Welcome back to Sunday Night in America. We used to hear the phrase family values a lot, and now it seems our culture struggles with how to define either family or values. Someone once wrote, It takes a village, but now saying children do better with both a mother and a father in the home is somehow controversial. What are these values that make family the foundation of an organized society? How do we account for those among us who did not have the benefit of growing up in a loving home? And are there any values or virtues we can all agree upon, or has America become the land of relativism? Joining us is the author of The Perilist Fight, former HUD Secretary, former GOP presidential candidate, and neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson. Welcome, Dr. Carson. Thank you for joining us. When you hear the phrase family values, what comes to your mind?

Well, thanks for having me, Trey. The family in America has been foundational. It's the building block for the community and for the whole society. And those values generally are passed on through the family, but they will come from someplace. What has been happening in our society is that they're not now getting them from their traditional family. They're getting them from the Internet, from social media, from their friends on the street. And those values that made us great are faltering. Our faith, our system of belief in community, liberty, life. All of those things have been tossed to the side. And we're seeing things devolve as a result of that. The traditional American family is disappearing. All you have to do is look at any television series. Almost before you get into it, some alternative to the traditional family is presented, not only as acceptable, but as the preferred method of moving forward. And if you're seeing that from the time that you're a child, it can have a profound effect. What is so important, and one of the points I wanted to get across in the book is, America has been different from many other countries in the world.

We stand in the way of the Marxist philosophy. You cannot overcome us militarily. The only way you're going to overcome us is internally. If you want to come to the very foundation of that society and their strength, you go after the family.

Look, I haven't done the research you've done, but I've done enough to know Dr. Carson. When I'm asked, How do you avoid poverty? My answer is, Finish high school a minimum and wait to have children until you can afford it. The formula for avoiding dependency on government and poverty is pretty simple, but yet that's become controversial to say that. I mean, what is controversial about saying, Finish school and don't have kids until you can afford it.

Well, you've crystallized the findings for the Brooklyn Institute and Princeton University. They look together at causes of poverty. Finish high school, wait until you're married to have children and get a job. If you do that, your chances of living in poverty are 2% or less. We used to know that. Nobody had to tell us that. All of a sudden, it's become a revelation. Both the conservative and the liberal think tanks and research organizations all show the same thing. That is that children who are raised in a traditional nuclear family do better on virtually all parameters.

Dr. Ben Carson, the book is The Paraless Fight. He's used to working on our brains, but he's got a book about our soul. Thank you for joining us on a Sunday night.

A pleasure.

Thank you so much. Hey, Sean Hannity here. Hey, click here to subscribe to Fox News YouTube page and catch our hottest interviews and most compelling analysis. You will not get it anywhere else.