Children of married parents do better, but America is moving the other way • Hacker News Board

Re: Children of married parents do better, but America is moving the other way

#51

Post by danielschonfeld » Sun, Oct 22, 2023, 1:58 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #2

Is it that marriage itself is beneficial or that people capable of maintaining a relationship make better parents? Divorce is significantly more common for bipolar, paranoid, and schizophrenic people for example. So I think we need to look at widows or something to control for those kinds of issues.

This question is answered in the interview. She is saying that a household with a stable long lasting relationship is what’s driving these better outcomes. She’s also saying that in America marriage (unfortunately) seems to be the only way to keep people together for a long while (long enough for a child to not experience a parade of parents by the time they are 15 according to the article).

In my personal opinion. I think what she’s stumbled on is yet again proof of Americans hyper individuality rearing its ugly face. The Europeans can stay together longer without the marriage piece of paper because

1) Selfishness derived from hyper individuality doesn’t drive people to nope out of relationships at the first sign of minuscule problems or one side not getting their way

2) Since over there not everything is an economical benefit proposal people value the relationship with different metrics than our countrymen and women do.

Re: Children of married parents do better, but America is moving the other way

#52

Post by WillAdams » Sun, Oct 22, 2023, 2:00 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #2

Is it that marriage itself is beneficial or that people capable of maintaining a relationship make better parents? Divorce is significantly more common for bipolar, paranoid, and schizophrenic people for example. So I think we need to look at widows or something to control for those kinds of issues.

I think that's it in a nutshell.

Divorce is also more common for selfish and self-centered people, and I would argue that those traits do not make for good parents. (which is not to say that a good person should remain married to such a spouse --- arguably the only thing worse than a good divorce is a bad marriage)

Ages ago, I worked at a school for boys, and one could pretty much map negative trats of the parents to corresponding unsocial behaviours on the part of the child.

Re: Children of married parents do better, but America is moving the other way

#53

Post by jqpabc123 » Sun, Oct 22, 2023, 2:00 PM UTC

Proof that we need more "family values"; more religious conservatism?

This is what a lot of people seem to believe --- people who've never bothered to look at the actual evidence --- or who refuse to accept it once they see.

A detailed county by county survey of the entire country shows that the most religious and conservative parts of the country have higher divorces rates by far.

Getting married in the Bible Belt and giving money to the church seems to *create* a lot of one parent families.

https://sites.utexas.edu/contemporaryfamilies/2014/01/16/imp...

Re: Children of married parents do better, but America is moving the other way

#54

Post by chadash » Sun, Oct 22, 2023, 2:00 PM UTC

tenebrisalietum wrote: post #4

"Their book suggests that many women don't marry the father of their child not because they reject the concept of marriage, but because they do not see him as a reliable source of economic security or stability." Marriage is not a magical thing that fixes economic problems, even if you want to keep turning the clock back and make certain acts outside of marriage illegal. The only thing that fixes economic problems is…

> Marriage is not a magical thing that fixes economic problems, even if you want to keep turning the clock back and make certain acts outside of marriage illegal. The only thing that fixes economic problems is money.

Speaking as a parent, I’m not sure this is true. If I didn’t have my wife, then I would need to take twice as many sick days for my kids, which would be very tough on my career. I wouldn’t have an extra salary (or if she didn’t work, then a full time person caring for my kids). I wouldn’t have someone to split school pickup/drop off with, which again would be very taxing on my career. I’d still need the same amount of space in my home with or without my wife. And all of this also means that we have more time for child/parent interactions at home.

So yeah, I think there’s huge benefits to having a spouse around while raising kids.

Re: Children of married parents do better, but America is moving the other way

#55

Post by bequanna » Sun, Oct 22, 2023, 2:00 PM UTC

Mayzie wrote: post #32

christophilus wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure everything stems from this. Marriage was not just for the wealthy and nobles in the Middle Ages, or in the 1800s or in subsaharan Africa, etc. If it’s a matter of relative wealth disparity, there have been plenty of eras (probably the majority of recorded human history) in which the kings and nobles had a similar wealth gap to their poorest married subjects as we see today between the 1% and the 99%. I’m…

You can’t survive or support a family with a single income these days.. It’s required for both partners to work.

You absolutely can. Our family does and many of my friends do. They aren’t all wealthy people.

It isn’t always a choice, but often it is. Many people can live on one income but choose a lifestyle that requires two.

Re: Children of married parents do better, but America is moving the other way

#56

Post by Spivak » Sun, Oct 22, 2023, 2:00 PM UTC

kibwen wrote: post #6

> Kearney says she's not advocating that children live in a household filled with marital tension or where parents are unhappy or mistreating each other. Then what is the proposed solution? Pointing out the problem is the easy part. But if you want more people to be married, and if they're currently choosing not to get married, then you need to either force them to get married against their will (institutionalized sh…

You don't get it, maternity leave and socialized childcare is the devil talking. The downfall of society is because the liberal agenda to brainwash our our women and kids, the former with feminism making them think they can do things other then be homemakers, and the latter because those families with working women have to send their kids to childcare where they're taught collectivism, normalized sexual deviancy, and to disrespect their parents. /s

Re: Children of married parents do better, but America is moving the other way

#57

Post by liquidpele » Sun, Oct 22, 2023, 2:00 PM UTC

Mayzie wrote: post #32

christophilus wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure everything stems from this. Marriage was not just for the wealthy and nobles in the Middle Ages, or in the 1800s or in subsaharan Africa, etc. If it’s a matter of relative wealth disparity, there have been plenty of eras (probably the majority of recorded human history) in which the kings and nobles had a similar wealth gap to their poorest married subjects as we see today between the 1% and the 99%. I’m…

You can’t survive or support a family with a single income these days.. It’s required for both partners to work.

To be fair, this is mostly a consequence of women entering the workforce. Not that that’s bad, but it’s an unintended consequence that companies were then able to convince workers to work for less because people could survive on it still.

Re: Children of married parents do better, but America is moving the other way

#58

Post by DonaldTruck » Sun, Oct 22, 2023, 2:00 PM UTC

hdjjhhvvhga wrote: post #15

digbyw12 wrote: post #7

[flagged]

Do you mean the children of Black parents? If that's really the case, I see no problem of cancellation here as it would further accentuate the point of systematic disadvantages of people of color.

[flagged]

Re: Children of married parents do better, but America is moving the other way

#59

Post by FrustratedMonky » Sun, Oct 22, 2023, 2:00 PM UTC

unnamed76ri wrote: post #44

lvl102 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it ridiculous that healthcare is the greatest driver of cost of living but no one does anything about it. Doctors and nurses are overworked too. It’s the biggest scam going right now and all the politicians are in on it.

You can place the blame for both things on the federal government. 1. Obamacare was promised to save families $2500 per year. Instead healthcare costs have predictably nearly doubled. 2. A few decades ago the government actively discouraged medical schools from enrolling enough would-be doctors because they had a misguided belief that the country would have too many.

[flagged]

Re: Children of married parents do better, but America is moving the other way

#60

Post by jjtheblunt » Sun, Oct 22, 2023, 2:00 PM UTC

unnamed76ri wrote: post #30

bloopernova wrote: post #5

America is moving the other way because all the wealth and power has been sucked up by the 0.1% and a large majority are too tired, stressed, and poor. Everything stems from this. Too much wealth tied up in the health insurance scam to switch to single payer, so people stay bound to their employment, and they can't afford time off or visits to the doctor because nothing is completely covered anymore. Too much wealth…

Everything does not stem from wealth inequality. Almost-everything wrong in US culture stems from selfishness. Which would include things you talked about. But it also includes people making selfish choices that bring about the end of their marriages (affairs, career, addictions).

Some things stem from wealth inequality.