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

npr.org

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

#11

Post by rafaelmn »

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.

It's literally in the first paragraph :

>In the book, released last month, Kearney points out a rather obvious fact: Children raised by two parents have a much higher chance of success than those raised by one. Yet she goes even further to argue that whether parents are married or not impacts their children's success.

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

#12

Post by hdjjhhvvhga »

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…

I would like to hear from people who downvote you their reasons. In discussions such as these where nuances matter a lot, a downvote (or upvote) is meaningless.

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

#13

Post by BaculumMeumEst »

"Kearney says she wants to grab the attention of both conservatives who say they care about children's well-being and progressives reluctant to talk about family structures, because the link between single parenting, inequality and mobility in America is too strong to deny."

She doesn't need to grab the attention of conservatives because her findings already support their pre-existing beliefs, like it says earlier in the article. I get the feeling she felt like she needed to phrase this very delicately.

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

#14

Post by COGlory »

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 creates good family structures, and parents can be deadbeat parents even within a marriage. It might give people motivation to stick around, but families that "stick together for the children" can have A) abuse, and B) the same sort of economic problems as unmarried if one or both parents aren't working. What does enable good family structures is support, provided by extended family or other things.

We're talking about on average though. Those things might happen, but only in a very small number of cases, and on average forcing a marriage to "work" might still be better.

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

#18

Post by mhb »

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…

A good first step would be to first remove economic disincentives such as tax penalties and reductions in benefits.

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

#20

Post by chomp »

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.

From the article:

> In the U.S., she says, unmarried adults who decide to live together do it for a much shorter duration than in Europe. Children in many of these households are more likely to experience two or three parental partnerships by age 15.

Its a stability thing.

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