As Christianity declines, so does the West

Religion aside

"Those of us over 30 can remember a much happier time and it wasn't that long ago."

Speak for yourself I'm much happier now , as is society as a whole.

you're talking only from :
-rose colored glasses
-nostalgia
-a longing for when the church had more influence

What my dad observed was, as life gets easier through technology, people stop going to church to seek God for help.

You also have a generational issue where kids didn't like being dragged to church every Sunday and forced to go to Sunday school, particularly of the parents were hypocritical jerks who didn't actually follow Christianity's teachings at all, and only went to church out of habit or were trying to fit into a community where everyone did it. It's particularly bad in households with CE's as we call them, (people who only attend church on Christmas and Easter and not any other time). The kids end up leaving the house as adults and choosing never to attend church ever again.

TV and pop culture don't help either. Ever since the 70s, it's been extremely uncool to be a Christian, family-oriented person, and the younger generations fell for the propaganda hook, line, and sinker. The influence of TV and movies had been particularly powerful, as has social pressure to never get married, never go to church, and indulge in all the evil stuff society wants to have, such as drugs, tons of sex, screwing over people on the way up the career ladder, destroying people's lives, hedonism, etc.

The thing is, it's happened before, if you study history. It didn't always involve Christianity, but it's been noted that other civilizations, as they rose to power and became technologically advanced, religion was eventually abandoned in favor of worshiping selfish, human vices, and eventually that civilization died due to internal corruption in their ruling body, and a stronger enemy took it all down. Just look at Rome, China, Russia, and many other civilizations that rose and fell. All the modern ones dumped spiritualism in favor of personal gain.

And now it's happening again to America.

Correlation does not imply causation.

"Half of all kids under 17 in the USA live in fatherless homes."

https://www.fatherhood.org/father-absence-statistic

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 17.8 million children, nearly 1 in 4,
live without a biological, step, or adoptive father in the home. (2022)

https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/04/number-of-children-living-only-with-their-mothers-has-doubled-in-past-50-years.html

The number of children living with two parents has dropped since 1968, while the percentage living with their mother only has doubled.

In 1968, 85% of children under 18 lived with two parents (regardless of marital status); by 2020, 70% did, according to the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey (CPS).

Looking at the chart, Children Living in Households with two parents declined from 85.4% in 1968 to maybe 67% circa 2006, before rising to 70.4% in 2020... we don't know what the trend was before 1968...

things have gotten progressively worse in the past 3 years as well....