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U.S. has world’s highest rate of children living in single-parent households (2019)

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61–70 of 124 posts

Re: U.S. has world’s highest rate of children living in single-parent households (2019)

#61

The legality and acceptability of divorce isn't mentioned but I think it should be. Single parents will be rarer in countries where divorce isn't a viable option but that doesn't mean the children are raised in healthier environments.

Exactly: having to bond with a crazy or abusive parent is what's actually unhealthy, not lacking a parent. Children grow up perfectly fine making bonds with non-parents. (See also the father/mother figure trope.) They may do it even if the parent(s) exist but were not fit for the role. In many countries extended families can help sort this out. It is only a bigger problem if you have a single parent + no extended fam…

Lone parent children can grow up fine. They very often do not.

Teachers are part of large state institutions, paid workers. They're not going to finance someone's surgery, rent, or groceries. Offloading this kind of stuff onto the state doesn't work well because the situations aren't legible and the type of support required necessitates a great deal of intimacy on the part of the benefactor and a great deal of vulnerability on the part of recipient not to mention a legitimate impetus from both parties to make things right.

I'm restrained in my ability to extrapolate, but from my personal intimate, experiences extended families don't exist in the US. We've built ourselves out of that. And even a couple hours of driving becomes a huge barrier when seeking child care. Let alone half a dozen, and that's in the cases where parents/children aren't estranged which is an increasingly common phenomena. Between that and economy, and economics... Families may well span the whole continent and it's simply infeasible to support one another.

Re: U.S. has world’s highest rate of children living in single-parent households (2019)

#62
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. As long as we're clear that a mom and dad are best, I'd agree

You're confused. Just because there is an advantage in one area that does not make something optimal. Moms and dads are great. What actually matters tho is that children are exposed to men and women who love and support them so that they can learn from them and from the dynamics of their relationships.

Okay. So you don't believe having both male and female parents is an advantage over having same sex on s anymore? I'm not talking about optimal. I'm talking about better than the alternative. All else being equal, should we prefer to place a child in sate custody with a mother and father or to same sex parents. By your statement on it being advantageous above, I'd say we should prefer mom and dad. But now you're contradicting yourself

Re: U.S. has world’s highest rate of children living in single-parent households (2019)

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly: having to bond with a crazy or abusive parent is what's actually unhealthy, not lacking a parent. Children grow up perfectly fine making bonds with non-parents. (See also the father/mother figure trope.) They may do it even if the parent(s) exist but were not fit for the role. In many countries extended families can help sort this out. It is only a bigger problem if you have a single parent + no extended fam…

Lone parent children can grow up fine. They very often do not. Teachers are part of large state institutions, paid workers. They're not going to finance someone's surgery, rent, or groceries. Offloading this kind of stuff onto the state doesn't work well because the situations aren't legible and the type of support required necessitates a great deal of intimacy on the part of the benefactor and a great deal of vulner…

Moreover few people have close friends. Men in particular report having no close friends. That means that a single mother is going to be hard pressed to find a male friend to introduce to her child and as the book 'the two parent privilege' states, stepfathers are not equivalent.

Re: U.S. has world’s highest rate of children living in single-parent households (2019)

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so? Would you describe this uniqueness so that I may understand it?

How is AB different from AA or BB? Is this a trick question?

It's definitely not a trick question.

I'm more than confident you don't mean to imply that a child gains benefit specifically because a biological man has an outie and a biological woman has an innie and because innie and outie go together and that that's the "love" that only a man and a woman can have together in that particular "arrangement" and that, again, a child benefits from that.

So, since a child's life isn't impacted by the specific configuration that a penis and vagina can happen to join in, what do you mean?

Re: U.S. has world’s highest rate of children living in single-parent households (2019)

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so? Would you describe this uniqueness so that I may understand it?

Is evolution surprising?

What does the physical act of having the form of sex that can produce a child have to do, at all, with what happens after that child is conceived?

Evolution only operates on "ability to live long enough and put oneself in a circumstance that enables making a baby."

Re: U.S. has world’s highest rate of children living in single-parent households (2019)

#66
post #54

We went from cultural conventions dating back to the Roman empire at least and upheaved them in large part. Those were staples in the social fabric which have not yet been hewn shut. It's no wonder we're replete with relational dysfunction as we've all been untethered and left to figure it out . It's confusing for both men and women, not to mention the trans folks and those outside the heteronormal sphere. Our recent…

> We went from cultural conventions dating back to the Roman empire at least and upheaved them in large part. Reading well regarded works such as The Roman Family (1992) https://books.google.com.au/books/about/The_Roman_Family.htm... strongly supports that in Roman times, just as today, there was no single concept of family. While the “nuclear family” was central, divorce was common, as was remarriage, resulting in b…

Does it specify the latter, Christianized Roman Empire, or is it more of a generalized account?

And does it retell of the common Roman, or of the Roman elite? These tales may be radically different, from what I understand.

I expect the Christianized Romans would have had more laborious conventions such as we see with the Catholic Church in the middle ages. But I'm extrapolating.

Re: U.S. has world’s highest rate of children living in single-parent households (2019)

#67
post #44

The legality and acceptability of divorce isn't mentioned but I think it should be. Single parents will be rarer in countries where divorce isn't a viable option but that doesn't mean the children are raised in healthier environments.

The idea that divorce can be “healthier” for kids than unhappy parents is self-serving rationalization. Divorce is I’m extremely emotionally and financially disruptive to kids. As an asian married into a white family, the unhappy marriages on my side of the family seem way better for the kids than the unstable relationships on my wife’s side of the family. (But the parents are probably happier divorced/remarried. Tha…

could it be that asian devotion for kids is stronger such that even if the marriage is unhappy they will do their best to make sure the kids are ok?

western couples are less likely to do that which means that kids there will suffer more especially if their parents are openly fighting, and divorce helps them settle because happier parents makes for happier kids.

Re: U.S. has world’s highest rate of children living in single-parent households (2019)

#68
This is exactly the same as:

Loyal workers are selectively and ironically targeted for exploitation [1]

People who read the GameFaq [2] already know this is how society works. Loyalty is punished, lazy cheating rewarded. Even children watching porn know the drill "She doesn't want it, but really she does. No means she wants it." That's the entire book. Extended version:

1) Select a Target, 2) Approach and Open, 3) Demonstrate Value, 4) Disarm Obstacles, 5) Isolate Target, 6) Create Emotional Connection, 7) Seduction Location Extract, 8) Pump Buying Temperature, 9) Make Physical Connection, 10) Blast Last-Minute Resistance

PS: 11) Believe nothing the entire time, 12) Reduce the opponent's value to nothing so the only redemption is intercourse, 13) You're interacting with a video game character of absolutely no value whatsoever except for the score, 14) All is Increment++, 15) Ditch in a way where there's no long term connections, 16) Be on the lookout for the next level (existence only reward the most useless. How else are you going to administratively golf, while stealing every professor in the University's money, while swearing about missing a shot on a completely flat grass lawn?)

Its only an MMO overrun with exploit users. It's just Game Theory. Backstabbing must win. Existence forces backstabbing to win. All it does is lie about being nice while being ** underneath. "Merica..."

Look at all venture capital, same strategy. "Innovate. Disrupt. Paradigm shift. We're pivoting to FinTech/AI/Social/VR/Quantum/Nano/Cyber/Cloud/Mindshare/Frameworks". Only ninja/wizard/blood ninjas need apply. "Round A/B/IPO/exit/Burn the world behind you." PS: Be rewarded with more IPOs for successfully burning money (I'm looking at you "New"man of WeWork).

Look at military innovation "Say whatever's necessary (blah, blah, warfighters, thoughts/prayers). Believe nothing. Close. Get money / rank advancement. Leave." [4]

And thus "why are there so many single children?" Because existence rewards humans for playing like Fight Club. Gotta travel around setting up franchises.

[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00221...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game:_Penetrating_the_Secr...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory

[4] https://www.military.com/daily-news/opinions/2023/09/19/inno...

Re: U.S. has world’s highest rate of children living in single-parent households (2019)

#69
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is also an advantage for children to be raised in homes where their parents are billionaires, but that doesn't make every other family unfit.

Sure. As long as we're clear that a mom and dad are best, I'd agree

There's a layer below what is being said here and the implication thereof that I'm afraid you may be missing.

It doesn't actually matter what is "best", what matters is what is possible. The world doesn't run on "best", ever. It runs on "good enough" or "better". When people push for the ideology that I read as you asking for us to agree on, the results tend to be harmful.

You say "two parents that birth their child and stay together are best". The words gets twisted "being a single parent hurts your child"; "having a step parent hurts your child"; "having same-sex guardians hurts the child". Then the policy gets made that harms even further, "same sex couples cannot adopt", "divorce is illegal"; or, the lesser form, harm is caused to the child through broken families who have been tricked into believing that "it's good for them to stay together for the sake of the child".

Stances and arguments and acquiescing to those perspectives has a tendency to walk down very harmful paths very quickly; and, if it's not your intent to push or argue for the policies listed above, it absolutely is what the people you're referencing will push or have pushed, or people who come after you will push.

Re: U.S. has world’s highest rate of children living in single-parent households (2019)

#70

The legality and acceptability of divorce isn't mentioned but I think it should be. Single parents will be rarer in countries where divorce isn't a viable option but that doesn't mean the children are raised in healthier environments.

Exactly: having to bond with a crazy or abusive parent is what's actually unhealthy, not lacking a parent. Children grow up perfectly fine making bonds with non-parents. (See also the father/mother figure trope.) They may do it even if the parent(s) exist but were not fit for the role. In many countries extended families can help sort this out. It is only a bigger problem if you have a single parent + no extended fam…

only very few divorces are with an abusive parent. most divorces are a disagreement between the parents without involving the kids. in those cases, the parents solving their dispute without divorce would be better. but if they can't, and the children loose access to one parent, they will be worse of.
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