DiscussMormonism.com

For adults who aren’t married, like myself, contributing to a culture of marriage might feel foreign and intimidating. Personal preparation for marriage through self-improvement and being religiously active is one way to contribute. Another way is to help married couples keep their relationship strong, such as babysitting for a couple’s date nights, and being part of a community that values marriage.

https://www.deseret.com/faith/2023/2/25 ... ious-nones

What's prompted Hanna to take such a significant action as "babysitting" in defence of the institution of marriage?

Instead of hearing wedding bells ring, lately there’s been a funeral dirge for the institution of marriage. With marriage rates hitting historic lows in recent years (and recovering only slightly), romance seems dead. While the reasons for this are multifaceted, we can’t ignore how religiosity is plummeting simultaneously.

Religious “nones” — those who have no religious affiliation — are trending toward the majority. Similarly, the marriage rate is below 50% for U.S. adults, and younger generations are less inclined toward marriage, according to studies.

Hanna fails to note that religion has failed to embrace marriage between same sex couples. In fact, those religions have actively fought against the suggestion that two people who love each other should be able to get married, regardless of their genders. Perhaps that's why religion is in decline - a failure to recognise that society doesn't want the kind of discrimination that those religions peddle week in, week out.

Nonreligious couples value commitment and some of them choose to get married, but they are more likely to cohabit than religious couples are. This, among other factors, has propelled marriage to become “increasingly an institution of the highly religious,” as Brian J. Willoughby said.

Yes. Religions are becoming increasingly concentrated by fanatics. And babysitting just ain't a cure for that kind of harmful zealotry. I'm also not convinced it's a great way of finding a partner to marry.

The article sort of comes off as akin to a chain smoker talking about how to support smokers who have already quit.

I am glad that Hanna survived her brush with fringe right-wing activism and now has a decent gig writing about babysitting instead of for the political cult of Deseret Nation.

The Bishop immediately put me and my young fiancée/wife into primary. Presumably to encourage us to have kids.

It seemed to have the opposite effect on us. I’m not sure her babysitting idea would help.

I don't see anything that objectionable in what she wrote. Definitely there were relevant facts left out, but I think it is pretty clear that children of two-parent households do better on average.

I think this is a lot healthier subject for her to write about than what she formerly did.