IV 
119TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. RES. 735 
Supporting the designation of the month of July as ‘‘American Families 
Month’’. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
SEPTEMBER 18, 2025 
Mr. CLOUD (for himself and Mr. MOORE of Alabama) submitted the following 
resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Education and Workforce 
RESOLUTION 
Supporting the designation of the month of July as 
‘‘American Families Month’’. 
Whereas parents are the first and primary caretakers and 
educators of their children; 
Whereas the 2022 Joint Economic Report states that ‘‘the 
most intimate and central form of social capital is the 
family—an institution with primary responsibility for 
nurturing and transmitting societal values to the next 
generation of children. Strong families enable investment 
in the human capital of children that increases their 
skills and productivity as adults, leading to increased 
long-run economic growth.’’; 
Whereas parents equip the next generation with the skills, 
morals, and ideals necessary to create a functioning soci-
ety; 
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•HRES 735 IH 
Whereas family structure is the basic building block of society 
upon which civilization rests; 
Whereas former Chair of the Boston University Department 
of Sociology, Brigitte Berger, has written that ‘‘the nu-
clear family provided the emerging democratic capitalist 
societies of the West with their organizing principles and 
moral charter’’ and ‘‘the degree to which this particular 
type of family gave shape and meaning to the political 
and economic institutions of modern democratic societies 
is so pronounced and lasting that family and culture have 
become inextricably intertwined’’; 
Whereas healthy marriages between a man and a woman are 
an unmitigated good for families and society; 
Whereas the nuclear family is an integral part of American 
society; 
Whereas Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in 1831, ‘‘There is cer-
tainly no country in the world where the tie of marriage 
is more respected than in America.’’; 
Whereas the stability and security of the nuclear family have 
contributed to and are the most effective at providing a 
social safety net; 
Whereas the social safety net a healthy family provides con-
tributes to a culture of entrepreneurship and risk-taking 
which has resulted in unprecedented innovation and en-
terprise; 
Whereas healthy families contribute to safer neighborhoods, 
towns, and cities; 
Whereas Harvard sociologist Robert Sampson concluded that 
‘‘family structure is one of the strongest, if not the 
strongest, predictor[s] of variations in urban violence 
across cities in the United States’’; 
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•HRES 735 IH 
Whereas University of Virginia sociologist Brad Wilcox and 
colleagues found that ‘‘the share of single parents in a 
neighborhood, it turns out, is a bigger predictor of incar-
ceration in adulthood than race, education, and poverty 
in a neighborhood’’; 
Whereas family stability is the best predictor of outcomes for 
children; 
Whereas former Princeton professor and sociologist Sara 
McLanahan concluded in her study ‘‘Fragile Families 
and the Reproduction of Poverty’’ that ‘‘non-marital 
childbearing reproduces class and racial disparities 
through its association with partnership instability and 
multi-partnered fertility’’; 
Whereas the ‘‘Fragile Families and the Reproduction of Pov-
erty’’ study also states that ‘‘children who live with stably 
single mothers and children who live with mothers who 
experience multiple partnership changes show higher lev-
els of aggression and anxiety/depression than children 
who live with stably married parents’’; 
Whereas stably married families provide the optimal condi-
tions for positive outcomes for children; 
Whereas marriage and the nuclear family are among the 
most effective means to combat poverty; 
Whereas, according to the Centers for Disease Control and 
Prevention, marriage rates fell to an all-time low in 2020; 
and 
Whereas declining marriage rates and family formation pose 
a threat to the social and economic well-being of the 
United States: Now, therefore, be it 
Resolved, That the House of Representatives— 
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•HRES 735 IH 
(1) recognizes that stably married mothers and 
fathers provide the best outcomes for children; 
(2) recognizes the importance that the nuclear 
family has played in the success and prosperity of 
the United States; 
(3) acknowledges the far-reaching detrimental 
impacts that declining marriage rates have on the 
United States; 
(4) calls for policies that support nuclear fami-
lies and remove barriers to family formation; and 
(5) supports the designation of ‘‘American 
Families Month’’ to raise awareness about the im-
portance and benefits of strong, stably married fami-
lies and to call the general public to actions that 
support and build strong, stably married families. 
Æ 
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