Nicholas Kristof Quotes

Can anyone seriously imagine a society without stable families? Maybe we should raise all the kids in state orphanages.

Real family values have gone down the drain in modern families.

Social conservatives are very focused on strengthening the family, and I think they are right to do so. One of the worst blind spots of the Left has been its reluctance to say that marriage matters for children.

Child care is a family issue—not a government issue.

Frankly, one of the problems we have in the country is we're not forming enough families. And that is hurting our economic work, and it's hurting our economic projections, because the best place for a child is within a strong family unit.

I'm considered homophobic and crazy about these things and old fashioned. But I think that the family - father, mother, children - is fundamental to our civilisation.

Conservatives highlight the primacy of family and argue that family breakdown exacerbates poverty, and they're right. Children raised by single parents are three times as likely to live in poverty as kids in two-parent homes.

I know in my own marriage I stayed in it to provide my son with what I thought was a stable background and to give him what I thought was the family life a child should have with two parents. But that isn't always the best way, and it took me taking my son to therapy after the divorce to really see it.

People think that child-support enforcement benefits children, but it doesn't.

The institution of marriage holds society together. We can't replace the family.

I come from very conservative parents, and we weren't particularly wealthy, but we were comfortable.

Marriage is built around complementarity of the sexes, and therefore the institution of marriage is a support for stable families and societies.

That thing, 'You must stay together for the kids', is out of fashion but is right. It's not arguing parents that children don't like, it is having one parent.

Cultures need stable families to raise stable children.

Awareness has changed so that every act for children, every piece of legislation recognizes that children are part of families and that it is within families that children grow and thrive—or don’t.

I've never wanted my kid faced with the idea of, 'Who's the fat guy sitting in the living room? What the hell is he doing?' I figure I might as well go to work so he can say his dad works.

When you're making a decision that involves your children a certain amount of clarity comes with it.

Look, my mother's not a welfare woman. She certainly had plenty of help. But there's no substitute for a husband and partner.

I understand that every parent wants the best for their child because I want the best for my children too.

The family has always been the cornerstone of American society.

It is my view that our society can be no more stable than the foundation of individual family units upon which it rests. Our government, our institutions, our schools...indeed, our way of life are dependent on healthy marriages and loyalty to the vulnerable little children around our feet.

But ultimately, the purpose of marriage is to transmit civilization to the next generation. There has never been an institution that does it as well as marriage, and that is marriage between a man and a woman.

They have taken the care and upbringing of children out of the hands of parents, where it belongs, and thrown it upon a gang of irresponsible and unintelligent quacks.

The welfare of our children is our main concern, and their best interests are our first priority.