2011‑2022, and is preserved here for archival purposes.
Cardus NextGen Fellow Maxime Huot Couture summarizes important progress in 2021 towards cancelling porn culture. He hopes both the law and the culture will continue to make anti-porn progress in 2022.
The original version of this article appeared in Le Verbe magazine.
Pornography is not a new phenomenon, but it has enjoyed an ambivalent moral pass for a long ti...
Author and educator Paul Bennett reviews recent books and articles by Dr. Erica Komisar that have stirred a viral hornet’s nest. Komisar, a New York psychoanalyst, highlights the importance of parent-child attachment and argues that believing in God is so important to parenting, that those who don’t should “lie about it.”
Everyone remembers the children’s fable about a chicken called “Chicken Little” or “Henny Penny” who believes that the sky is falling when an acorn falls on its head. While the phrase “the sky is fal...
When it comes to Canada’s recently passed ban on “conversion therapy," Don Hutchinson argues that it’s bad legislation, not good faith religious counselling, that should be put on trial.
The provisions of Bill C-4, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (conversion therapy), will be incorporated into the Criminal Code as law effective January 7, 2022. It may be poorly...
Marking the 30th anniversary of Canada ratifying the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, Peter Jon Mitchell examines how much it has put the State between children and their families.
Children have always lived in an adult-centric world. Spend only an hour or two in an airport and ask yourself, “For who was this space designed?” Air travel is taxing at any age, but children are a secondary thought in these busy spaces.
Children’s...
Iain Provan reports on data from a recent Nanos poll showing the substantial number of Canadians willing to criminalize parental guidance of children on sexuality and gender.
The recent Nanos National Survey commissioned by the ...
Diminished expectations during COVID Christmas make it the perfect time to remember, as Rev. Dr. Cole Hartin writes, that our children are not instruments for parental self-fulfillment.
During quarantine at home with my three sons five and under, I’ve been reminded that being a parent is not fulfilling. My mornings usually start with wiping bums, changing diapers and washing my hands vigorously (not only out for fear of contracting COVID-1...
COVID-19 concerns could open parents’ eyes to the crucial benefits of kitchen-table learning, developmental psychologist Dr. Gordon Neufeld tells Cardus’ Andrea Mrozek.
David is the father of three children. While pushing his kids on the swings at his local park in Ottawa, he confesses to other parents at the playground that he is concerned about putting his kids back in school because of COVID. However, he is also worried...
In part two of his essay on the damage done by a century of “revolutionary” pedagogy, Joe Woodard foresees the power of independent schools and parental choice for returning education to its natural purpose.
University arts students of the 1970s all saw Marxism dominating the world of academic respectability among ambitious young scholars – the Herd of Independent Thinkers – despite Communism’s repeated seven-and eight-figure slaughters (such as Stalin’s four t...
In a culture that lionizes contraception and avoids pregnancy like the plague, Andrea Mrozek asks, is it any wonder mothers grow fewer and more isolated each Mother’s Day?
Happy Mother’s Day. What birth control are you on?
What kind of celebration is Mother’s Day when our culture is geared toward preventing motherhood? When I read policy analysts theorize ...
Convivium’s Rebecca Darwent reports on a recent Cardus forum exploring the differing formative impacts of school and family on children.
Photo by Peter Stockland
One of the greatest challenges in determining the impact of a child’s school education is the simple fact that schooling is also connected to the impact of parents on their children and, in some cases, the chur...
If children are doing poorly—parents need to be part of the solution
In September, Children First Canada, an organization dedicated to raising awareness about children’s welfare and “mobilizing government, lawmakers and influencers to change the status quo” released a...
Peter Stockland sits down with Andrea Mrozek and Peter Jon Mitchell to discuss Cardus research showing that exclusively pursuing policy options misses critical elements in combating poverty.
Canada’s premier policy publication has shone the spotlight on Cardus research showing that exclusively pursuing policy options misses critical elements in combatting poverty.
“The default assumption of many, (seems to be) that only more tax dollars ...
Convivium Publisher Peter Stockland reveals a new direction in the recently released family Census data.
Last week’s release of census data on Canadian families proved that advocates for legalizing gay marriage were at least partly right.
Proponents of what came to be characterized as “marriage equality” insisted, during the debates of the early 2000s, ...
New life often serves as the moment when the veil between heaven and earth appears to be lifted, hope made possible in the form of an immeasurable gift - a child.
The hint of a yawn, the curve of smooth new skin - new life. Few things serve as quite so tangible a reminder of the sacred present in our midst than a newborn. In capturing a shot of this new spirit, fresh from the womb photographer Jaydene Freund reminds ...
Father's Day is easy for me: I have none. They all left. So Father's Day is easy for me. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
In memory of Franz Wright.
Father's Day is easy for me: I have none. They all left.
So I don't have to find an awkward card amidst the cloying selection on offer. I don't have to make the clichéd choice between necktie or power tool. ...
A few years ago, my brother and I were driving from Texas to Ontario and on the way we stopped in Kentucky where—long story short—we "ran into" Wendell Berry. He was giving a talk to a group of Louisville...
Unhappy with all the flattery, the king and queen devised another test. They disguised themselves as peasants and, leaving the castle through a back door, proceeded through their Kingdom once again. Invisible to almost all, they were not greeted or offered anything to eat or drink, until they returned to the young peasant girl’s home where they were once again received graciously.
When I was young, our family had this ragged, blue hardcover collect...
But it’s not just lights. Breaking the seemingly solid rod of water as it flows from the tap, following the trick of shadows as they race across our yard, watching the heroics of squirrels as they leap from the poplars; although they can’t articulate it, I think my children know this world for the playground it is better than I do on my best days.
My wife and I have twins, just over a year old now. They nap a lot, but when they’re awake, they’re really awake to the world in ways that make me wonder if I’m not partially asleep most of the time. Without thinking I flick the switch to turn their bedroom...
5. In August, Cardus senior fellow John Seel took a look at beauty and the arts. Opportunity … requires the foundation of a home and family that provide security, support, and an education in virtue, which in turn enable children to achieve success in school. - Families, Flourishing, and Upward Mobility
We've put together a list of the blog posts we published this year that we wouldn't want anyone to miss. For part one, click here.
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When you're seven, you know that you won't fall—but actually, we could have. And subliminally, this was part of what made it so exhilarating.
When we were younger, my brother and I loved to climb trees, and the older we got the higher we would climb. In fact, my grandparents, when they lived in ...
Over on the Slow Church blog, Christopher Smith objects to Jamie's arguments (admitting his Anabaptist political theology predisposes him not to vote) by describing how active civil society engagement can accomplish great things and that the slow, local approach that Jamie critiques as inadequate may, with God's blessing, achieve great things while avoiding the culture war narrative, with its inherent temptations and dangers.
Wednesday's blog Knitting While Detroit Burns? by Jamie Smith has started some useful conversations. The road for faithful Christian public engagement has two ditches and Jamie wa...
But one could also worry that we're confusing humility with retreat. Eschewing triumphalism shouldn't be confused with abandoning aspirations for large-scale systemic change. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
A generation of younger evangelicals are still reeling from the misguided triumphalism of a generation past. Having watched their parents confidently seek to "transform" culture, only to see some of them end up as evangelistic shills for crony capitalism an...
They will drop their trowels, shake their heads and wonder why they didn't see this earlier. They will head back to their tents and consign earlier theories of civilizational decline to the dustbin. It wasn't climate change, political corruption, economic inequality, a sudden collapse of global bee communities, plague, pestilence, or even aliens from outer space.
Centuries from now, when historians are sifting through the archaeological remains of our great civilization and looking for clues about the cause of its demise, they will come across a Pottery Barn wicker basket of petrified newspapers. At the top of that ...
It is certainly true that this dream easily slides towards idolatry. It can become a nightmare of crass materialism and selfish ambition. But we shouldn't confuse idolatrous perversions with more humble aspirations of families to simply enjoy a mode of economic security that is conducive with flourishing.
If the "American dream" is anything it is a dream of upward mobility: the dream of getting ahead, climbing the ladder, leapfrogging from one class to another in a "land of opportunity"—all if you're willing to work for it. Too often, fantastic "rags to rich...