Children’s Needs Are Greater Than Adults’ Desires (Trending with Timmerie)

NOTE: This article features some sensitive topics that may not be suitable for younger readers. Please use discretion. On an episode of Trending, Timmerie warned that the last decade has brought a hard lesson: when society rearranges marriage around disordered appetites, children end up carrying the consequences. Reflecting on the 2015 Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges that legalized homosexual marriages, she argued that what many assumed was only about adult relationships has reshaped the legal and cultural understanding of family in ways that directly affect kids. In her view, the most serious issue is the misconception that mothers and fathers are interchangeable. Timmerie said that when law and culture treat a child’s bond to a mother and a father as optional, stability suffers. She connected this to a broader loss of clarity about identity, how children understand themselves as male or female, and how they relate to their biological parents. She also challenged the common claim that children can simply “bounce back” from these upheavals. “I’ve heard for so long that children are resilient,” said Timmerie. “But the fact is, they aren’t.” She pointed to concrete examples of how the new framework shows up in everyday life: altered birth records, language that replaces “mother” and “father” with generic labels, and systems that can make it harder for children to know where they came from. For Timmerie, these shifts signal a deeper message that parents can be substituted, and that a child’s natural, fundamental need for both mother and father can be dismissed. From there, she turned to technologies and industries she believes have accelerated the problem, especially IVF and surrogacy. While these are often presented as compassionate solutions for infertility, Timmerie argued that they have expanded into something far larger: a lucrative marketplace where children can be commissioned. In her telling, once the family is treated as something adults assemble, it becomes easier for bad actors to exploit those systems. She referenced stories she says have been reported and discussed on the program, including cases where children obtained through IVF and surrogacy were placed in abusive situations. Timmerie’s broader point was that children should never be treated as products. “We do not have a right to just get children however we want,” she said. “They are not a commodity.” She contrasted this with adoption, which she described as responding to a child already in need, rather than intentionally creating a situation where a child is separated from a biological mother or father from the start. She highlighted the Greater Than campaign, a national effort calling for the overturning of Obergefell, and summed up the motivation in one clear line: “Children’s needs are greater than adults’ desires.” Finally, she rooted her argument in Catholic teaching on marriage as a permanent, faithful union between one man and one woman, ordered toward the good of spouses and the procreation and education of children. The best way to listen to the Best of the Week is on our #1 Free Catholic App. It’s free, and always will be! To get and share the Relevant Radio app, check it out here.