Why A Company Focused On Highlighting Real Wholesome Families Matters

America's birth rate is catastrophic, our families are broken, and our culture celebrates everything that destroys human flourishing—but some people have figured out how to build beautiful families anyway

Yesterday Johnny and I cracked the code on something that could actually matter.

We're building a media company that documents exemplary families and creates economic incentives for family formation instead of family destruction.

The conversation started broad but crystallized around one brutal truth: while we can't rebuild civilization overnight to make it easier to be a good man and raise a big family, there are people who've managed to do it anyway. These people deserve to be highlighted, studied, and supported.

Johnny introduced me to the Mayernick family in Nashville. Mike, the patriarch, has ALS but is demonstrating what radical discipleship looks like under ultimate pressure. Seven kids—five adopted from Uganda. A thriving humanitarian organization. A home that functions as a community center where broken kids from broken families can experience what healthy family culture actually feels like.

When Johnny described visiting their house as a teenager, I got it immediately. Multiple kids from school would be there at any given time—not because the Mayernicks were trying to save the world, but because they'd built something so good that people naturally gravitated toward it.

That's what we need more of. Not sermons about family values, but actual examples of families living those values while dealing with real struggles.

The media opportunity is obvious. Hollywood is collapsing, YouTube creators are exposing themselves as frauds, and nobody is showing people what righteousness actually looks like in practice. Meanwhile, AI has democratized content creation just as the gatekeepers are losing credibility.

But here's what makes this different from typical documentary work: we're building regenerative economics into it. Every family we document gets direct financial benefit from their story. Not exploitation—partnership. They help inspire family formation, we help them fund their mission.

The revenue model works multiple ways. Wealthy families who want professional documentation of their legacy will pay premium rates for cinematic quality work. Foundations focused on strengthening American families can fund projects documenting exemplary families across different cultures and religions. Individual donors can support specific families whose stories resonate with them.

Most importantly, we're creating incentives for the right behavior instead of the wrong behavior. Current media profits from dysfunction, division, and destruction. We profit from documenting and supporting flourishing families who are already doing the work.

This isn't about creating perfect propaganda or hiding real struggles. The Mayernick family's story includes terminal illness, adoption challenges, and the daily grind of raising seven kids. But they're demonstrating that these challenges can be met with faith, love, and community support instead of bitterness, isolation, or despair.

Johnny and I both recognize this as more than a business opportunity. We're young men who want families ourselves, so documenting exemplary families serves our own formation. We get to study what works, build relationships with people worth learning from, and create content that makes family formation seem possible instead of impossible.

The timing feels providential. America's birth rate is catastrophic with no quick policy fixes. Young people are drowning in debt, distracted by addictive technologies, and told that having kids is either unaffordable or environmentally irresponsible. Meanwhile, the few families who are thriving often do it quietly, without much cultural recognition or support.

We can change that. Not through politics or policy, but through story. By showing that it's possible to raise healthy kids, build loving marriages, and contribute to the world even in this challenging cultural moment.

The first project should be the Mayernicks. Johnny has the established relationship already. We document some of Mike's final months with ALS, the family's response to crisis, their mission work in Uganda, and how they've created a culture of radical hospitality.

From there, we expand. I (Gary) am connected to an amazing Mormon family with six kids in Dripping Springs, Texas.

The goal isn't to make every family look the same, but to show different flavors of what faithfulness, love, and commitment can produce across different traditions and circumstances.

Most media companies extract value from human dysfunction. We're building one that creates value by documenting human flourishing. That feels like the kind of work God would bless.

Every story we tell makes family formation seem more possible. Every family we support demonstrates that it's worth the sacrifice. Every viewer who chooses marriage and children instead of career obsession and hedonism makes our culture a little more human.