8 ms·

From the article: > It does not matter if they grow up in foster care or a two-parent family. But it does! Very much. I just don't understand why the US tries

by msravi 3y ago

From the article: > It does not matter if they grow up in foster care or a two-parent family. But it does! Very much. I just don't understand why the US tries everything other than fixing the most glaring cause. Lots of problems can be fixed by encouraging and aggrandizing stable two-parent families instead of getting schools and teachers to fill proxy parenting roles.

nemo44x 3y ago
[flagged]
kneebonian 3y ago
My mothers been an educator for many many years now. She says the single biggest factor is parental involvement. But hey convincing both parents to be gone all day and slave away for the corporate masters was smashing the patriarchy and breaking the glass ceiling or something, and the fact that it doubled the labor pool causing supply to go up is entirely unrelated to the fact that wages started stagnating at the same point. But really what use is a family anyway, I mean who needs that when you can have a "community" on a platform that is dedicated to "content" for you to "consume".
- t-writescode 3y ago
  Parental involvement works when there's just one parent, too, it's just harder on the single parent because they have to work so hard to be able to provide for themselves and their child; and, it only gets worse with the struggles the everyday person experiences - lower relative wages, etc.
- slt2021 3y ago
  > parental involvement How does that work for black mother of three kids on social programs, whose biological father is incarcerated/nowhere to be found around? This is the typical story of low achievement/high crime kids in public school system.
  - dumpsterdiver 3y ago
    You realize that even by applying your question to a sad scenario you are still asking the basic question, "How does parental involvement work," right? Parental involvement "works" by taking an active interest in your child's activities and development. That's it.
    - slt2021 3y ago
      You cant magically start “involving” absent parents thats what I wanted to say, problem is much deeper than “oh, it is just parental involvement”
      - dumpsterdiver 3y ago
        Nor can a child be raised without at least one parental type figure. There is no magic involved.
        slt2021 3y ago
        “Parental involvement” as a term is misleading because it assumes there are parents and you just need to start involving them ( like Asian tiger moms are super involved, now lets just make other parents befome as involved). More correct term would be “dysfunctional family”. Family where one parent is incarcerated, another is drug addict etc etc. This term more correctly describes situation that kid is alone in his education aspirations and needs state assistance
        dumpsterdiver 3y ago
        You speak of parents who have landed themselves in prison and become addicted to drugs as if they have no responsibility for these things. "Parental involvement" will always be waiting right where they left it if ever those parents can manage to stop doing drugs or going to prison.
        3y ago
t-writescode 3y ago
The children who *are* in a single-parent household do also need to be helped, and demanding that their parents "duh, get married, forehead" doesn't help the individuals that need that help. And there are a lot of single parents who will never want to have a significant other ever again for a multitude of entirely valid reasons.
- dumpsterdiver 3y ago
  I find it absolutely bizarre that you framed this situation as other people "demanding" that parents get married. Since when is opining that two parent households are beneficial for a child's development the equivalent of some dystopian society in which marriage is a forced affair? It's hard to think of a less charitable interpretation. It makes me wonder, what is your point?
marcusverus 3y ago
In my opinion, much of this comes down to blind empathy. Folks are more worried about hurting people’s feelings than about their life outcomes. They would rather “lean in” and embrace the huge rise in single parent households than push back, even with the knowledge that these social changes have resulted in millions of children living in poverty who otherwise would not have! It’s absolutely bananas.
- tootie 3y ago
  What the hell does pushing back on single-family homes look like? Christian fundamentalism? Think about this from a perspective of getting positive outcomes from the actual world that exists. Divorce happens. Unplanned pregnancy happens. Family planning is being actively dismantled by the same people who are pushing for increased privatization of schooling and decreases in social safety nets. I don't think that's a coincidence. I think being overly sympathetic is infinitely preferable to merciless cynicism. Removing poverty is also much more preferable than, what?, making it harder to divorce? We could probably makes huge strides in education outcomes by adopting universal healthcare and free school lunches so single parents aren't so burdened.
  - nemo44x 3y ago
    Stop incentivizing single parenthood. This reestablishes social norms around staying together as they (the parents) need each other. Trying to approximate that via social engineering and creating clients of the state has failed for 50+ years.
    - tootie 3y ago
      No one has ever incentivized single parenthood. We offered protection for children born into difficult circumstances not of their making.
      - nemo44x 3y ago
        There’s 0 evidence of that. What has happened is the lower class family structure has been decimated as generation after generation of mother becomes a client of the state and dads aren’t around because they aren’t actually needed. The kids have not benefited from this (there’s no metric that shows this and in fact the achievement gap has widened and prison outcomes are increased for lower class kids) and in fact are probably worse off. But, the state has created a massive bureaucracy to manage this and gobs of money to get distributed to both public and private managers of these clients. Yeah, it’s about the kids lol.
petsfed 3y ago
It turns out that a lot of what makes a relationship work is also what causes the children of 2-parent families to do better. Namely, if you remove the stress of scrambling just to make ends meet, and remove food and housing and healthcare and employment insecurity, then people have more time to spend on their families. And provided the parents aren't terrible people, that leads to better outcomes, more stable marriages, etc etc. Its very easy to say "if we could just keep more parents together..." as if the availability of divorce after giving birth was the problem. Solve the major reasons why relationships fail after giving birth, and you'll likely create the situation where kids have more engaged parents too.
- slt2021 3y ago
  there is relationship (as in one night stand) and there is lifelong relationship. There is fundamental conflict: 1. All people (especially young) want hook-ups due to hormones and stuff, as many as possible. These leads to pregnancies and kids. 2. Family requires you to limit your desires only to your partners and create lifelong commitment, which means responsibilities (not only for yourself, but for your partners and kids). There is mismatch fundamentally. Either hookups culture needs to die, or kids have to be allowed only by stable families
  - petsfed 3y ago
    The birth rate (especially the teenage birth rate) has been dropping for the last 20 years. But sure, it's hookup culture that's causing single parent households, and not an evolution of how people of child-rearing age think about marriage, or that the changing shape of the economy means that marriage-as-a-mainly-financial-arrangement is dying a long-overdue death. It's definitely not that legalizing so-called no-fault divorces allows women (especially mothers) to escape abusive situations that are, for one reason or another, impossible to prosecute as such. And that's all to say nothing of the known impact from over-policing of low income communities.
    - slt2021 3y ago
      Dropping birth rate is not a problem at all, Europe Scandinavia Australia has dropping birth rate but much better social situation. The rest of your argument is incoherent and does not have a point, so I dont event understand what is it about. Overpolicing is a myth, because cops are policing where crime actually happens. Doesnt make sense for police to patrol law abiding medium/high class neighborhoods if crime doesnt happen there. Police must be present where criminals live, this is actually the only correct approach
misja111 3y ago
> Lots of problems can be fixed by encouraging and aggrandizing stable two-parent families I agree 100%. But how would the US government fix this? The only political movement that I'm aware of that focusses on stable two-parent families are the conservative Christians. Or are there any others?
- freedude 3y ago
  You will get similar focus on two parent households from Orthodox Jews, Muslims, LDS, JW and several other religious groups other than conservative Christians. However, your point is still the same. With today's stance of "separation of church and state" the US government will not promote this ideology of a two parent household being desired. Our 41st president had a Faith-Based Initiative which was successful in many areas. It cost the tax-payer 75% less to have a faith-based organization head up a relief program than it did for a similar governmental program. Why? Because it was a volunteer based organization and they were incentivized to keep costs low.

by msravi 3y ago

nemo44x 3y ago

[flagged]

kneebonian 3y ago

My mothers been an educator for many many years now. She says the single biggest factor is parental involvement. But hey convincing both parents to be gone all day and slave away for the corporate masters was smashing the patriarchy and breaking the glass ceiling or something, and the fact that it doubled the labor pool causing supply to go up is entirely unrelated to the fact that wages started stagnating at the same point. But really what use is a family anyway, I mean who needs that when you can have a "community" on a platform that is dedicated to "content" for you to "consume".

t-writescode 3y ago
Parental involvement works when there's just one parent, too, it's just harder on the single parent because they have to work so hard to be able to provide for themselves and their child; and, it only gets worse with the struggles the everyday person experiences - lower relative wages, etc.
slt2021 3y ago
> parental involvement How does that work for black mother of three kids on social programs, whose biological father is incarcerated/nowhere to be found around? This is the typical story of low achievement/high crime kids in public school system.
- dumpsterdiver 3y ago
  You realize that even by applying your question to a sad scenario you are still asking the basic question, "How does parental involvement work," right? Parental involvement "works" by taking an active interest in your child's activities and development. That's it.
  - slt2021 3y ago
    You cant magically start “involving” absent parents thats what I wanted to say, problem is much deeper than “oh, it is just parental involvement”
    - dumpsterdiver 3y ago
      Nor can a child be raised without at least one parental type figure. There is no magic involved.
      - slt2021 3y ago
        “Parental involvement” as a term is misleading because it assumes there are parents and you just need to start involving them ( like Asian tiger moms are super involved, now lets just make other parents befome as involved). More correct term would be “dysfunctional family”. Family where one parent is incarcerated, another is drug addict etc etc. This term more correctly describes situation that kid is alone in his education aspirations and needs state assistance
        dumpsterdiver 3y ago
        You speak of parents who have landed themselves in prison and become addicted to drugs as if they have no responsibility for these things. "Parental involvement" will always be waiting right where they left it if ever those parents can manage to stop doing drugs or going to prison.
        3y ago

t-writescode 3y ago

The children who *are* in a single-parent household do also need to be helped, and demanding that their parents "duh, get married, forehead" doesn't help the individuals that need that help. And there are a lot of single parents who will never want to have a significant other ever again for a multitude of entirely valid reasons.

dumpsterdiver 3y ago
I find it absolutely bizarre that you framed this situation as other people "demanding" that parents get married. Since when is opining that two parent households are beneficial for a child's development the equivalent of some dystopian society in which marriage is a forced affair? It's hard to think of a less charitable interpretation. It makes me wonder, what is your point?

marcusverus 3y ago

In my opinion, much of this comes down to blind empathy. Folks are more worried about hurting people’s feelings than about their life outcomes. They would rather “lean in” and embrace the huge rise in single parent households than push back, even with the knowledge that these social changes have resulted in millions of children living in poverty who otherwise would not have! It’s absolutely bananas.

tootie 3y ago
What the hell does pushing back on single-family homes look like? Christian fundamentalism? Think about this from a perspective of getting positive outcomes from the actual world that exists. Divorce happens. Unplanned pregnancy happens. Family planning is being actively dismantled by the same people who are pushing for increased privatization of schooling and decreases in social safety nets. I don't think that's a coincidence. I think being overly sympathetic is infinitely preferable to merciless cynicism. Removing poverty is also much more preferable than, what?, making it harder to divorce? We could probably makes huge strides in education outcomes by adopting universal healthcare and free school lunches so single parents aren't so burdened.
- nemo44x 3y ago
  Stop incentivizing single parenthood. This reestablishes social norms around staying together as they (the parents) need each other. Trying to approximate that via social engineering and creating clients of the state has failed for 50+ years.
  - tootie 3y ago
    No one has ever incentivized single parenthood. We offered protection for children born into difficult circumstances not of their making.
    - nemo44x 3y ago
      There’s 0 evidence of that. What has happened is the lower class family structure has been decimated as generation after generation of mother becomes a client of the state and dads aren’t around because they aren’t actually needed. The kids have not benefited from this (there’s no metric that shows this and in fact the achievement gap has widened and prison outcomes are increased for lower class kids) and in fact are probably worse off. But, the state has created a massive bureaucracy to manage this and gobs of money to get distributed to both public and private managers of these clients. Yeah, it’s about the kids lol.

petsfed 3y ago

It turns out that a lot of what makes a relationship work is also what causes the children of 2-parent families to do better. Namely, if you remove the stress of scrambling just to make ends meet, and remove food and housing and healthcare and employment insecurity, then people have more time to spend on their families. And provided the parents aren't terrible people, that leads to better outcomes, more stable marriages, etc etc. Its very easy to say "if we could just keep more parents together..." as if the availability of divorce after giving birth was the problem. Solve the major reasons why relationships fail after giving birth, and you'll likely create the situation where kids have more engaged parents too.

slt2021 3y ago
there is relationship (as in one night stand) and there is lifelong relationship. There is fundamental conflict: 1. All people (especially young) want hook-ups due to hormones and stuff, as many as possible. These leads to pregnancies and kids. 2. Family requires you to limit your desires only to your partners and create lifelong commitment, which means responsibilities (not only for yourself, but for your partners and kids). There is mismatch fundamentally. Either hookups culture needs to die, or kids have to be allowed only by stable families
- petsfed 3y ago
  The birth rate (especially the teenage birth rate) has been dropping for the last 20 years. But sure, it's hookup culture that's causing single parent households, and not an evolution of how people of child-rearing age think about marriage, or that the changing shape of the economy means that marriage-as-a-mainly-financial-arrangement is dying a long-overdue death. It's definitely not that legalizing so-called no-fault divorces allows women (especially mothers) to escape abusive situations that are, for one reason or another, impossible to prosecute as such. And that's all to say nothing of the known impact from over-policing of low income communities.
  - slt2021 3y ago
    Dropping birth rate is not a problem at all, Europe Scandinavia Australia has dropping birth rate but much better social situation. The rest of your argument is incoherent and does not have a point, so I dont event understand what is it about. Overpolicing is a myth, because cops are policing where crime actually happens. Doesnt make sense for police to patrol law abiding medium/high class neighborhoods if crime doesnt happen there. Police must be present where criminals live, this is actually the only correct approach

misja111 3y ago

> Lots of problems can be fixed by encouraging and aggrandizing stable two-parent families I agree 100%. But how would the US government fix this? The only political movement that I'm aware of that focusses on stable two-parent families are the conservative Christians. Or are there any others?

freedude 3y ago
You will get similar focus on two parent households from Orthodox Jews, Muslims, LDS, JW and several other religious groups other than conservative Christians. However, your point is still the same. With today's stance of "separation of church and state" the US government will not promote this ideology of a two parent household being desired. Our 41st president had a Faith-Based Initiative which was successful in many areas. It cost the tax-payer 75% less to have a faith-based organization head up a relief program than it did for a similar governmental program. Why? Because it was a volunteer based organization and they were incentivized to keep costs low.