with not only the children that passed away, the ones that might be frozen, and the ones that were born that have potentially have these lifelong issues. There's a cost. There is no cost free option. I feel like that's what I would want to tell so many people who are desperate for this. They want to ride the fence on this issue. They want to just play neutral. There is no cost free option. There is no road you get to take where somebody isn't going to feel mad at you, be angry with you. At some point we just have to choose who is it going to be the adult when you tell them. We cannot allow you to proceed this way. It is unjust. Or will it be the kids that we tell, hey, we need to defend them, or, hey, you need to just go along with this because you really just need a loving home.

[Katie Foust]

These are uncomfortable conversations to have, especially when this is somebody that we know. It's somebody we went to school with. Maybe it's our niece or nephew that is decided that they've decided that they're going to be gay, married, and they're going to have gabies, you know, babies that are forced into these gay relationships. And these are people that we love. Like, we love our gay family and friends. We love the people that have decided to come out of the closet and like, we should be good friends, sacrificial, compassionate for these people, but never pretend like the kids have not suffered some kind of loss. We just published at our substack, thembefore us.substack.com exactly how to respond when you see a picture of a friend or a post on Facebook or an Instagram post where somebody that you know has had a baby with somebody of the same sex. And by had a baby means separated the child from their mother or father or both so that the child could live in that home and kind of coached you through. How do you think about this? What do you say? What are ways that you can approach this? Because we know that this is not something that one of you guys is dealing with. Everybody has somebody where they're like, I don't know what to say. So that's one of the reasons why we've got our substack. Josh, you want to say anything more about that? Just like what the point of our substack is and what we're trying to do for people if they come and read and subscribe.

[Josh Wood]

Yeah, real simply, it's, it's for the everyday person who wants to speak out, doesn't know how, don't want to get tongue tied, doesn't want to offend, want to avoid offending as much as possible. These articles are designed for you. You can go to thembeforeus.subs.com everything from talking to your friend who may come out of the closet and want your support, whether you should go to the wedding or even your friend that's going through IVF and wants your affirmation, you know, what should you do?

[Katie Foust]

Yeah, we want to tell you the truth about what children need. But we don't want to just leave you there. We want to tell you how you can move through the world as a truth teller and a grace giver. And that's what we hope to equip you with, not just on the radio show, but at the substack as well. Thanks for giving us part of your weekend. We will see you right here, same time, same place next week.

[Radio Announcer]

If you'd like to comment on the show, email commentsembeforeus.com Once again, here's Katie Faust.

[Sam]

Hi everyone. Welcome to Here for the Comments, a Them Before Us podcast series where we dive into the comments and questions we get online and we unpack the children rights perspective we use to answer them. I'm your host, Sam and I'm joined by Jen and we are here for the comments. So, Jen, I actually Wanted to dive in and talk about a substack that I recently wrote for them before us, which everyone should go follow. I had been following these influencers for years named Shane and Hannah, and they go by Squirmy and Grubs, and it's a inter disabled couple. I think that's how they refer. But the husband's disabled. He's in a wheelchair, and the wife is not. And so they just kind of go around and they talk about their journey as a married couple and all the different things that they have to do because he's disabled and how their life works. And they've been trying to conceive for a couple years now. Unfortunately, they're unable to conceive because of his disability. So they're at this point where they posted online and they asked the opinion of their followers, their friends, their family. They were considering donor conception and they wanted to know what people thought. So we wrote an article about it. And basically we're just trying to give a friendly response of why we think donor conception is not good for children. And so I wanted to know your thoughts on it and what you would advise them or what you would tell them if they were like your friends.

[Jen]

Yeah, if I had a friend asking me about buying sperm, buying an egg, you know, having to use IVF or having to use a surrogate like we talk about all the time. We bring it back to the rights of the child. We bring it back to the perspective of the natural rights of the child. So you're describing a story that's we have a lot of empathy for them. We want sweet, amazing people who are great parents. They seem like they'd be great parents. They're loving, they love each other. A friend who's already overcome so many obstacles and lives with a disability and is an advocate for people with disabilities, we would have to say, okay, all of that is true. I love you. I want you to be able to have kids. But let's talk about this from the perspective of the child. And so where do you start? I think a huge piece is asking, well, have you considered adoption? Why would you or wouldn't you adopt? And what's really interesting, and Josh Wood did an article about this on our substack is that the majority of in his article, he was talking about people who identify as lgbt. The majority of them choose to use methods that create a biological child, partially biological child. And so you could ask this couple, as friends with someone who has a disability, why would you want to do biological versus adoption? Okay, well, I Want a child that's like, looks like me, or, you know, they'll be able to combine some of our genetics in the lab. Because it's important to us. We want to have that biological connection in some way, if it's possible. So even though it's a sperm donor, it's going to be the mom's egg and the mom's going to carry it because it's the dad who has a disability in this case. But, you know, we want some of that biological connection, so that's why we're going to do this versus adoption. And then you can ask the question, okay, well, biology seems really important to you, as it should be. That's completely natural. But now when your kid grows up and then asks you the question of, like, wait, who's my biological dad? You start to recognize and see that biology is really important to you. But then you're deciding to make a choice that's telling your child biology is actually not important to you. You. It's important to me. I want to be biologically connected, but it's not important to you. And that's why I chose to deny you the biological connection to your father. That's kind of the first point I would make. What was another point that you made in the, in the video about why it's not a good choice to use a donor?

[Sam]

Well, yeah, I would basically completely agree with you where it's not fair to the child because you're the one denying it. A lot of people would come to us and say, well, you would say the same thing to an adopted child when they grow up. So what's the difference between them, them adopting and having that conversation versus them having a donor conceived child? And the difference is what you said, which is I denied it to you. You know, the person who denied you your relationship with your biological mom or dad, dad in this case, are the people who created you intentionally knowing that this would be your future versus with adoption. Is that wasn't the intent. With adoption, a child is created either on accident or on purpose, and the intent is for them to be raised by their biological parents. But something goes wrong along the way, and it's not safe for them to be raised by those parents anymore. And then you have a couple coming in and in the most loving way wants to give them the environment that, like, is second to the best they can have. And so that's the big difference. And so I feel like it's wrong for a parent to deny their child that biological connection, especially, like, again, before they're even born before they're conceived. This was the plan. This is what we paid money for. And I just think that that's a conversation that you're not thinking 15 years in advance about. And so it makes it really difficult.

[Jen]

Yeah. One of the comments on the post that we did asked this question, and so I'm curious how you would answer. Someone said, what about using a known donor? So anonymous sperm donation would be one thing. Egg. Anonymous egg donation would be one thing. This one's person saying, what about a known donor? What if you were committed to having an appropriate, socially supportive relationship with the child, including allowing for bonds with grandparents and half siblings? So the notion would be we're going to use the brother of the man in the relationship who, who has a disability. So look, that's a lot of the same genes right there, same grandparents. You've got cousins, you've got relationships there. Or we're going to use a family friend. We've known this guy our whole lives. He's super safe. His wife's totally on board. They don't have any other kids, whatever it is. And okay, this way our child can know where they came from, who their dad is, have relationship with him. So does that erase all these other issues that we bring up?

[Sam]

Yeah, depending on the kid. I feel like that almost makes it worse. Maybe it does it, maybe it doesn't, but it's. I feel like you're in one way getting a step closer and another way getting a step further in the sense that you, you see that it's important to have that relationship and that biological connection and have that person in their life. And so you can acknowledge that. But then at the same time, then they have this person in their life that is supposed to, that's their biological mother or their biological father. And they have to grow up knowing who they are, seeing them live their life. They might even have their own kids. And they have to think to themselves, why do they have three kids that wanted, that they kept, that they care for, that they love, and they didn't want me. What was different about me? That, like, they're not wanting. And so I feel like in some ways it could just be worse because you have to see this person live their life. Most likely, if they're the type of person that you're choosing to be a donor, most likely they have their life together. They're probably like a healthy ish person. And so like you're seeing them live their normal life, but without you. And I feel like that's so heartbreaking. Versus it's like, again with adoption. And you know that, like, there was some traumatic thing that happened that makes this person not be able to take care of you. And so they're not just like outliving their life most of the time. You know, making good money, having other kids and living there, like sometimes. But, like, you know, a lot of the times they're struggling with drug addiction, they're struggling to just keep themselves alive. And you can kind of have this understanding of, oh, they couldn't take care of me, I understand why. And they did something, something good for me by putting me in a healthy environment when they couldn't provide that. And so, yeah, I mean, I get where they're going with it, but overall, I think we need to just think about what's actually just best for the child. Like, if you take out what your parents want, what you want as an adult, and you just think, what's the best environment for a child? I mean, like, there's just nothing that can replace a biological mom and a biological dad. And so if you can't give that to a child, I'd say the, like, don't put a child in that situation intentionally because of something you want. Go find some child who doesn't have it already and it's not something you did. And you can come and help them and protect them and give them an environment, because that's the kind of heart that you have.

[Jen]

Yeah. I mean, in a culture that sees deadbeat dads as a bad thing, that still has kind of pervaded our culture, the idea of the dad. Dad. Excuse me. The idea that the dad went out for milk and never came back. The idea that the dad dates other women and just, I only get to see my dad every other weekend or he skipped his chance to visit me. He sends me a birthday card with money. He has no other interest in me. Okay. We think that's pretty universally bad. We would never think it's awesome. Okay. The child has a biological mom and dad, and you get to see one one week, and you get to see the other one the other week.

[Katie Foust]

Week.

[Jen]

That's what a lot of single parent divorce situations end up being. We really don't pretend that's ideal for the child. So it's more than just know who they are and you get some visitation with that person every once in a while. When it fits into their schedule, we let our surrogate still FaceTime the baby. I mean, that's how like the gay guys who will say, oh, it's a. It's someone's sister or aunt, she gets to see the baby, but they mean comes over for a play date once every few weeks. That's not what we're talking about. And if you really thought about it, if you had any sort of positive relationship with your mom and dad, you cannot justify thinking that seeing them every once in a while is the same thing as waking up in your home and knowing that there's a mom and dad there who love each other, who work hard for each other, who support each other, care about each other, and they love and care and support you. That doesn't mean dad's always there when you wake up. There's dads that work far away from home, that are deployed, moms that work outside the home, all those things. But knowing who's living there and who's coming home at night and who's having dinner with you and it's not boyfriends, girlfriends, it's not visitation is very different than what these folks are describing. You know, knowing your donor, whatever. I'd love to transition to a tweet that you found and did some responses to, which was pretty unfair, unhinged. And like you pointed out, so many of these accounts on X now seem they're huge accounts, they're international people. We don't know if they're bots, if they're real, if it's just designed to drive up content or whatever, right? But this person hot effing take forcing birth just to dump a baby into adoption is way more unethical than having an abortion. So if you have, if you're up for adoption, it's worse for you than if you were had just been murdered is the person's take. So what were some of the things that you did to reply to this comment, Sam?

[Sam]

Why a take? You know, I actually let the adoptee speak for themselves on this one. It's funny because when you talk about adoption from a conservative point of view, especially on Twitter, you're going to actually get there's a whole group of adoptees that are very pro abortion, that are very pro choice, that, that will just openly say I wish I was aborted. Abortion is good. I wouldn't be in the situation, I wouldn't be abused. And that's a whole nother topic we can cover for another time. But it was interesting because with this post, the most that I saw were adoptees coming out and saying, hey, what the heck? Why are you saying this about me? That's terrible. I'm glad I'm alive. Excuse you and So I actually just reposted a lot of theirs and tried to get their responses out there. Because this. That's who you're talking about when you post these awful things saying like, no abortion is better. You're talking about real life, people that are walking around living life, and you're saying, yeah, we should have aborted you. You. You make me uncomfortable because you didn't have your mom and dad.

[Jen]

So it's the same thing when they say, do you want people to grow up in poverty or do you want, you know, you would force a woman who's been raped to have a baby? And. And there are people who are speaking publicly and it's like, hello, that was me. My mom had an unplanned pregnancy. Yeah, my mom was a survivor of rape, and survivor is the word. When she got pregnant with me, she didn't make me pay for the sins of my, again, genetic, biological father. She took the weight and the burden of the trauma that happened to her, and she didn't amplify it by a traumatizing herself. More. Abortion is traumatized. Abortion harms women. It is never good for women to get an abortion.

[Katie Foust]

Never.

[Jen]

It never fixes anything. It doesn't heal anything. It's emotionally, physiologically, physiologically mentally bad for women, and it murders a child. So they think it's a solution to unprenned pregnancy, rape and these sorts of things, or they think it's a solution to poverty. It's like, you know, what's better than being poor? Being dead. So when then people will share. Like you said, well, I was poor. I think it's okay that I'm alive. I'm thankful I'm alive, you know, and. But then they'll flip it when we talk about IVF or we talk about kids that conceived in these other unethical practices. You should just be happy you're alive. It justifies intentional means of unethical conception. And so it's kind of like, what side are you guys on? What are we arguing here?

[Katie Foust]

Here?

[Sam]

Any side that's not the baby. Apparently that's what side they're on, you know, no matter what, if. If they got what they wanted out of the situation, then they're fine, you know? And again, it's so funny to see posts like that that say, like, oh, abortion's better than adoption. It's like, easy for you to say you weren't aborted and you weren't adopted. This is nothing. Why would you say that about a group of people that you're not, you know, and so, yeah, it's, it's truly terrible, the things that people will just publicly say at this point because we've normalized abortion so much that it, it can be openly stated that you think that that's a better option for an entire group of people. And luckily, again, she got some backlash, but she got a lot of likes. You know, it wasn't, it wasn't ratioed. And so it is. It's sad to see. I'm just praying that it's all bots, all Twitter bots. But who knows? These days, abortion's been normalized.

[Jen]

45,000 likes. Oh, this is cute. Just got done babysitting my adopted nephew. He's the sweetest, happiest, most love little boy in the world. According to you. He'd be better off dead. And then they show a cartoon. I was adopted. And the other cartoon says, you should have been killed. And then they're both like, super straight face, like, okay, well, we have about 30 seconds left. This one says the baby should be happy they're getting killed instead of placed with the person who wants them in their life. And the GIF is like, huh?

[Katie Foust]

Like what?

[Jen]

It doesn't make sense. It's really about, you don't want.

[Katie Foust]

You.

[Jen]

You, you should be alive. Adults don't want you, we can kill you.

[Sam]

And that just literally, that's what it boils down to. It's, it's the opposite of, of child rights, child protection, child advocacy. It's what, what adults want. And that is the, the moral line for them. And that even conflicts with the killing the baby. So.

[Jen]

Yeah. Well, thanks for joining us on here for the comments. We will catch you guys next time with more commentary.

[Katie Foust]

The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast do not necessarily reflect those of the American Family association or American Family Radio.