| Follow us on the web: |
|
|
 |
|
We welcome new subscribers from our Love and Life in the Divine Plan conference in Nashville; the Republican Women from Franklin, Tennessee; and the seminarians of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. We also welcome the students from Franciscan University of Steubenville, Duquesne School of Law, and the University of Pittsburgh! Glad to have all of you on board!
Share the good news of marriage with your friends by forwarding this newsletter to them!
|
|
|
|
Action Item: Visit the Ruth blog, which receives 1,000 hits a day! There's always lots of discussion to join in on, on a variety of topics. Learn and enlighten!
Talking Point: Reason #5 from 77 Non-Religious Reasons to Support Man/Woman Marriage: Even though it is not always possible, children have the best life chances when they are raised by their biological married parents.
|
 |
|
Dr. J on "Religion, Politics, and the Culture" Dr. J appears on Dennis O'Donovan's "Religion, Politics, and the Culture" to discuss the links between redefining marriage and redefining parenthood and her recent trip to testify before the Rhode Island legislature. (Click on the POD icon.)
Subscribe to the complete Ruth Institute podcasts with iTunes!
|
 |
|
Lutheran Public Radio: Dr. J is usually on live on Tuesdays from 2-2:15 p.m. Pacific Time (Click the link to listen live or find a station near you.)
March 15--Screening of the movie, Eggsploitation. Azusa Pacific University, Azusa, CA.
April 6--Wheaton College near Chicago
April 8--Texas A&M University
April 18--UC Davis
Miss an issue of the newsletter? Check out the archives here.
|
|
 |
| as we keep you up to date on marriage and offer FUN tips for life-long married love!!! (Click the icon above.) |
- To prevent mailbox filters from deleting mailings from The Ruth Institute, add jmorse@ruthinstitute.org to your address book
|
|
|
| March 8, 2011 |
Volume 6 Issue 11 |
| Behind the Scenes of the Reel Love Challenge: Making Love Real |
|
Click the image to watch "Carter and Sherrie," the first place winning submission to the Ruth Institute's Reel Love Challenge, and winner of $2,000.
 Here is a little about the winning videographer: Becca Potter Summers lives in Highland, Utah, with her husband and newborn son. She studied film and family history at Brigham Young University. She loves making films, being a mom, and playing the guitar. Her films often focus on the roles, lessons, and important moments that accompany everyday family life. Helping people record their family stories on film is extremely important to her. She feels this is a great way to link generations, document family history in an accessible way, and allow parents and grandparents to preserve their thoughts and stories for their posterity.
This film features her husband’s parents, Carter and Sherrie, whose example of love and kindness in marriage has greatly influenced their children and grandchildren. This film was made in hopes to preserve their love story while promoting marriage and demonstrating the powerful affect of lifelong love.
Keep checking these weekly newsletters for more behind the scenes of our Reel Love Challenge winners!
|
| Index of Belonging and Rejection |
|
 Greetings from Pat Fagan, Ph.D., Ruth Institute Board Member and Senior Fellow and Director of the Marriage and Religion Research Institute.
Most American teenagers' parents have rejected each other, through divorce, separation, or choosing not to marry, and rates of parental rejection vary significantly across ethnic and regional backgrounds.
My newest publication, The Index of Belonging and Rejection delves into all of these statistics and rank-orders the states and the 25 largest cities by the strength of their family life, showing that less than 50 percent of American children reach adulthood having grown up in an intact family.
Belonging and rejection within the family have significant impacts on the strength of the nation and its communities, as well as on America's future leadership capacity. I invite you to read my report today. Available as a free pdf download, click here.
|
| Answer to the Index of Belonging Quiz |
|
Based on Dr. Fagan's Index, here is our latest quiz question: What region of the country has the highest Index of Belonging?
a. The South: the Bible Belt and tradition generates lots of kids in married households.
b. The West: filled with Mormons and Catholic Hispanics with good family values
c. The Midwest: wholesome, Heartland people
d. The Northeast: Rich Yuppies get married, stay married and don’t have kids out of wedlock
Answer: D. The Northeast has the highest Index of Belonging, at 50%.
Economics trumps all, I’m afraid. High income and education are protective factors against both divorce and out of wedlock childbearing. The people of the Northeast are on average the highest income and most highly educated.
This same explanation, in reverse, accounts for the low Index of Belonging in the South, which has an Index of Belonging of just 41%. Low income and low education are strongly correlated with high probabilities of out of wedlock childbearing and divorce.
The Midwest and the West have income and educational levels in between the highs of the Northeast and the lows of the South. Overall, the Belonging Index in the West is 46% and in the Midwest is 48%. The state of Utah has the highest Index of Belonging of any state, at 59%, and Hispanics in the West do better than their counterparts in the Northeast, (41% to 30% respectively). But these relative strengths are not enough to overcome the other disadvantages of the West in comparison with the Northeast.
Read more of Fagan's study.
If this email was forwarded to you from a friend and you would like to subscribe to our newsletter, click here to subscribe.
|
|
