Kristof (this is an opinion piece, not an nees article or even an editorial by the paper, so it represents the author’s thinking, not the NYT’s nececssarily) is wrong.
The reason people are reluctant to really explore the nature and role of the “breakdown of the family” (especially people like Kristof who throw it out as a facile explanation, who are not at all, contrary to his description, uncommon, this line being standard on both the Republican Right and the Democratic center-right) is that that breakdown is itself a result of policies that are patronizing and racist, both in which family models they favor and in which communities they undermine family structures of all kinds.
The reason people are reluctant to really explore the nature and role of the “breakdown of the family” (especially people like Kristof who throw it out as a facile explanation, who are not at all, contrary to his description, uncommon, this line being standard on both the Republican Right and the Democratic center-right) is that that breakdown is itself a result of policies that are patronizing and racist, both in which family models they favor and in which communities they undermine family structures of all kinds.