Make Families, Not War

American families are in crisis. In the U.S., fewer young people are getting married, and they are having fewer children. They struggle to afford a first house. They report depression and loneliness at high rates. For those in the Millennial and Gen Y cohorts that do have kids, they worry about what—indeed whether—their children are learning in schools.  Groceries are expensive; mortgage rates and housing prices are crushing. Whatever the future holds, America’s young parents know it almost certainly will include having to take care of aging Boomers and their own small children at the same time, with a demographic structure more weighted toward the elderly than at any other time in history. While meeting their obligations to their elders, they have no assurances that the same benefits will be afforded to them.

The current administration and Congress were elected at least in part on promises to meet these challenges. And, indeed, they did begin to make right on them. The One Big Beautiful Bill contained a significant expansion of the Child Tax Credit and other tax credits for middle-class American families. Republicans in Congress expected to go into the midterms able to boast about securing billions to support working families. The new Trump Accounts promise to make it easier for the parents of today’s babies to send them to college one day. When parents with young children file their taxes this year, they should see some welcome extra cash in their pockets. 

The prevailing winds on federal family policy were good for a time, but now the administration has changed course. Rather than launching a whole-of-government effort to support ordinary American families, they’ve launched another war of choice, this time in Iran. America’s moms and dads woke up on a Saturday morning in February to find the military engaged in active combat in Iran—a war they were not prepared for or informed of, but will be asked to pay for anyway. 

The federal government has been whistling through the graveyard for years on America’s failure to create consistent and comprehensive family policy. It can’t be ignored any longer. In 2025, less than half of American households were married couples. In contrast, in 1975, almost 2/3rd of U.S. households were married couples. Only 37 percent of American households had minor children in 2025; in 1975, that number was 54 percent. As a new report from the Heritage Foundation put it, “Without families, a country cannot create meaningful work and prosperity.” Families bear and raise children, take primary responsibility for transmitting ideas about virtue and religious beliefs, and teach the value of patriotism and hard work. Or as Ronald Reagan declared: “In the family we learn our first lessons of God and man, love and discipline, rights and responsibilities, human dignity and human frailty.”

America’s young parents will pay much of the price for this new war. Many of those in the Armed Forces who’ve lost their lives are mothers and fathers.  They include a Minnesota mother of two, whose youngest child is in fourth grade. They also include a father of three, who made sure to prep meals for his wife before deploying so she could pull them out of the freezer when caring for their young kids, including twin babies. 

America’s ordinary parents will also pay out of pocket—and not just through taxes. Guns vs. butter has always been rightly seen as a binary. If the administration is focused on its new war, it cannot be focused on American families. This goes doubly so for a war in the Middle East, which inevitably will spike gas prices, with all the knock-on effects. At my local gas station, it cost about $45 dollars to fill up my minivan in early February. Today, it costs around $61. Sophisticated readers with plenty in the bank may scoff at a mere $16, but working families already deciding between gas and groceries will indeed feel that pinch. 

Recently, a dear friend of mine—a married mom of four married to a husband with a decent job—had her minivan break down unexpectedly. The whole family couldn’t fit in her husband’s car, so they weren’t able to go anywhere together for months while they worked to afford a new (to them) vehicle. She went on our prayer list, but it would have been nice to know the federal government had her family’s back also. I know another family where the dad got in the trunk—leaving the kids and mom in the body of the car with the seatbelts—so the whole family could go to church together after the family minivan broke down. They kept a good sense of humor about it, but where did this family sign up to pay out of pocket each time they fill up the gas tank of a family vehicle so we can fight another war abroad? Why are working families raising a bunch of kids so pinched that there’s a popular country music song about having six kids, yet only being able to afford a car with five seat belts? 

Some might argue that our executive branch can walk and chew gum at the same time—that it is capable of both fighting in Iran and supporting the rebuilding of American families on the home front. But even my 8-year-old son understands that if he spends his birthday money on pizza and candy, he won’t have any left over for that new action figure he wants. The estimated cost for expanding the Child Tax Credit to make it fully refundable for families with a newborn came in at around $7.5 billion over 10 years. It didn’t make it into the passed legislation: too expensive. Meanwhile, USA Today reported that the first six days of the war cost $11.3 billion on munitions alone. In other words, the money that could have gone to supporting America’s babies was all but literally set on fire in the Middle East. There’s a newly renamed Department of War, but no Department of Families. In cabinet meetings, there’s no dedicated voice for parents and families, no high-level position dedicated solely to fighting for their interests. Congress has a family caucus, but there’s no powerful lobbyist for parents in DC. 

I’m a millennial. My dad voluntarily enlisted in the Army during Vietnam when he drew a bad draft number. He didn’t think much of that war, but he also didn’t believe in dodging the draft, and had little patience for those who did so while chanting, “Make love, not war.” That slogan became iconic for the Boomer Generation. Whatever its merits, we need a new one today. Babies, not bombs. Don’t make wars of choice. Make families. Parents need the federal government’s support in both the executive branch and the Congress to do so.

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