(Them Before Us) — When Taylor Swift began dating Travis Kelce, few anticipated the cultural earthquake that would follow. NFL viewership among women aged 18–49 surged by 63 percent during the 2023 season, with teenage girls seeing a 53 percent increase in viewership. Kelce’s jersey sales skyrocketed 400 percent. America’s biggest pop star had turned football into must-watch TV for millions of new fans. The relationship became a phenomenon that transcended sports and entertainment, capturing the nation’s attention in ways that seemed almost unprecedented.
Now, with news of their engagement breaking, sociologist Brad Wilcox and others have joked that it will affect marriage and birth rates across the country. We might be tempted to laugh at the idea that people base major life decisions on the celebrities they follow – but don’t be so sure. Cultural symbols have a way of quietly shaping what people consider normal and desirable.
Expect a spike in marriage.
Taylor & Travis put a ring on it: pic.twitter.com/sTN2PLGMSv
— Brad Wilcox (@BradWilcoxIFS) August 26, 2025
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Consider MTV’s 16 and Pregnant (and related sequels). The show itself became a cultural phenomenon more than a decade ago – nowhere near the scale or depth of the Swift/Kelce attachment, but still widely watched. Research suggests its run led to a 4.3-5.7 percent reduction in teen births in just two years (depending on the study you look at). Why did it move the needle? Because viewers didn’t just watch characters; they entered real lives. Week after week, they saw the very real difficulty of raising a child without the guarantees of a married partner – the loneliness, the financial strain, the fragile relationships. That first-hand window created empathy and caution at the same time. If a single reality program can do that, what might America’s most influential celebrity couple do for marriage?
Marriage: A child’s first right
For those who care about children, we should be genuinely encouraged – not because celebrities are flawless, but because marriage between a child’s own mother and father secures a child’s first right. Here at Them Before Us, we start with a simple conviction: children have a right to their mother and father, and adults should do hard things so children don’t have to.
Kids don’t thrive in married homes merely because those homes tend to have more resources. They flourish because marriage binds them to their mother and father – the two adults with the deepest biological bond, the strongest protective impulse, and the most enduring investment in their good.
That bond isn’t theoretical. It’s safety. The presence of a child’s biological parents is the strongest firewall against abuse and neglect; remove one biological parent, and the risk profile changes dramatically (long observed in the research literature as the “Cinderella effect”). It’s identity. Children draw a stable sense of self from both halves of their story – mother and father. When we intentionally separate kids from their mother or father (by design, not tragedy), we impose a wound that no amount of later resources can fully mend. And it’s formation. Mothers and fathers offer distinct, complementary gifts – a mother’s embodied attunement and early nurture; a father’s orienting play, challenge, and protective presence. Take away either, and you don’t just reduce inputs; you remove something irreplaceable.
So, when we say, “marriage is good for kids,” we’re not making a resource-distribution claim. We’re naming a child-rights reality: marriage most reliably delivers what children need – their own mom and dad, together, for the long haul. That’s why, across social determinants – education, income stability, mental health, addiction, even housing security – the pattern is strikingly consistent: children raised by their married biological parents experience the strongest outcomes, not because marriage is a proxy for money, but because it secures relationship, identity, and protection.
Pop culture disciples
And this is why the Swift–Kelce moment matters beyond the headlines. Pop culture doesn’t just entertain; it disciples. First and foremost, our kids are being discipled by what they follow. So we should ask: Who are we letting our kids follow? What content do they attach their hearts to?
Even more introspectively, how are we running our own “PR firm” at home – modeling a life that commends commitment, sacrifice, and family?
Each of us has a platform to influence our kids, our neighbors, our church, and our extended family. How are we using it?
If Taylor and Travis make commitment aspirational – even without explicitly preaching “marriage first” – that alone will likely move thousands of private decisions at the margins, including some that would otherwise have resulted in children born outside wedlock. Cultural esteem for commitment that lifts the likelihood of marriage at all, will have good child-level consequences.
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A qualified alignment worth applauding
Swift and Kelce’s engagement offers a limited but real alignment with what’s best for children: adults publicly committing to one another before having kids. Does that guarantee mutual sacrifice or lifelong love? No. Could it still unravel next week? Yes. But one public choice so far is unambiguously child-benefiting – the sequence. By choosing marriage before children, they’ve modeled the right first step, and that signal alone is likely to shape thousands of private decisions for the better.
Stewarding the moment
The question isn’t whether pop culture influences major life decisions – it does. The question is how we steward that influence. We should be careful what our children attach to. We should use whatever platforms we have – at home, in our churches and neighborhoods, and online – to celebrate the right things. And in this case, we should applaud a move toward marriage insofar as it nudges countless couples to make a choice they might not have made otherwise – especially when current sexual behavior could have led to a child born outside the protections of marriage.
We’re not claiming the Swift–Kelce relationship is somehow “promoting responsible sex” or planning “kids in wedlock.” We’re highlighting that pop-culture esteem for commitment can make marriage more likely – and that is good for children. If this moment helps normalize “marriage first” – or honestly, marriage at all – that is an unmitigated good for kids.
If a reality show about teen pregnancy could measurably reduce births to unmarried teens, imagine what sustained cultural messaging about the joys of marriage and child-first family formation could accomplish. The Swift Effect might just be getting started – and if we are intentional with our own influence, we can help re-normalize the family structure that puts children first.
Reprinted with permission from Them Before Us.
