Friends,
Did you know the Heritage Foundation is prepping a sequel to Project 2025, called “Saving America by Saving the Family”? I didn’t, but when I found out, I read all 170 pages.
The most common response when I shared it: “Thank you — I didn’t even know this existed.”
That’s the problem. And it’s why, as Dads, we’re doing something about it.
On June 10, Dads for All is hosting a free, live webinar — Dads Don’t Fit in Your Box: Redefining Family, Fatherhood, and Flourishing. Register here.
Here’s why it matters.
If you think this is just another policy paper that will gather dust, consider this: as of February 2026, the Trump administration had already proposed, attempted, or completed more than 53% of the original Project 2025’s 532 tracked actions, according to the Center for Progressive Reform. These people are not playing around. The sequel deserves the same attention.
This report isn’t getting much attention amidst the noise, but it should. It defines which families count. It frames involved fathers outside of marriage as a symptom of cultural failure. And it has already started becoming federal policy — starting with how infrastructure dollars get distributed. In January 2025, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy issued a directive prioritizing communities with above-average marriage and birth rates for federal infrastructure grants. That’s not a proposal. It’s already happening..
Here’s what the report actually says underneath the pro-family language.
They have one definition of what a family should look like, and they want to use the whole government to enforce that. Think about all the amazing ways that people in your community come together to build families — across different structures, backgrounds, and circumstances. Well, this report essentially says: nah, you ain’t good enough. Every grant, protection, and policy should reinforce their one type of family. If yours doesn’t fit, you don’t only lose support. You’re framed as part of the problem.
By the report’s own data, 41% of American children do not live in the married, two-parent household it treats as the only valid foundation for society. Their policy framework would direct every federal agency to prioritize the other 59% and treat the rest as a cultural failure to be corrected.
That is not a defense of family. That is a government-enforced audit of it.
This report gets modern fatherhood completely wrong. It frames a dad’s role strictly as a married breadwinner. If you’re not that one type of dad — it doesn’t even matter if you’re involved or not — you get discarded.
This generation of dads is not playing that game anymore.
And then there’s this: the report believes the demise of American families is because women have career aspirations. The audacity! It proposes a tax credit explicitly designed to make staying home financially competitive with paid work. The corrosive lie that when women succeed, men lose — this report amplifies and perpetuates it. They call that pro-family. I call it rewinding women’s rights about 75 years.
They say they want to save families. But a form of cultural indoctrination with a preordained life script — graduate, get married, have some kids, in that order — enforced through the power of the government? That’s not an attempt to save families. That is a government-enforced audit.
And dads are done accepting it.
So we’re responding.
This isn’t a rebuttal for its own sake. It’s a conversation about what we’re actually seeing on the ground — the hunger among fathers to be present and connected, what it takes to build real community across different family structures, and what a genuine vision of family flourishing looks like when it’s built by the people doing the work, not handed down from a policy paper.
Dads Don’t Fit in Your Box: Redefining Family, Fatherhood, and Flourishing
Wednesday, June 10 at 12 p.m. Eastern
Free | Register here
We’ve pulled together a remarkable group:
Dr. Cassandra Bolar — National African American Child & Family Research Center, University of West Georgia
Haley Swenson — Better Life Lab, New America
Kareem Chadly — Founder, Dads Evoking Change
Jon Gromek — Ignatian Solidarity Network / Dads for All Cleveland
Justin Cohen — Co-Founder, Dads for All
And myself, as host and moderator
We’ll break down the most chilling elements of the Heritage report, hear from researchers and practitioners about what the data actually shows, and spend real time in conversation — including small group breakouts where you can go deeper on whatever matters most to you.
This is the conversation our field needs to be having right now. I’d love to have you there.
And if you know someone who should be in the room — please pass this along.
In Big Dad Energy we trust,
Mohan
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