5 Questions With Family Studies: Introducing Carter Skeel

On April 7, the Institute for Family Studies announced the appointment of Carter Skeel as our new Executive Director. Carter is stepping into this important role as Michael Toscano pivots to full time leadership of our Family First Technology Initiative. We are delighted to welcome Carter—who previously served as Director of Institutional Advancement for the influential online and print magazine, First Things—to lead the IFS team. To help our readers get to know Carter a little better, I asked him a few questions about his background and his vision for IFS (this interview has been edited for clarity). 

Alysse ElHage: How did you first learn about the Institute for Family Studies?

Carter Skeel: I first came across the work of Brad Wilcox and IFS back in 2016 when a friend sent me an article about the Success Sequence. Nine years later, here we are! Interestingly, Brad actually met his wife, in part, because of First Things, spotting her in the UVA library with a copy of the magazine on her desk. Before starting the conversation with IFS about becoming Executive Director, it was fun to work with him to use this little anecdote in promotional materials for First Things! 

ElHage: You come to IFS from First Things. How will your experience in leading the business management of First Things help support your new role at IFS?

Skeel: I was brought on as Director of Development in 2021 with a charge to grow charitable support for First Things. On that count, we certainly succeeded! When I started, First Things was raising around $2.3 million a year. Last year, we raised $3.2 million. In the process, though, we realized that the greater need—and perhaps opportunity—was higher up the funnel. Namely, how are we attracting new readers, nurturing them into regular ones, and converting them into subscribers? In addition to precipitating a few significant changes, including a new website, these questions also unfolded a number of even more fundamental questions about our mission, vision, and audience. In January of 2024, I was elevated to Director of Institutional Advancement to address these questions. It was an exciting challenge, and one that I think equipped me well for my new role with IFS. IFS is producing such vital, quality work. I want to get that work in front of more people. I’m confident we can. 

IFS is producing such vital, quality work. I want to get that work in front of more people. I’m confident we can. 

ElHage: Tell us a little bit about your family life. In what ways did your childhood, and especially the family you grew up in, shape your views of family and marriage, as well as your interest in leading IFS? 

Skeel: I grew up in an intact, religiously serious family. When most of your friends, neighbors, and classmates have similarly stable family situations, it’s easy to take for granted the benefits this confers. Of course, as you grow older, you start to encounter people who come from very different backgrounds. But, for me, it was J.D. Vance’s 2016 book Hillbilly Elegy that fully laid bare just how much family structure matters. Things that I had taken for granted in having a good marriage and faith role models—that education is important, that working hard is good, etc.—are not necessarily instilled in every kid. So much flows from marriage and family! Each of us has a responsibility to nurture our own healthy marriages and strong families; I’m privileged to be able to do so on a much greater scale through leading IFS. (Even as I, of course, still do so in my own marriage and family. I love you, Kelsey, Calvin, Thomas, Willa, and Elizabeth!)

We need to be honest that yes, staying married and raising children are hard, but in the same breath emphasize that they are also rich, joyful, and rewarding.

ElHage: IFS was founded over a decade ago and has developed from a small but influential organization to enjoy tremendous growth over the last several years. What is your vision for IFS going forward? 

Skeel: I’ll be very honest. When I look at the mission of IFS, my first thought is: I want IFS to be, and it should be, a $10 million plus organization. I recognize it’s a bit risky to put myself on the record here! And I’m deeply grateful to Brad, Michael, the board, and the great team they have already assembled for putting IFS in a position to dream big. As threats to marriage and family grow more acute, the need for an organization like IFS has never been greater. There’s a common-sense aspect to the work of IFS that some other policy and research organizations don’t have. If you come from a good family situation, you want others to enjoy similar benefits. If you came from a bad one, you recognize just how important marriage and family are to human flourishing. If I succeed as Executive Director, it will be because I’ve succeeded in channeling these passions toward advancing constructive policy solutions, groundbreaking research, and influential public education about the goods of marriage and family. 

ElHage: As the father of young children, what would you say are the most pressing issues facing married parents today? 

Skeel: I’m a bit nervous to speak too definitively here, lest I be quickly corrected by one of my colleagues with data in hand. But from where I sit, two concerns come immediately to mind. First, a lack of support as society continues to atomize. This is felt by my peers on many levels. On the family level, there’s this trope of the Boomer grandparents that prefer to travel and spend money rather than helping out with their grandkids that I think is sadly true in some cases. On a societal level, parents increasingly feel unwelcome in public spaces, whether it’s complaints about kids on airplanes or humor at the expense of parents with more than a few kids. (With four kids under six, I’ve heard every one of these jokes…) And on a political level, there’s a sense that marriage and family are not being supported as the vital institutions they are—indeed, as institutions of existential and civilizational importance.

Second, as fewer people have firsthand experience in marriage and family-raising, misconceptions multiply about what it is and entails. Among marriage and family skeptics or critics, this often takes the form of emphasizing both how hard having kids is and how much better and freer being single is. This then leads some marriage and family proponents to discount how hard marriage and family-raising are. We need to be honest that yes, staying married and raising children are hard, but in the same breath emphasize that they are also rich, joyful, and rewarding.