What Are Teens Saying About Marriage and Family?

Families, communities, states, and nations are stronger when individuals understand the value of marriage and children. Lois M. Collins, a long-time Deseret News reporter on special projects and family issues, reported on a recent Pew survey. “The online survey of 1,391 teens ages 13 to 17 was conducted Sept. 18 to Oct. 10, 2024, by Ipsos.” 

One of Collins’ key points in her article was that teens do not consider marriage and children as “a huge aspiration.” A second key point is, “Boys and girls see different routes to a happy, prosperous adult future.”

They survey asked teens what they want to do after high school and found they have a lot of aspirations in common, said Parker, who with Kiley Hurst cowrote the report. As adults, they hope to have jobs they really like, lots of friends and plenty of money.

Marriage and becoming parents did not move the desire needle nearly as much, she said, adding that adults seem to have prioritized those two things less in surveys, too, over time. Among the teens in this survey, those who are Republican or lean that way prioritize marriage and kids more than do Democrats and those who lean more to the left.

But the routes these young people expect to follow after high school are different: More girls than boys plan to pursue a four-year college degree (60% vs. 46%). Boys with different plans than college say they’ll attend vocational school (11% compared to 7% of girls), work full-time (9% vs. 3% of girls) or join the military (5% vs. 1% of girls).

The survey and Collins’ article covered other subjects, but they do not apply to strengthening families. Therefore, I am not including them. However, the lack of desire for marriage and family is troubling. The number of foreign-born people living in the United States is steadily increasing, while the birthrate of America-born people has fallen below the replacement rate of 2.1. The following information comes from the Center for Immigration Studies. 

The government’s January 2025 Current Population Survey (CPS) shows the foreign-born or immigrant population (legal and illegal together) hit 53.3 million and 15.8 percent of the total U.S. population in January 2025 – both new record highs. The January CPS is the first government survey to be adjusted to better reflect the recent surge in illegal immigrants. Unlike border statistics, the CPS measures the number of immigrants in the country, which is what actually determines their impact on society.

Without adjusting for those missed by the survey, we estimate illegal immigrants accounted for 5.4 million or two-thirds of the 8.3 million growth in the foreign-born population since President Biden took office in January 2021. America has entered uncharted territory on immigration, with significant implications for taxpayers, the labor market, and our ability to assimilate so many people.

The survey contained much interesting information, but I will include only the highlights from the January 2025 data.

·         At 15.8 percent of the total U.S. population, the foreign-born share is higher now than at the prior peaks reached in 1890 and 1910. No U.S. government survey or census has ever shown such a large foreign-born population.

·         The current numbers have rendered Census Bureau projections obsolete. Just two years ago, the Bureau projected the foreign-born share would not reach 15.8 percent until 2042.

·         The 53.3 million foreign-born residents are the largest number ever in U.S. history; and the 8.3 million increase in the last four years is larger than the growth in the preceding 12 years.

·         The above figures represent net growth. New arrivals are offset by outmigration and deaths in the existing immigrant population. Our best estimate is that 11.5 to 12.5 million legal and illegal immigrants settled in the country in the last four years.

·         Although some immigrants are missed by government surveys, our preliminary estimate is that there are 15.4 million legal immigrants in the January 2025 CPS, an increase of more than 50 percent (5.4 million) over the last four years in the survey.

·         In the last four years, Latin America accounted for 58 percent (4.9 million) of the increase in the foreign-born, India 12 percent (958,000), the Middle East 8 percent (690,000), and China 7 percent (621,000).

·         Of all immigrants, 60 percent are employed. As in any human population some work, but others are caregivers, disabled, children, elderly, or have no desire to work.

·         Since 2000 the number of immigrants working has increased 83 percent and stood at 31.7 million in January 2025 – 19.6 percent of all workers.

·         We estimate that 10.8 million illegal immigrants worked in the January 2025 data, accounting for some 6.7 percent of all workers. Illegal immigrants in particular are heavily concentrated in lower-skilled, lower-paid jobs, typically done by those without a bachelor’s degree.

·         The rapid rise in immigrant workers has coincided with a significant increase in the share of U.S.-born (ages 16 to 64) men without a bachelor’s degree not in the labor force – neither working nor looking for work – from 20.3 percent in 2000 to 28.2 percent today.

The bottom line as I see it is that Americans need to have more babies to offset the increasing numbers of foreign-born people coming to our nation. We want people in our nation who love America and who have American values. When foreign-born people come into our nation and gather in their enclaves, continue to speak their foreign language, and hate American values, the United States of America becomes weaker. People who marry and have children will strengthen their families, communities, states, and nations in many different ways.

When Should a Presidential Autopen E-Signature Be Used?

 The liberty principle for this Freedom Friday concerns the use of a presidential autopen e-signature. Former President Joe Biden consistently used an autopen e-signature during his presidency, and the question is “Why?”

George Caldwell explained, “An autopen, or signing machine, is a device that reproduces a signature without the signatory having to be present.” If the device can be used without the signatory being present – as it was consistently done by the Biden administration – who was actually running the country? 

Many people wondered over the past four years who was running the country. Even more people are asking this question after a report from the Heritage Oversight Project examined the signatures on major documents. Caldwell wrote, “The Heritage Foundation’s report found that the vast majority of documents signed by Biden while in office employed an autopen” including “Biden’s last-minute pardons of his family members, Anthony Fauci, Gen. Mark Milley, and the members of the Jan. 6 Committee.”

“We gathered every document we could find with Biden’s signature over the course of his presidency,” reads a Heritage Oversight post on X.

“All used the same autopen signature except for the announcement that the former president was dropping out of the race last year.”

The report also found that some of the autopen-signed documents “pardoned six criminals (with the exact same autopen signature) while Joe Biden was vacationing and golfing in the U.S. Virgin Islands.”

These documents all say that they were signed “at the city of Washington.”

Some Republican senators – such as Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) considered the findings of the Heritage Oversight report to be significant. Others – such as Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.) did not think the finding was important. Ricketts said that e-signatures were “a pretty standard process in a lot of offices.”

But Mike Howell, executive director of Heritage’s Oversight Project, says that Biden’s consistent use of an autopen is far different than a senator using it.

“No president has ever used the autopen so prolifically as President Biden,” Howell said.

“We’re trying to figure out who was actually exercising the authority of the president. And it appears that the autopen was used as a device to hide the responsibility from the American people,” he said.

“It’s functionally and categorically different for a senator to use an autopen to send a thank-you note to the Girl Scouts than it is for a staff t the White House to use the autopen instead of the president’s authority to sign a pardon.”

Howell added: “Only the President of the United States can sign a pardon. And the question remains whether Biden even had the cognitive ability to delegate his signature authority. Additionally, whether it’s even legal to do that for documents that only the presidents can sign.”

Howell and numerous other people are hoping that “this question is litigated in the courts.” “I think that the January 6^th committee members and staff and Gen. Milley and others, they have some funky pardons that are about as valid as a three-dollar bill. And Congress and others … need to figure out who is actually the president over the last four years.”

Why Don’t European Nations Step Up?

Many people wonder why Europe is not doing more to help Ukraine against Russia. One of those people is Victor Davis Hanson. He wondered why European nations welcomed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a rock star after President Donald Trump kicked him out of the White House. 

We have 500 million people in Europe and they’re very upset that 330 million people across the ocean will not help 40 million people fighting 140 million people in Russia.

In other words, of all the players in this drama, it’s Europe who should be in the driver’s seat. They have 500 million people. And yet, when we look at their expenditures, nine countries out of the 32, 11 years later, have not increased their NATO contributions to 2%.

What should they be doing? They should be meeting with the Trump administration and telling the American people why countries in Europe still won’t meet their military responsibilities.

They’re also running a $200-plus billion trade surplus with the United States. They need to tell us— just explain to us why we in Europe believe that we deserve a $200 billion surplus each year with the United States. And maybe you could explain why your tariffs are not symmetrical with ours. We just need to know. We need to know that very quickly, in fact.

Another thing we need to know from Europe that we’re not getting, besides their surplus and the inability for all the NATO nations to meet their responsibilities and their promises of 11 years ago, is what is the strategy for Ukraine? ….

Why can’t they just get together and get an exact, detailed plan of military wherewithal, coupled with a strategy, coupled with a renewed commitment to meet their NATO promises, coupled with an explanation to the American people why they feel that $200-plus billion trade surplus is essential to Europe’s survival and it is not a result of asymmetrical and unfair trade practices?

 

Why Is Trump Upset with Mexico?

Mexico is one of two closest neighbors of the United States with the other country being Canada. The border between the United States and Mexico is 1,954 miles long, plus 18 miles into the Pacific Ocean and 12 miles into the Gulf of America.

Normally, the United States holds a position of “big brother” to Mexico, one who does many things to help and protect the “little sister.” However, President Donald Trump is saying “no more.” He wants Mexico to step up and carry more responsibility.

Victor Davis Hanson spoke about the situation between Mexico and the United States, which was published in The Daily Signal. He shared the following ideas. 

President Donald Trump has threatened all sorts of trade sanctions on Mexico, a 25% tariff. But why is he doing this? And I think the answer is there’s four things that Mexico knows it has been doing to us with impunity, especially under Joe Biden, that are not sustainable.

The first, it used to run under NAFTA $10-$20 billion trade surplus. Then it went to $40 billion, then it went to $50 billion. And then, during Donald Trump’s first term, we renegotiated it. It kind of stayed static. Now it’s over $175 billion.

But get this, it’s mostly due to China evading tariffs on China by sending raw product materials to Mexico – computers, phones, appliances to be assembled by Mexicans, and then sent under free trade agreements with us, to the benefit of Mexico and China.

But $175 billion – that is the second-largest trade surplus of any country. It’s getting close to China itself.

[Second] is that we had this open border. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the former Mexican president, said it was a beautiful thing that 40 million people – Mexicans – had come in illegally to the United States. Twelve million or more came in during Joe Biden’s tenure. That was all done with the contrivance of Mexico.

Remember, Mexico looked at that open border as a win-win-win-win situation, No. 1. And Frederick Jackson Turner’s theory of the safety valve – they thought that when people were dissatisfied and underserved in Mexico, especially southern Mexicans, who were indigenous and subject to a great deal of hostility and prejudice by Mexico City, they would go to El Norte rather than march on Mexico City. And they did.

No. 2, they felt that they would form an expatriate community. And that expatriate community, which, as Mr. Obrador clams, is 40 million people – I don’t know if it’s quite that large – but they’re a powerful force for the Mexican government’s point of view within the United States. There are 50 consulates that Mexico puts in the United States to develop that chauvinism and that pro-Mexican attitude among Americans, residents, and citizens.

No. 3, the remittances. Sixty-three billion dollars come to Mexico and that money comes largely from illegal aliens. But more importantly, it comes from people receiving state, local, and federal subsidies. So, you, the taxpayer – in terms of health subsidies, education subsidies, housing, food subsidies – are freeing up cash to send $63 billion back to Mexico.

[No. 4] There’s another problem, and that is the cartels. They welcome in, with the connivance or neglect … of the Mexican government, Mexican fentanyl product shipped from China…. And the result is 60,000 to 100,000 Americans are dying every year because of the cartels….

Add it all up … you’re looking at almost $260 billion of American cash that’s going to Mexico. And they all have that one thing in common, they all share a degree of illegality.

They are breaking trade agreements by reassembling Chinese products and running up a huge surplus. They are breaking immigration laws by exporting people here and then sending back cash -- $63 billion worth in remittances. And they are breaking drug laws and immigration laws through the cartels….

I want to add one thing. Mexico thinks that we’re not serious, but they should look at the recent Pew international poll. For the first time, 60% of Americans have an unfavorable view of Mexico. And if they think that having Mexican nationals shut down American freeways and wave the flag of the country under no circumstances which they are willing to return to while burning the flag under all circumstances they want to stay and that’s going to win back American public approval, it’s not.

According to Hanson, Trump has numerous reasons to be upset with Mexico and suggests that Mexico should work with Trump. However, only time will show how much force Trump needs to apply to get that help.

Who Is James Madison?

My VIP for this week is Founding Father James Madison. Donald J. Kochan posted an article at The Daily Signal saying that James Madison was the “OG” of DOGE. He explained as follows.

[Last] week in 1788, Madison’s Federalist No. 62 was published in The [New York] Independent Journal.

The essays we know collectively today as The Federalist Papers, each authored under the pseudonym Publius by Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay, have stood the test of time as not only fundamental to our interpretation of the Constitution, but also to identify the evils it was designed to guard against.

Federalist No. 62 was directed at a defense of the proposed Senate composition, election process, and term length.

Madison explained that the features of the Senate would guard against too voluminous and too frequently changing laws. While discussing the utility of six-year terms as a way to incentivize legislators to have a long, reflective view, Madison explained the extended term would inject stability in the production of law.

It would minimize the inevitable mutability of laws historically exhibited in systems that the Founders studied with too constant and frequent change in the personality of the legislature.

Most importantly for today is the complementary lesson from the essay on what that means for the rule of law.

Put simply, Madison in Federalist No. 62 recognized that the creation of voluminous laws and regulations, a primary effect of a too mutable set of legislators, “poisons the blessing of liberty itself.”

And here is where his warnings in 1788 mirror our concerns with the regulatory state today: Reflecting on history and prescient about the nature of humans and their institutions, Madison’s critical enduring paragraph in Federalist No. 62 explains the danger.

He wrote: “It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow. Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed?”

The "laws” we have today and how they might apply are little known to Americans when they are buried in an avalanche of millions of pages of often incoherent regulatory jargon in the Federal Register that cannot be understood….

Will Republicans Stand Strong in Support of President Trump?

The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday is the role of the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate in supporting the President’s agenda. When President Donald Trump was inaugurated, he put Elon Musk in charge of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to root out waste and fraud in the government. Much waste and fraud has been uncovered, but Democrats are fighting against DOGE every step of the way.

According to George Caldwell at The Daily Signal, some Democrats, such as Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, are fighting cutting waste and fraud by not doing their job. Murray “has said that she and her fellow Democrats are willing to come to the table if guarantees are provided that Trump will not freeze funding and will back off of Elon Musk’s anti-bureaucratic measures.” Republicans are standing behind Trump. 

More than 20 Republican members of the House and Senate sent a letter [last] Monday to Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., making one thing clear: They will not give in to Democratic demands to stop Department of Government Efficiency cuts in exchange for a stopgap budget deal. The letter, signed by nine senators and 12 members of the House, raises the stakes for Republican leaders, who are already on a time crunch, as President Donald Trump has urged a bipartisan continuing resolution, a stopgap measure that would avert a shutdown by funding the government by the deadline of March 14.

The letter is likely a response to statements by Democrats such as Sen. Patty Murray….

The letter’s signatories warn against that, writing, “We understand that Democrats are insisting that any government funding deal include policy provisions that would tie the hands of the President and prohibit DOGE from continuing their efforts to promote transparency and accountability in government spending.”

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, who signed the letter, told The Daily Signal in a statement that he’s dead set against any deal that would cripple the administration in the early days of its mandate.

“We stand with President Trump and the American people,” said Lee. “We will not allow any government funding package to sabotage his mandate to reform the federal government, drain the swamp, and save taxpayer dollars.”

Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., a chief advocate of the letter, told The Daily Signal in a statement, “Republicans must work together to stop Democrats’ efforts to obstruct and undermine President Trump’s agenda, and ensure the President can continue to deliver and Make America Great Again.”

This warning to Republican leadership has teeth, too.

If all of the signatories were to make good on their promise not to vote for a continuing resolution that accedes to Democrats’ demands, leadership would be unable to reach the simple majority needed to pass a continuing resolution in the House, or the 60 votes needed to end debate in the Senate….

The letter concludes with a promise – the 20 signatories will refuse to vote for any continuing resolution that would curb DOGE’s power….

Where Can We Find Peace?

My Come Follow Me studies for this week took me to Doctrine and Covenants 19 in a lesson titled “Learn of Me.” The lesson was introduced by the following information. 

It took Martin and Lucy Harris years to acquire one of the finest farms in Palmyra, New York. But in 1829 it became clear that the Book of Mormon could be published only if Martin mortgaged his farm to pay the printer. Martin had a testimony of the Book of Mormon, but Lucy did not. If Martin went forward with the mortgage and the Book of Mormon did not sell well, he would lose his farm, put his marriage at risk, and damage his reputation in the community. Although our circumstances are different from Martin’s, at some time or another we all face difficult questions like those he faced: What is the gospel of Jesus Christ worth to me? What am I willing to sacrifice to help build God’s kingdom? Martin Harris ultimately decided that he would mortgage his farm so the first 5,000 copies of the Book of Mormon could be printed. But even this sacrifice—and any sacrifice we might make—is small compared to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, “the greatest of all” (Doctrine and Covenants 19:18), who bled from every pore to save the repentant.

The scripture block contained the following principles: (1) “I, God, am endless” (Doctrine and Covenants 19:1-12, (2) Jesus Christ suffered so that I can repent and come unto Him (Doctrine and Covenants 19:15-20), (3) Peace comes from learning of Jesus Christ and following Him (Doctrine and Covenants 19:23), and God’s blessings are greater than the treasures of the earth (Doctrine and Covenants 19:26-41).

I feel prompted to discuss principle #3, Peace comes from learning of Jesus Christ and following Him. I will begin by sharing the scripture reference, Doctrine and Covenants 19:23.

23 Learn of me, and listen to my words; walk in the meekness of my Spirit, and you shall have peace in me.

This verse gives the steps to finding peace in Jesus Christ: (1) learn about Him, (2) study what He has said, and (3) be humble and obedient and follow the promptings of the Holy Ghost.

In Doctrine and Covenants 19, we learn some important information about Jesus Christ. First, He introduces Himself. Second, He discusses repentance and the reasons why mortals need to repent. Third, He tells us of His experience in atoning for our sins. There is much more in the scripture block, but my purposes are covered in these few verses.

15 Therefore I command you to repent—repent, lest I smite you by the rod of my mouth, and by my wrath, and by my anger, and your sufferings be sore—how sore you know not, how exquisite you know not, yea, how hard to bear you know not.

16 For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent;

17 But if they would not repent they must suffer even as I;

18 Which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit—and would that I might not drink the bitter cup, and shrink—

19 Nevertheless, glory be to the Father, and I partook and finished my preparations unto the children of men.

20 Wherefore, I command you again to repent, lest I humble you with my almighty power; and that you confess your sins, lest you suffer these punishments of which I have spoken, of which in the smallest, yea, even in the least degree you have tasted at the time I withdrew my Spirit. (Doctrine and Covenants 19:15-20; emphasis added)

President Henry B. Eyring of the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints spoke about peace and how to find it. He shared five truths that he found in the teachings of the Savior about peace. (“Finding Personal Peace,” Liahona, May 2023, 29–31)

First, the gift of peace is given after we have the faith to keep His commandments. For those who are covenant members of the Lord’s Church, obedience is what we have already promised to do.

Second, the Holy Ghost will come and abide with us. The Lord says that as we continue to be faithful, the Holy Ghost will dwell in us. That is the promise in the sacramental prayer that the Spirit will be our companion and that we will feel, in our hearts and minds, His comfort.

Third, the Savior promises that as we keep our covenants, we can feel the love of the Father and the Son for each other and for us. We can feel Their closeness in our mortal lives, just as we will when we are blessed to be with Them forever.

Fourth, keeping the Lord’s commandments requires more than obedience. We are to love God with all our heart, might, mind, and soul.

Those who do not love Him do not keep His commandments. And so they will not have the gift of peace in this life and in the world to come.

Fifth, it is clear that the Lord loved us enough to pay the price of our sins so that we can—through our faith in Him and our repentance, through the effects of His Atonement—have the gift of the peace that “passeth all understanding,” in this life and with Him eternally.

Another source for learning about the peace that Jesus Christ offers is this video “Peace in Christ.”