Katy Faust - Them Before Us: Why We Need a Global Childrens Rights Movement

Advance Praise for Them Before Us

Katy Fausts voice is as essential as it is unique, and her vital work over the last decade has culminated in this eminently well-reasoned and important book. Her focus is on three particular types of family dynamics that untold millions of children are increasingly being subjected to today: widespread divorce and ever-expanding stepfamilies, the contractually donor-conceived, and intentionally motherless and fatherless same-sex families. How are the children in these homes faring? Katy is one of the few people even asking this question, and her book provides the answers. She contends, correctly, that we must put Them (the children) Before Us (the adults).

Glenn T. Stanton, director of global family formation studies at Focus on the Family and author of Loving My (LGBT) Neighbor, The Ring Makes All the Difference , and The Myth of the Dy ing Church

An essential read in moments like ours, Faust and Mannings Them Before Us offers an important intervention into a world increasingly defined by the needs, desires, and fashions of adults by foregrounding our most vulnerable: children . In so doing, they animate an altogether different conversation about marriage and family, one that centers on the care of children and the cultivating of a context that is most receptive to their needs and, critically, protective of their rights.

Mobeen Vaid, Muslim Chaplain at George Mason University

Katy Faust and Stacy Manning have a knack for defending important truths in a culture that wants to ignore them. In Them Before Us: Why We Need a Global Childrens Rights Movement they provide a do-it-yourself manual for effectively defending children. This book will equip any reader who wants to join the movement.

Ryan T. Anderson, Ph.D., author of When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment and Truth Overruled: The Future of Marriage and Religio us Freedom

A society that does not prioritize the well-being of children will not ultimately survive. And childrens well-being is best served when they are raised by their own biological mother and father. In Them Before Us , Katy Faust and Stacy Manning build a strong case that adults do children a terrible injustice when they accept policies and practices that intentionally deny a child a connection to one or both of their parents. They (children) should come before us (adults).

Nancy Pearcey, professor and scholar in residence at Houston Baptist University, author of Total Truth and Lov e Thy Body

New parents are often advised to get on their hands and knees and crawl around the room to discover outlets, sharp edges, and other dangers that can only be perceived from a childs perspective. Katy Faust is calling on all of the adults in the roomparents, policymakers, all of usto do something just as radical. Them Before Us is a paradigm-shifting examination of the social, legal, and cultural decisions of recent decades from the eyes of the child, and the dangers revealed are absolutely devastating.

Cathy Ruse, JD, Senior Legal Fellow, Family Research Council

Finally! A book that speaks to me as a parent and as a lawmaker about the need to protect children from much of the worlds craziness, including the breakdown of the family. In Them Before Us: Why We Need a Global Childrens Rights Movement, Katy Faust and Stacy Manning offer wisdom and insight about why the rights of children must be prioritized over the desires of adults. If you are a lawmaker or are otherwise passionate about improving the lives of children, trust me, this is a must-read.

Rep. Fred Deutsch, South Dakota

If you want the no-holds-barred truth about whats best for kids, look no further than Faust and Mannings Them Before Us . This is the only book on the market that has strategically laid out all the reasons why childrens needs must come before adult desires and makes the arguments for you so you dont have to. Not only is it a great read, it gives you the why and the data for all those things you know to be true but lack the words to convey.

Suzanne Venker, Author and Marriage Coach

Faust and Manning will take you on a comprehensive and heart-wrenching tour of the damage done to kids when adult desires are privileged over childrens rights to their own biological mother and father. But they wont leave you in the ruins. At the end of each chapter, theyll offer practical suggestions to begin rebuilding a culture that prioritizes kids best interests. Read Them Before Us , and be ready to do the hard things adults must do so that children wont have to.

Mark Regnerus, Professor of Sociology, The University of Texas at Austin

Them Before Us recasts all debates about all other rights. It brilliantly articulates the need to enshrine in law the right of every child to the marriage of its biological parents, a right that comes with the existence they gave it at conception. To the degree this right is honored, not only the child, but whole nations will thrive or wilt.

Pat Fagan, Ph.D. Director of the Marriage and Religion Research Institute, The Catholic University of America

One of the most consistent and most destructive myths of the sexual revolution is the kids will be fine. No-fault divorce? The kids will be fine. Homes without a mom and dad? The kids will be fine. Artificial reproductive technologies that separates kids from their biological moms and dads? The kids will be fine. Same-sex parenting? The kids will be fine. They arent, and Katy Faust has emerged as perhaps their most thoughtful and fierce advocate, as you will see in this book.

John Stonestreet, President, the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview

Amidst the legal scuffling over no-fault divorce, marriage equality, and the unregulated fields of surrogacy and in-vitro-fertilization, so many have lost sight of, perhaps, the most vulnerable members of society whose suffering has been the unforeseen unintended consequence of our own self-absorption: children. This trailblazing work by Katy Faust and Stacy Manning provides significant cause for reflection and a most ethical rationalization for opposing the flawed notion that a child merely needs the love of anyone in order to have a healthy upbringing. Consent-supremacy in the validation of adult sexual relationships has ignored the psycho-emotional and developmental needs of children to the extent that the harm caused remains hidden from the public. Enter Them B efore Us .

Dr. Abdullah b. Hamid Ali, Assistant Professor of Islamic Law, Zaytuna College, Berkeley, CA

As the sexual revolution continues to hack away at societys investment in the best interests of children, robbing millions of what should be their immutable right to be raised by both their biological mother and father under the same roof, Katy Faust has emerged as the 21st centurys most important voice standing up for kids. Them Before Us: Why We Need a Global Childrens Rights Movement is a clarion call to put children first and to end the era of adult selfishness and shortsightedness, trumping our childrens happiness and security.

Doug Mainwaring, journalist, pro-family activist, married (to a woman) same-sex attracted man

The breakdown of the intact, married family has been a disaster for American children. In Them Before Us , Katy Faust and Stacy Manning offer an incisive and deeply disturbing account of the ways in which children have paid the biggest price for the erosion of marriage. As they make clear, this is an issue that Republicans who are concerned about limited government must confront insofar as the size and scope of government balloons when the family falls. And this is an issue that Democrats who are concerned about poverty and the health of the American Dream must confront insofar as children raised in non-intact families are much more likely to grow up in poverty as children and end up poor as adults. This is an important book for everyone who is concerned about the welfare of children in America today.