Kerby Anderson
If you visited New York City more than a decade ago, you likely saw this sign on buses or on subway cars. “If you finish high school, get a job, and get married before having children, you have a 98% chance of not being in poverty.”
That phrase may sound familiar since I have mentioned it in previous commentaries. It is known as the “success sequence” that was first articulated by two scholars at the Brookings Institution. It has been repeated by authors and social scientists many times since.
Jason Riley mentions it in a recent Wall Street Journal commentary because he points to the evidence that the “biggest root cause of crime is fatherlessness.” He reminds us that America’s crime debate tends to focus on various root causes, like poverty and joblessness. Though that may be a partial explanation, the real problem is the lack of two-parent families.
A research paper from the Institute for Family Studies acknowledged that economic conditions play a role in criminal behavior. However, the authors argue that family instability may be the biggest factor. And they also add that factor isn’t receiving the attention it deserves.
“Cities are safer when two-parent families are dominant and more crime-ridden when family instability is common,” the authors write. Nationwide, the total crime rate is higher in cities “that have above the median share of single-parent families, compared to cities that have fewer single-parent families.”
The study concludes that we need to develop cultural incentives that favor marriage and stable families. This is where I believe the church can make a difference. We need pastors and Christian leaders to use their platforms to promote marriage and sexual responsibility.

Kerby Anderson
Yesterday I talked about the research by Jonathan Haidt and others on young girls and ended with his comment that his explanation for girls did not seem to apply to boys. His article attached to his commentary is a preview of his forthcoming book, The Anxious Generation. Rates of mental problems rose significantly around 2013, and the impact of social media on girls is the logical explanation.
But we didn’t see the same rapid increase for boys. Rates of anxiety and depression were much higher for girls than boys. But the rate for suicide is much higher for boys than girls. He concluded that he was focused on the wrong variables.
He explains, “The male crisis didn’t begin on the day that boys traded their flip phones for smartphones packed with social media apps. Boys started to become more pessimistic around four decades ago, although the trend has accelerated in the years since everyone got a smartphone.”
Boys are more attracted to things, machines, and complex systems. They got involved in the early phases of technological entertainment that included computers and video games. These pulled them away from real-world pursuits and into the virtual world.
They have withdrawn from the real world “where they could develop the skills needed to become competent, successful, and loving men.” Instead, they have been “lured into an ever more appealing virtual world in which desires for adventure and for sex can be satisfied, at least superficially, without doing anything that would prepare them for later success in work, love, and marriage.”
These last two days, I have been talking about the significant mental health problems of this young generation. Pastors and Christian leaders need to speak to this issue and warn parents about these dangers.