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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 opti

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.

DougN7 3y ago
That’s part of it, but having a “baby mama” (i.e. never married/living together in the first place), is also an issue. I know a guy that is 21 that has already fathered 4 children with 3 women, and is supporting none of them. It’s sad.
brucethemoose2 3y ago
Yeah, thats a interesting factor. But I can't even imagine trying to gather statistics for that with surveys.
gaganyaan 3y ago
Yeah, this sort of statistic seems vague enough that you can draw whatever conclusions you'd like out of it. To draw any sort of real conclusions you'd have to dig a lot deeper.
throwaway290 3y ago
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 family support. I imagine social services (is that what they're called) or teachers compensate for the extended family role in countries like US?
- COGlory 3y ago
  Studies show that the biggest indicator child economic success is having two parents. Yeah, there's a lot of indirect measurements and selection bias, but it still says overwhelmingly: 2 parents is better than 1. https://www.businessinsider.com/parents-determine-child-success-income-inequality-2014-1 https://www.businessinsider.com/parents-determine-child-succ... It sucks, but having only one parent is a huge disadvantage.
  - throwaway290 3y ago
    In the US with high prices, lacking social safety net and lacking extended family support if you have 1 parent you are struggling financially so sure. But elsewhere 2 parents is better than one only as long as you're not one of those cases where 1 parent is crap, in which case if you have extended family support firing a crappy parent is much more preferable. You won't find stats for this of course.
- brnaftr361 3y ago
  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.
  - throwaway290 3y ago
    > Lone parent children can grow up fine. They very often do not. Children with both parents also very often do not grow up fine if they are in certain socioeconomic divisions. That needs to be eliminated from the equation before any such generalizations.
  - anon291 3y ago
    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.
    - throwaway290 3y ago
      You may be talking about something US-specific.
- em-bee 3y ago
  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.
  - throwaway290 3y ago
    Many cases without a divorce and both parents present include a parent or both who are not very fit for parenting.
    - em-bee 3y ago
      a few maybe, but many, i highly doubt. that would imply that humans in general are unable to figure out how be a parent by learning from their own parents which is generally the vector for learning this. people unfit for parenting are most likely mentally ill or they are put in an impossible situation with unreasonable demands and no outside support.
jltsiren 3y ago
The interesting comparison is between the US and Europe, where divorce is also widely accepted. Americans have more children than Europeans, and American children are more likely to live in single-parent households than European children. These two are probably connected. Americans are more likely to have children in situations where Europeans choose not to.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
rayiner 3y ago
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. That’s the trade off.)
- ahhfgshando6698 3y ago
  [dead]
- em-bee 3y ago
  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.
  - rayiner 3y ago
    That’s possible. But the financial impact of divorce is extreme. It’s passing a financial handicap onto the next generation. My wife still remembers having to give up sports and dance because splitting up the household meant the money wasn’t there anymore.
  - gregjor 3y ago
    “Asian” and “western” describe huge and varied populations with little in common. One refers to a geographic designation, the other to a shared set of cultural norms and economic development. What evidence do you have that “Asian” parents (whomever that refers to) show more devotion to their children? Or that “western” couples show less care? Extended family situations, kids living with grandparents or aunts and uncles, seems more common in poorer places (mentioned in the article), so it’s likely lots of kids grow up with relatives but not with married parents.
mensetmanusman 3y ago
It doesn’t, but on average it does.
- flangola7 3y ago
  I can't possibly imagine that is accurate, and even if it was that wouldn't be ethically viable anyway.
  - autoexec 3y ago
    Personally, I think growing up without the freedom leave a bad relationship would be enough on its own to make the environment qualify as unhealthy.
    - tivert 3y ago
      > Personally, I think growing up without the freedom leave a bad relationship would be enough on its own to make the environment qualify as unhealthy. The problem is "bad relationship" is a broad and fuzzy concept, often conveniently left undefined or defined selectively to bolster a particular position. There are definitely situations where divorce is probably good for the kids (e.g. the more extreme ones, like physical abuse). However there are other perhaps more common situations where divorce is on the whole harmful to the kids (e.g. mom and dad just don't have "that spark" for each other anymore).
1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago
What percentage of single parent households were formerly two parent households. If it's large then maybe divorce should be mentioned. If it's small then maybe there's little reason to mention divorce.

DougN7 3y ago

That’s part of it, but having a “baby mama” (i.e. never married/living together in the first place), is also an issue. I know a guy that is 21 that has already fathered 4 children with 3 women, and is supporting none of them. It’s sad.

brucethemoose2 3y ago

Yeah, thats a interesting factor. But I can't even imagine trying to gather statistics for that with surveys.

gaganyaan 3y ago

Yeah, this sort of statistic seems vague enough that you can draw whatever conclusions you'd like out of it. To draw any sort of real conclusions you'd have to dig a lot deeper.

throwaway290 3y ago

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 family support. I imagine social services (is that what they're called) or teachers compensate for the extended family role in countries like US?

COGlory 3y ago
Studies show that the biggest indicator child economic success is having two parents. Yeah, there's a lot of indirect measurements and selection bias, but it still says overwhelmingly: 2 parents is better than 1. https://www.businessinsider.com/parents-determine-child-success-income-inequality-2014-1 https://www.businessinsider.com/parents-determine-child-succ... It sucks, but having only one parent is a huge disadvantage.
- throwaway290 3y ago
  In the US with high prices, lacking social safety net and lacking extended family support if you have 1 parent you are struggling financially so sure. But elsewhere 2 parents is better than one only as long as you're not one of those cases where 1 parent is crap, in which case if you have extended family support firing a crappy parent is much more preferable. You won't find stats for this of course.
brnaftr361 3y ago
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.
- throwaway290 3y ago
  > Lone parent children can grow up fine. They very often do not. Children with both parents also very often do not grow up fine if they are in certain socioeconomic divisions. That needs to be eliminated from the equation before any such generalizations.
- anon291 3y ago
  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.
  - throwaway290 3y ago
    You may be talking about something US-specific.
em-bee 3y ago
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.
- throwaway290 3y ago
  Many cases without a divorce and both parents present include a parent or both who are not very fit for parenting.
  - em-bee 3y ago
    a few maybe, but many, i highly doubt. that would imply that humans in general are unable to figure out how be a parent by learning from their own parents which is generally the vector for learning this. people unfit for parenting are most likely mentally ill or they are put in an impossible situation with unreasonable demands and no outside support.

jltsiren 3y ago

The interesting comparison is between the US and Europe, where divorce is also widely accepted. Americans have more children than Europeans, and American children are more likely to live in single-parent households than European children. These two are probably connected. Americans are more likely to have children in situations where Europeans choose not to.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

rayiner 3y ago

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. That’s the trade off.)

ahhfgshando6698 3y ago
[dead]
em-bee 3y ago
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.
- rayiner 3y ago
  That’s possible. But the financial impact of divorce is extreme. It’s passing a financial handicap onto the next generation. My wife still remembers having to give up sports and dance because splitting up the household meant the money wasn’t there anymore.
- gregjor 3y ago
  “Asian” and “western” describe huge and varied populations with little in common. One refers to a geographic designation, the other to a shared set of cultural norms and economic development. What evidence do you have that “Asian” parents (whomever that refers to) show more devotion to their children? Or that “western” couples show less care? Extended family situations, kids living with grandparents or aunts and uncles, seems more common in poorer places (mentioned in the article), so it’s likely lots of kids grow up with relatives but not with married parents.

mensetmanusman 3y ago

It doesn’t, but on average it does.

flangola7 3y ago
I can't possibly imagine that is accurate, and even if it was that wouldn't be ethically viable anyway.
- autoexec 3y ago
  Personally, I think growing up without the freedom leave a bad relationship would be enough on its own to make the environment qualify as unhealthy.
  - tivert 3y ago
    > Personally, I think growing up without the freedom leave a bad relationship would be enough on its own to make the environment qualify as unhealthy. The problem is "bad relationship" is a broad and fuzzy concept, often conveniently left undefined or defined selectively to bolster a particular position. There are definitely situations where divorce is probably good for the kids (e.g. the more extreme ones, like physical abuse). However there are other perhaps more common situations where divorce is on the whole harmful to the kids (e.g. mom and dad just don't have "that spark" for each other anymore).

1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago

What percentage of single parent households were formerly two parent households. If it's large then maybe divorce should be mentioned. If it's small then maybe there's little reason to mention divorce.