Parents are spending more time with their kids than in the past, and yet kids are less happy and less healthy. Given that the population of children is shrinking at an alarming rate, we need to figure out what is going on. Could it be that our culture is making raising kids harder than it needs to be? That is the suggestion of our guest today, Tim Carney, parent of six kids, and the author of Family Unfriendly.

Timothy Carney is a father of six children, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and a columnist for the Washington Examiner. He is also the author of Alienated America: The Big Ripoff.



Episode Transcript

Sean McDowell: [upbeat music] Parents are spending more and more time with their kids than in the past, and yet kids are less happy and less healthy. Given that the population of children is shrinking in America at an alarming rate, and beyond America, we need to figure out what is [chuckles] going on and adjust accordingly. Could it be that our culture is making raising kids far harder than it needs to be? That is the suggestion of our guest today, Tim Carney, parent of six kids and the author of Family Unfriendly. I'm your host, Sean McDowell.

Scott Rae: I'm your co-host, Scott Rae.

Sean McDowell: This is Think Biblically, a podcast brought to you by Talbot School of Theology at Biola University. Tim, thanks for writing a great book and for joining us.

Tim Carney: Hey, thanks for having me.

Sean McDowell: Let's just jump right in because in the preface of your book, you say, "I wrote this book in order to shout as loud as I can. The tiger moms and helicopter parents are doing it wrong." Tell us what you mean and the motivation behind writing Family Unfriendly.

Tim Carney: Well, so w- I noticed the falling birth rate. I mean, that was an issue that jumped out.

Sean McDowell: Sure.

Tim Carney: And then you had the Sur-- the surgeon general say that there was an epidemic of childhood anxiety. [chuckles] I also noticed people saying, "Well, the falling birth rate is a good thing because parents are choosing quality over quantity." Now, I always hoped that my kids, [chuckles] my six kids, didn't hear that there was a quality/quantity trade-off. But also, I didn't... I decided I don't think it is quality/quantity trade-off, and sure enough, a lot of child psychologists came out and were like: "You know, I think the problem-- one of the problems is that kids aren't having-- don't have enough free time." And so I thought, wait a second, the thing that parents are, like, destroying their lives to do, which is to give their kids everything, whether it's, you know, the extra violin lessons outside of school, or the, or the travel sports, or make sure you're getting them into the best school, and that you're hovering over them at homework time. Maybe all of that effort that parents are doing because they love their kids and they want the best things for their kids are not the best things for their kids. And then, I'm, I'm Gen X. I think you guys are, too. Like, the [chuckles] we were told, "Come home when the streetlights turn on," and that that was the free-rangeness of a lot of our childhood was beneficial. It's where we learned tough lessons. And also, coming at it from a perspective as a, as a Christian father, you realize, wait a second, if we start to invest all of our money and all of our time into these outcomes, like how you do at sports, what your grade point average is, what school you get into, we are sending sort of the wrong message to our kids- ... About what matters, about what we really want them to become.

Scott Rae: Yeah, I remember when I... You know, Sean and I have both coached, quite a bit of, team sports for our kids. I think I had a, I had a basketball- at least one basketball team I was coaching for almost 15 years straight.

Tim Carney: Wow!

Scott Rae: And I remember telling our, telling our players... And I wish, I wish the parents had been around to hear that, too. I say, and I used to tell them, "We play sports in order to learn about life." And it's the life lessons that you take that are really valuable from that, not whether you're gonna play a Division 1 sport or, you know, have any- have anybody pay for college for you, based on your sport. But there, you know, there-- Tim, there's a lot of talk right now culturally about the movement called pronatalism.

Tim Carney: Mm-hmm.

Scott Rae: And you have a l-- you talk about this quite a bit in your book. And, tell our listeners a bit, what is the pronatalist movement, and what does it get right, and what would you like to correct about it?

Tim Carney: Yeah, so there's a lot of talk out, which is shocking because five years ago, there were still people worrying about overpopulation.

Sean McDowell: That's right. [chuckles]

Tim Carney: But now folks, [chuckles] folks have realized that the birth rate in the United States is low and falling. Basically, every year, it sets a new record low. And so we are down to 1.6 babies per woman, which is, you know, not enough to maintain a population. And at our rate of, immigration even, that's not going to make up for it. And longer lifespans, still, we're going to have a shrinking [chuckles] population in this country at some point soon. But also, another root of pronatalism, sort of the... Is another reason that people care about, well, let's turn that birthrate around, is 'cause it reflects something is wrong in our society [chuckles] if people aren't having kids. And it happens on a couple levels. One, there's a lot of people who still say, "Oh, I'd love to have two or three kids." I mean, if you poll Americans, that's what they say, two or three is the ideal. And then they say, "Well, I intend to have about two." Well, so there's a drop-off there. But then what they're actually getting is even lower than that. So there's lots of reasons to care about the lower birthrate, and we can talk about that more later. But pronatalism is popping up and saying, "What can we do to help people have more kids?" One... The, the gentle way of saying it is, "What can we do to help people have as many kids as they want?" I'd even like to go further. What can we do to convince [chuckles] college graduates, 20-somethings, that they want to get married, that they will do better, that they will be happier, that they will thrive if they get married and have kids- ... And not just have the one or two whose lives they can manage? So that's the push behind it. But as it, as it manifests itself in sort of the American politics, American culture discussion, some of it's not great. Some of it... I mean, Elon Musk, he's got lots of kids. He's a pronatalist. He's got lots of kids by lots of different women. This is not the family model- [chuckles] ... That I, that I endorse. I think, you know, the old-fashioned idea you guys have heard of lifelong monogamous marriage, and you have kids with your wife, that's, that's [chuckles] the one that I would promote. Some pronatalism is what's behind a real push for federal support for in vitro fertilization so that, you know, it's subsidized, that it's covered for everybody. Some pronatalism is talking about artificial wombs.... And, you know, that we can raise babies from, you know, the, in Petri dishes and laboratories up until basically the moment that they're born. So for me, the, just the phrase pronatalism, I'm neutral on that, because some of it is, what can we do to support families? What can we do to encourage young people to get married and have kids, to help young couples, have more kids, have as many as they want even more? But some pronatalism is just like, "Let's make more babies."

Scott Rae: So you, so you would support the end of the pronatalist movement, but not all the means?

Tim Carney: Certainly, and again, that not everybody is called to marriage and family. I'm a Catholic. We, we have [chuckles] all my favorite priests have no wife and no kids.

Scott Rae: [laughing]

Tim Carney: I think there's lots of people who-

Scott Rae: I'm glad to hear that.

Tim Carney: [chuckles] Who by their disposition, some people just... That's not in the cards for them. There's always been people who- but it- I think the normal thing, the vast majority of people, are called to marriage and family, and that our culture ought to make that clearer and say, "When you get married and have kids, we will support you in that undertaking."

Sean McDowell: And you're right because the data shows, as a whole, not for every individual, those who marry and have kids are happier than those who don't. And yet the reason a lot of people marry later or don't marry, and the reason they don't have kids, is they think it's going to steal their happiness, which is just exactly upside down. Now, we'll get into some of the details of this, but your first-

Tim Carney: I was just gonna quickly say, that's-

Sean McDowell: Oh, yeah

Tim Carney: ... That's not confusing to me because I know every day, I know that if I get up out of bed [chuckles] and actually do things and go outside, I will be happier. But guess what I do? I stay in bed. And so that short-term pleasure versus long-term thriving- ... That's, that's what's at stake here. Sorry, go on.

Sean McDowell: No, good stuff. So your first chapter is titled "Have Lower Ambitions for Your Kids," which is true, but also, I think, intentionally provocative.

Tim Carney: Yes.

Sean McDowell: Tell us about that.

Tim Carney: So, I mean, first of all, my ambitions for my kids is that they end up as saints, that they're in Heaven. I have the highest ambitions for the, my kids. But my worldly ambitions for my kids are not Ivy Leagues. It's not a D1 scholarship. It's, like, we... I have a son who, he made the middle school band and playing saxophone. I want him to play saxophone. My highest ambition would be that he would be good enough that we can have him, like, play in the background at a party that we have. [chuckles] My other ambition is just that he learns that if he practices something difficult, like a saxophone, that he gets better at it, that he learns to take instruction. More importantly, even, that music, which is sort of a beautiful language of its own, that that seeps into being part of his life. These are my only ambitions for him with the saxophone. My son, who's a baseball player, you know, he got to p- start in the outfield, in center field when a, one of the other kids was out on a college visit. Like, boom! That... He's already met my ambitions for him baseball-wise, but again, he found that he was really able to improve his hitting by concentrated work, and that an at bat in baseball involves intense concentration, and if he can learn to apply that in other parts of his life, as you were saying, you know, [chuckles] you play sports so that you learn about life. So but so many parents confuse- get confused because they invest so much in the sports, in the school, in the music, in whatever, and their ambitions for their kids: "Well, let's make sure that he gets first chair. Let's make sure that he gets to be the starter. Let's make sure that he's going to get into Harvard." Those worldly ambitions, that not only makes them apply too much pressure for their kids, it also, as I said earlier, it miseducates the children. The children say, "Well, it really matters to my parents that my grades are great and that I do really well at sports, so that must be what my value is as a human being." And so in Family and Friendly, I point to the studies that show that these kids who play only one sport year-round, they have a lower sense of self-worth than the average kid- ... Because inevitably they'll fail at sports, and they think... And failure is good, but they don't realize it because they think they're failing at life.

Scott Rae: Tim, one of the things I think that, parents getting, get involved in in order to give their kids the best opportunities and to push them like you're describing, is what you call the travel team trap.

Tim Carney: Mm-hmm.

Scott Rae: And I think Sean and I probably both would admit that we've, we've been, we've been tempted to this. I'm not sure that we've completely fallen into it, but we've had to navigate how you know, how you do this and handle the rest of, the rest of life in a way that's balanced. I remember we had a... I coached club teams, as has Sean, for a long time. We had a Christian parent t- one time look at, look at our schedule. All the games were on Sundays. Most of them were in the mornings. And you know, you know what she- I'll never forget what she said. She said, she said, "I wonder what God thinks about our schedule?" [laughing]

Tim Carney: [laughing] Yeah.

Scott Rae: And, and I, you know, and I didn't, I didn't have an answer for that.

Tim Carney: [chuckles]

Scott Rae: And it's just, it's something that we just- we had, we had to work hard to navigate that. I know, Sean, you've had to do that, too, with your kids.

Tim Carney: Mm-hmm.

Scott Rae: W- you say parents should just avoid the travel team trap altogether. Does that, does that mean that you don't encourage kids to play on travel teams? Have your, have your kids played travel baseball, or-

Tim Carney: So yeah, so I had Charlie-

Scott Rae: How do you, how do you navigate that?

Tim Carney: I had my Charlie play, travel baseball. I let him try out, in part, 'cause I didn't think he would make it. [chuckles] But then they said, "Okay, winter-

Scott Rae: We'll edit that part out before we... [chuckles] it's-

Tim Carney: [laughing] Winter workouts start in January, and these are 11 and 12-year-old kids, and he shows up, and the first thing the coach says before the first winter workout is, "Baseball isn't fun."... Winning baseball is fun.

Sean McDowell: Oh, gosh, yes.

Tim Carney: It's to 11-year-olds, and I said to my wife, I said, "This is a mistake, but every bad thing that happens to Charlie is gonna be good material for my book." [laughing] So- and sure enough, he was very happy. We ended up taking the summer off. It's the only summer he's ever skipped, because his spring was too intense, and in the fall, he went back to rec ball, and he had a n- a team that, like, had missed him for a season, was absolutely happy to have him back, and he had tons more fun with that. So it's tricky, and I call it a trap because there's a couple things. One, the quality of your local Little League or rec soccer or rec whatever league is going down because all the most athletic and skilled kids, and all the most involved parents, are getting dragged over into the travel system. And so a lot of parents say, "Oh, I'd love to put him in the rec league, but there's nobody who can throw strikes, so he's not really even getting any practice." And so that's absolutely, devastating, and I don't have a simple answer for that except do what you can to beef up your local rec league. But let me talk about the negatives, 'cause there's lots of positives, right? I... We were talking earlier about intense training has its benefits. The travel team can become its own little club, and I have a friend, Michael Dougherty, who wrote a piece for National Review about his kid doing, Irish dance, and that he lacks a community. He lives in a place where his neighbors, nobody really knows each other, so when he goes to the Irish dance, it creates its community. I'm not saying there are no positives, but to talk about the negatives, one is, it's, it's not conducive to a larger family, and to a larger family that puts other things, such as faith and family and community, above sports. If you're... If I'm with my son, driving all over the country, well, that's great, except for the other five kids, except for my wife, who's home with the other five kids. There's nobody, you know, to s- help her take care of them, because I'm traveling three states away for a tournament every other weekend. And, and on that score, one friend of mine, who has three boys, really good baseball players, never did travel sports because as his... When his kids were little, really little, he saw his colleagues go through what he called travel team divorces. So whether it was-

Sean McDowell: Oh, geez!

Tim Carney: ... It, it doesn't even have to be an infidelity thing, even though that might have been part of it, but just, Dad's away. Guess what? Husbands and wives need to, like, [chuckles] date each other and spend lots of time with each other, and if you have this other thing, just like a job that can take you away from home too much can fray a marriage, a travel team that takes you away from home too much can fray a marriage, and so that's part of it. But again, a lot of it is, and I try to hit at this in chapter one, where I bring it home by talking about, you know, a child with Down syndrome or, a child with a severe disability who are never going to excel at these things, and those are the lessons we need to remind ourselves. "Wait a second. [chuckles] The point of my kid is not to dominate at everything that he does- ... So it's okay to put him in a less competitive league, and if he's the best kid in the league, then that'll give him the opportunity to learn how to be that best kid in the league. And if he never gets very good, that'll give him the opportunity to learn how to stick with something that is fun, you're part of a team, and maybe you're not the best at, 'cause in your life, you're gonna have some things that you're not the best at."

Sean McDowell: I love that. I think you'd agree with this. It's not only okay to put your kid in a lesser competitive thing, it's good for our kids [chuckles] to be involved-

Tim Carney: Yeah

Sean McDowell: ... In those kind of things.

Tim Carney: And I got to play, in high school and in Little League, with kids who went on to play Major League Baseball. [chuckles] That was such a blessing for me. These days, those kids would never reduce themselves to playing in the local Little League.

Sean McDowell: That's an interesting way to put it. There is some backlash. I just heard a podcast recently with Steve Nash and LeBron James, two of the great NBA players of all time, lamenting club ball, that it pulls kids out of other sports. It's a money and time trap and affects family. So there's some other voices paying attention to this. Given how much money is being made through travel ball and the amount of pressure, this being fixed from the top down, I'm really skeptical of that, but parents navigating this is, this is really helpful. Let me ask you this question, Tim. You talk about some fears, like big, modern fears that parents have, and just leaving kids alone can [chuckles] actually help. What do you mean by this?

Tim Carney: So I have read a op-ed and lots of things in the American Journal of Pediatrics and similar publications saying that the main source of childhood anxiety is the lack of independent play that is unsupervised by parents, and this is something that, again, I myself forget. One day, my kids were saying, "Hey, let's play football," and so I thought, "You know what? That sounds fun." And so I drove down through the neighborhood, and we've got a great neighborhood, and a bunch... I piled as many kids as I could into my car and went down, and I was the quarterback for both sides, and I was the ref. And I was... Afterwards, I was so charmed because, like, none of the kids argued with my calls. They were all so obedient, and then I thought, "Wait a second. I deprived [chuckles] them of the opportunity to be their own quarterbacks, and to ref their own games, and to make their own calls, and to negotiate, and to argue, and to learn how to settle." That by me being there supervising this football game, I... It was more fun for me, [chuckles] but it was less valuable for the neighborhood kids. And so learning how to navigate those difficulties, learning how to be bored. [chuckles] we're terrified of our kids being bored. We... You know, you either put on the TV or video game, or you go ahead and you make sure that they're constantly getting this enrichment, and that activity, and this.... Guess what? Boredom is good for you. It's absolute- we need that, and I think that a lot of childhood anxiety is because kids are not just sort of left alone to sort of make their own fun, get in a little bit of trouble, learn how to get out of that trouble, learn how to deal with the consequences.

Scott Rae: So Tim, it strikes me, as I read through your book, that there's a, that sort of parenting styles exist on a continuum, and you describe the helicopter parents and the tiger moms sort of on one extreme. And I think we all- I think we're all sort of aware of what some of the downsides of that are. But you also-- I think on the other extreme, I would call the free-range parenting.

Tim Carney: Mm-hmm.

Scott Rae: And I think, you know, the helicopter mom and dad, the tiger mom, that can be sort of a euphemism for controlling and stifling. But I think the free-range parenting also, that downside can also be, I think, la- a bit lazy and irresponsible.

Tim Carney: Yeah.

Scott Rae: So where... How, how do you navigate a balance between those two? Because, you know, we want, we want the best outcomes for our kids, but we also want them to learn things that they can only learn by experiencing challenges and failures and picking themselves up off the mat, you know, when they, when they get knocked down. And I know we tend to sa- we tend to safeguard our kids from getting knocked down, and I think that... I think you're right, that they-

Tim Carney: Yeah

Scott Rae: ... They lose, they lose some good character-forming opportunities. So how-

Tim Carney: Well-

Scott Rae: ... What's, what's the balance between those two? 'Cause I know you're not suggesting, you know, the extreme sort of free-range parent-

Tim Carney: Yes

Scott Rae: ... That's lazy and irresponsible. But I think you tend toward... I think if you tend maybe toward that direction.

Tim Carney: I'm pulling the reader. Yeah, the average person who's actually gonna read a book is more likely to err in the [chuckles] direction of being overly, anxious and too much hovering. So certainly, childhood neglect happens, and lazy parents exist, and sometimes I'm that lazy parent, and sometimes I'm that hovering parent. But I think that middle-class and upper-middle-class American parents are more likely to be over-controlling and to over-schedule and over-program their kids. One way to find the balance is to do the hard work of trying to sort of build something of a walled garden, right? Think of for a toddler. The ideal backyard if you have, like, a two-year-old and a four-year-old is a backyard that's fenced in, you know it doesn't have poison ivy, you know a neighborhood dog isn't gonna get in there, and you know there's no rattlesnakes, right? [chuckles] So that you can basically, if you, if you open the kitchen window and do the dishes while you watch these two play around, so that they have freedom, you're not controlling them, but you know they're not gonna get in trouble. And then slowly, the walls of that garden are going to expand, and there's gonna be more territory and more things they can do, a jungle gym, something they can climb on as they get older. And so a neighborhood, building- f- cultivating ties with your neighbors, so that if your kid gets into trouble, somebody is more likely to be there to help them out. One of the biggest problems on this, though, is technology. If... I don't think that I could let my kid show up at the house of somebody whose family I didn't know, 'cause I don't know the internet, the social media, the... You know, the internet for young boys means an unlimited amount of pornography, basically [chuckles] . So I'm not gonna let my son now go into some neighbor's house if he's just met him and I just met the kid, 'cause I don't know what the, what goes on there, and so that's a real new challenge that parents face. But so what that requires for me to set my kids free is to know as many of my neighbors as possible, to know what their policies are towards this. Not that you can protect anybody from all the technological problems, but so that's it. So it's hard work to help cultivate [chuckles] that walled garden in which you can set your kids free, and that garden gets bigger and bigger and bigger as they get older.

Sean McDowell: And that's really the reason we don't do it, is because it is hard work. [laughing] It's easier to just not get involved and go the extra step. You have, you have some interesting, like, titles for sections and chapters, and one that I thought was creative and humorous is Car Seat Contraception.

Tim Carney: [laughing]

Sean McDowell: Tell us what you mean by that, and maybe some of the things the government can do to make it harder to have kids-

Tim Carney: Yes

Sean McDowell: ... Or positive things it could do to encourage good birth rates.

Tim Carney: Now, and so I'm in the, in the nation's capital here, and so this is... Everybody's like, "What, what can we do? What, I, what... How can we pass pro-natal policy?" But most of what we've been talking about here is culture, it's community, it's, it's individual parents working with others. But there are policies that matter, and you pointed out one of the policies that's been anti-natal, which is the car seat mandate. Now, car seats, especially for young kids, absolutely great, for new... You know, for babies, saves lives. It's not clear that car seat mandates for, you know, four to eight-year-olds have saved m- any, if, you know, have saved very many, if any, lives at all. It is clear that what they have... What these mandates have done is sort of sent the message, "You can't have more than two kids." Now, again, my kids are older. When I could not, we could not find car seats that we could fit three across in the back row of a Toyota Camry. We upgraded to a, you know, a three-row SUV and then a minivan. And I love minivans. I've got nothing against minivans, but a lot of parents, that's cost-prohibitive, or they just, you know... So the, this one study, Car Seats as Contraception [chuckles] was the title of the study, and it found that married parents with two kids became extremely less likely to have the third kid after their state implemented a car seat mandate. And again, some of those mandates go up to nine-year-olds, right?... And so-

Sean McDowell: Nine-year-olds? That's crazy.

Tim Carney: So these are, these are regulations, and again, when I say the parents are too worried of too many harms, I'm talking about, like, they believe that every stranger's a kidnapper, or that falling off a jungle gym is gonna kill them. All those things are overrated. Cars actually are... Can be dangerous, right? Like, car accidents is the number one cause of accidental deaths. That, along with swimming pools. So there are places where we should be vigilant. But just buckling up a kid on a booster seat in a second row, a lot of data suggests that that's exactly as safe as buckling them into this five-point harness once they're, you know, five years old, especially. And so then we gotta ask, are there other policies that are getting in the way of families getting married, having kids, having more kids? One, I would argue, and actually Kamala Harris gave this answer on the campaign trail, and she was right. She said, "We need more houses. Housing is too expensive because there's not enough housing." And one reason there's not enough housing, and, I know you guys have this problem [chuckles] out at Biola, like, part of it is regulation. It becomes cost-prohibitive to build what I would call a starter home, a two-bedroom or three-bedroom home that's maybe 1,000 square feet. It's got a tiny back patio that's big enough for you to have over one family for, you know, a picnic or let your little kids run around. But it's just, that unit, that can't turn a profit if the regulations on building homes are too strict. And so that's where I would start. Are there things... Is there something that makes minivans too expensive? Is there something that makes a starter home too expensive? Is there something that makes it harder for somebody to work from home? Imagine a stay-at-home mom who wants to work 25 hours a week. There are all sorts of labor regulations that make it harder to be that person who's gonna be home when the school bus picks up and drops off, but is gonna put in a 25-hour week. So that- those are a lot of the places where we ought to look at every policy and say, "Is the government creating obstacles to making life easier for families?"

Scott Rae: I even... You, you even, you even point out there are lots of communities where there are, there are streets for cars but no sidewalks for walking.

Tim Carney: Oh, absolutely.

Scott Rae: And, and no, and no places for kids to ride bikes. Um-

Tim Carney: And so, and so we hear lots about walkability these days, and I love that, but too much of that talk is like, "I wanna be able to walk to my, you know, my coffee shop, my bookstore, my, cocktail bar." It's like, that's great. I want you to be able to do that, too. But you know what matters more to me? 'Cause I'm, I'm a suburban guy. I grew up in the suburbs, when we moved out of New York City when I was a kid. My wife and I, we moved out of Capitol Hill to the suburbs, when we were expecting our first. I want my kids to be able to walk to their friend's house and walk to the basketball court. That [chuckles] matters to me a lot more than whether I can walk to the local pub.

Scott Rae: You know, Tim, you point out that there are some countries around the world that do things differently when it, when it comes to families and birthrates, that are the exceptions to the general rule. You cite France having the highest birthrate of all the countries in Europe. Now, that may not be anything to really write home about, because the-

Tim Carney: [chuckles]

Scott Rae: ... You know, Europe is, [chuckles] is in a free fall, in terms of birthrates. But you also point out the nation of Israel. It has the highest birthrate by far of all of the industrialized countries in the world. What, what accounts for that difference?

Tim Carney: Yeah, so in France, they have been able to boost their birthrate compared to other European countries by spending a ton of money on families. You have a baby, the... You get a baby bonus. You get a check right away. There's a monthly child allowance, and they do subsidize childcare, but more important than that, they just give cash to parents, including a government-run maternity leave program, which basically amounts to a stay-at-home mom benefit on top of the other benefits. That's allowed them... In recent years, they were up about 1.8, while the European average was down about 1.5. That's sort of a marginal difference brought about through a massive amount of government spending. Israel's a whole different story. It's so much more comprehensive there because they basically have a culture that supports families. They... And they, then they have laws that sort of reinforce that cultural norm, but they don't spend a ton of money on a family allowance or other things like that. Instead, what they do is just, it's expected, for instance, if you build a housing development, you're gonna build a courtyard with a playground in it. And ideally, you're going to have a part of it be a kindergarten sort of built into the housing. Somebody once put it to me, the bus drivers in Israel have a real affection for the kids. They'll take care of them. They'll take care of a seven-year-old trying to ride the bus. Parents are more free-range, in part because it's expected that other adults will help a little kid. One guy explained to me, six-year-olds will walk to school alone, but they're told they can't cross a big street alone, and so the adult who comes up to the crosswalk knows it's his job to walk that kid across the street. All of this is rooted ultimately in their faith, their religion. God's first commandment [chuckles] in the Garden of Eden was, "Be fruitful and multiply." And so then that culture is then reinforced through laws and norms and customs. So they have a birthrate up around three, and one last interesting- ... Detail on this: The secular Jews have a birthrate of 2.0. That is much higher than Europe and much higher than the United States. So that just shows that it's not just the religious adherence to the commandment, it's also the religion has helped create a culture that even people who are not following the commandments, they live in a culture that they know says, "Have kids, and we'll help you take care of them."

Sean McDowell: That's really remarkable. If there's any country that could have an excuse of living in fear and not wanting to have kids, [chuckles] it might be Israel, and it's the opposite of that. Tim, this has been a great conversation. Scott and I both enjoyed your book, Family Unfriendly: How Our Culture Made Raising Kids Much Harder Than It Needs to Be. We hope our listeners will pick up a copy, and we'll definitely have you back. Thanks for coming on, Tim.

Tim Carney: Thank you.

Sean McDowell: [upbeat music] This has been an episode of the podcast Think Biblically: Conversations on Faith and Culture. It's brought to you by Talbot School of Theology at Biola University, where we have programs in Southern California and online, including our master's in Apologetics, Spiritual Formation. We have bachelor's degrees in Bible, Theology, and Apologetics, and more. If you have been listening to the podcast for a while and have not written a review, please hit pause right now and write us a quick [chuckles] review. Each one actually really helping, helps. Thanks so much for listening, and remember, think biblically about everything. [upbeat music]