6 ms·

Why Children of Married Parents Do Better

36 points by meristohm 3y ago

meristohm 3y ago
"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. As an economist, she sees marriage as a long-term contract between two individuals to pool their resources and share household responsibilities, including raising children. Two is greater than one. The genders of the parents are irrelevant."
- langsoul-com 3y ago
  The gender is irrelevant part is technically true, if the argument was 2 > 1. But deeper down, it does matter. The care a father VS mother gives is entirely different.
  - SoftTalker 3y ago
    Also, at least up to a point, a family with mother and father in the home, but with some level of marital strife, is still better for the child than divorce/parents living separately.
underseacables 3y ago
It is interesting that with how much the phrase toxic masculinity is thrown around, that children with both parents, especially those with fathers, do better than those without. Masculinity was so toxic than children raised without fathers should be better.
- clipsy 3y ago
  "Toxic masculinity" does not mean "all masculinity is toxic."
- SonOfKyuss 3y ago
  The dads that stick around and help raise their kids aren’t the ones that are toxic. It’s the ones who don’t, which as the article points out, is a growing number.
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    I think we need a lot more context before judging a person's actions with their children.
    - irrational 3y ago
      This is about statistics rather than a case by case basis, isn’t it?
      - johnnyanmac 3y ago
        Do you have statistics to support that fathers leave due to "toxic masculinity"? Only statistics I'm aware of is that divorce rates are up and the #1 divorce rate are due to financial issues.regardless, "someone who X is Y" is not a statistic, it's a stereotype (which may or may not have statistical support). I don't know of much literature that looks into single mother's and why they are single.
        randomdata 3y ago
        > #1 divorce rate are due to financial issues Stands to reason. For what other purpose would you get divorced? When it comes to social division you can simply part ways. The only reason you would initiate divorce is to get help sorting out the financial aspects of the relationship.
        johnnyanmac 3y ago
        I believe #2 is infidelity. Looking it up: https://www.forbes.com/advisor/legal/divorce/common-causes-divorce/ https://www.forbes.com/advisor/legal/divorce/common-causes-d... I was slightly incorrect. Financial reasons was the #1 reason to get married. Apparently the #1 reason for divorce was "lack of family support". Which I suppose can still come down to financial issues in some way. Though, it does seem to shift depending on the stage of marriage. First year divorces happen mostly due to incompatibility, whereas long term (8+ years) happens due to infidelity.
- healsdata 3y ago
  You seem to misunderstand how the adjective "toxic" is functioning in that phrase. Toxic masculinity describes a particular type of masculinity in the same way that "electric car" describes a type, or subset, of cars. Not all cars are electric just like not all masculinity is toxic. Hope that helps!
  - klipt 3y ago
    Sounds like a dog whistle to me. If someone talked constantly about, say, "toxic women", would you really believe they were only talking about a subset?
    - irrational 3y ago
      Well, people do talk about Karens, shrews, bitches, etc. which all seem to be different kinds of toxic women. Maybe there are just more named subsets for toxic women than for men?
      - anon291 3y ago
        There are academic articles on karens, shrews and bitches? You're claiming that the worst used in 4chan, reddit, and popular magazines carry the same societal weight as academic articles in policy and sociology journals. They don't.
      - klipt 3y ago
        ...isn't using the word "bitches" widely considered a dog whistle for hating all women? Seems like you're agreeing with me.
  - Jensson 3y ago
    They really should change phrases like this that causes a lot of confusion and misunderstandings before changing stuff like "whitelist".
  - dryanau 3y ago
    I doubt there's any confusion. The purported meaning of the phrase is clear. But its usage in practice is often (but not always) quite punishing toward masculinity in general.
- DonaldTruck 3y ago
  It's also interesting how little discussion there is about "toxic femininity". I dislike both, to be clear, but if we're going to tackle the harm caused by men being violent, cold, disloyal, absent, etc then we also have to be frank about the role of women in the creation of broken homes by selecting such awful husbands and fathers.
  - stOneskull 3y ago
    anything toxic really. it is interesting which toxins are focused on though.
  - thealchemistdev 3y ago
    Talk is cheap. Just let the results of your actions in the response to the zeitgeist speak for itself.
paulpauper 3y ago
There are so many confounders. It's not the marriage, but rather having more money. Marriage confers various financial benefits. I am sure celeb kids do fine despite their parents having messy personal lives (e.g. Woody Allen's kids). Divorce is pretty bad too, though. It's possible that divorcee undoes most or all the benefits.
- porknubbins 3y ago
  I’m not covinced money can overcome lack of stable family relationships. It certainly helps but seems like a small piece when it comes to healthy childhood development. I know lots of messed up rich kids and celebrity kids are not famously stable either.
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    It may not, but consider a) financial issues are the #1 reason for divorce. so statistically speaking, higher financial status will lead to less divorces which supports the notion given in the article b) a hopefully agreeable premise that a rich unstable relationship ends up with a better kid than a poor unstable relationship. it's not as simple as "money solves problems", but it seems to correlate .
  - paulpauper 3y ago
    maybe not as stable, but they do better in terms of life outcomes anyway . like earning more money due to name recognition and trust funds. To say otherwise is moving the goalposts. Economists when they talk about life outcomes are talking about quantifiable things like wealth.
mgamache 3y ago
There are a couple of things to consider. 1) Women don't need men in modern society. They would likely stay married longer and be more picky about the type of man to bread with if they were stuck with him forever. The benefit is that women don't get stuck in abusive relationships. 2) Modern dating is turning us into polygamists. Women will pursue the top 10% (or so) of men and those men have little incentive to get married. There is a financial penalty to having children, but much less than getting married and having children. Of course this leads to single mothers with, at best, part time fathers.
- yowlingcat 3y ago
  This is an oft repeated trope that flies in the face of evolutionary history [1]. Because it doesn't actually work, I think that it reflects socioeconomic class demarcations -- that is, the upper class and the lower classes take different strategies. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K_selection_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K_selection_theory
  - mgamache 3y ago
    My hypothesis is supported by dating and sex data. And no it doesn't work at scale or for very long, but it is a driver of mate selection.
    - drjasonharrison 3y ago
      Peer reviewed citations or we'll assume that your data is anecdotal. And skewed from a sub-population that is interested in data and sex rather than mating and marriage. The platforms that provide matches aren't very motivated to find perfect matches that lead to marriages. They haven't yet expanded into the marriage industry. Women raising children alone may be due to a large number of factors and grouping them into "women don't need men, they just need sperm" is missing the support (sometimes) available from their male partner.
      - mgamache 3y ago
djrobstep 3y ago
This research is entirely bogus. As Matt Bruenig points out: > In general, there was some kind of problem present in the family that experienced the divorce that was not present in the family that did not experience the divorce. To actually analyze the effect of the divorce, you would need to compare the divorced family to a hypothetical version of itself that did not divorce despite whatever the problem was that lead to the divorce. > Another way to put this is: you need to compare couples with the same kinds of relationship dysfunctions, but where one couple splits and the other couple stays together. Comparing a split-couple with a certain relationship dysfunction to an intact-couple that does not have that relationship dysfunction, which is what all of this research does, is an obvious mistake. > To put this in less abstract terms, if dad beats mom and they get divorced, it’s not accurate to say that, but for the divorce, the kids would have fared exactly the same as a similar non-divorced family where dad does not beat mom. Yet that is what the research Kearney relies upon assumes. Full post here: https://mattbruenig.com/2023/09/20/doing-the-marriage-thing-again/ https://mattbruenig.com/2023/09/20/doing-the-marriage-thing-...
- barsonme 3y ago
  Matt’s blog post does not convince me that this is “entirely bogus.” > To put this in less abstract terms, if dad beats mom and they get divorced, it’s not accurate to say that, but for the divorce, the kids would have fared exactly the same as a similar non-divorced family where dad does not beat mom. Yet that is what the research Kearney relies upon assumes. Is she really suggesting that an unstable, abusive 2P household is significant better than any 1P household? Given her quotes in TFA, this doesn't seem to be the case. Matt also writes: > As with any group, the missing parents are a heterogenous bunch, but that population almost certainly skews towards below-average earnings and below-average domestic contribution, with many actually having a net-negative domestic contribution, whether because they are abusive, demanding, or otherwise. > This is easily the goofiest thing about this discourse. To hear Kearney talk about it, you’d think that the single mothers of the world are turning down $44,000 and hundreds of hours of free child care each year. But why would someone do that? If that option is as incredibly beneficial as Kearney says it is, why don’t people select it? Do people want their lives to be bad rather than good? TFA states that 50% of children in the US are born to unmarried mothers. Should we assume that 50% of fathers are abusive or demanding or just an overall net negative like Matt suggests? That seems like /quite/ a stretch. Matt assumes that the single mothers turning down “$44,000 and free childcare” must be doing so rationally (because their potential partners would be a net negative). But people don’t always think rationally, especially young people having children out of wedlock. It can be an incredibly stressful and difficult situation. That, or he ignores social stigma and the amount of work it takes to work and raise a child and quite naively assumes that unmarried mothers have the same ability to find a long-term partner as somebody without kids. Perhaps many of those unmarried mothers actually do want $44,000 and free childcare, but find it difficult to get that after having a child?
langsoul-com 3y ago
A sub note is that happy married parents do better. Happy, married and engaged parents. The disengaged parent does much much harm. Like someone who had a father who was never engaged and, growing up, he felt he missed that father figure, got into trouble, rebelled and, now as a father, is terrified of inflicting the same wounds onto his son.
- usefulcat 3y ago
  > now as a father, is terrified of inflicting the same wounds onto his son Anyone who at least has that worry is still way ahead of those who had an absentee father (or parent) and doesn't think it caused them any harm even though it obviously did. I've met both kinds.
- ajju 3y ago
  Working hard to ensure you don’t repeat the mistakes of your parents already makes you a good parent - one who cares and strives. I worry too, especially about the weaknesses I share with one of my parents. Occasionally though, I find that my inward focus on my concern about a mistake I might make causes me to focus less on my kid or his concerns in an important moment. Since I learned this, I try to be present enough to react to life while it’s happening, instead of ricocheting painful memories while life is happening! The good news is that loving parents who strive to continuously do better serve as a good example for their kids, even when they fail. Life is hard and full of failures. Even when you fail, and even if you fail frequently, showing your kid that you’ll keep striving to do better - now that may be the most valuable lesson of them all.
swayvil 3y ago
If 2 parents make a good kid then maybe 3 parents make a better kid. It used to be people lived near their extended family. Lots of parents there. Be aware that this "nuclear family" is a recent and historically strange thing. It has not been tested in the long term. In all likelihood it's bad for us.
- klipt 3y ago
  Extended family is definitely better for raising kids. The problem is nuclear family is better for chasing good jobs and making money (likely far away from extended family). As the saying goes, you can serve Mammon/wealth, or god/your community of origin, but not both.
- randomdata 3y ago
  > It used to be people lived near their extended family. Maybe in very early human history, but research suggests that humans had already moved beyond Africa 180,000 years ago. For all intents and purposes, people have always left their family in search of a better life. What is recent is the practical ability to keep in touch with extended family even when afar. It is possible that hinders the creation of supportive communities to stand in for where biological families are missing.
agnosticmantis 3y ago
"Most single mothers start from behind; they're less likely to have a college education or a high income. Single motherhood is a lot less prevalent in higher-educated women. This college gap exists for white, Black and Latino families." These seem to be things to control for before making a causal claim. I haven't read the original study, but wouldn't be surprised if they didn't control for these (and other) important factor because then they'd likely not reach their desired result.
Loocid 3y ago
I would like to see some stats for children of a happy couple that have been together for 10 years, both married and unmarried to see if they differ. As far as I can tell all she is saying is that happy couples are more likely to be married, and children of happy couples are more likely to succeed. Seems like this has everything to do with having happy, loving parents and nothing to do with having married parents despite the title.
- ARandomerDude 3y ago
  > 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. They appear to have a higher bar for a potential spouse than their partners, or the fathers of their children, have met.
- yowzadave 3y ago
  Precisely. Matt Bruenig wrote a pretty compelling analysis of why the statistics in the book are either misleadingly presented or so banal as to be useless: https://mattbruenig.com/2023/09/20/doing-the-marriage-thing-again/ https://mattbruenig.com/2023/09/20/doing-the-marriage-thing-...
  - ajju 3y ago
    I understand his critique of the stats, but I wonder if Mr. Bruenig disagrees with the author’s points of view. In particular I wonder what he thinks would be best for his own kids. He seems to be, per wikipedia, married to a high-school friend (sweetheart?) for almost a decade with two kids. While I do not think his personal actions have any bearing on the accuracy of his statistical critiques of the author, it does seem like his revealed preferences support the author’s points of view. I would be shocked if he believes the health of his marriage has no bearing on the overall wellbeing of his kids. Regardless, I wish him and his wife a long and happy marriage, because I believe that would be the best outcome for both of them and their kids.
    - 3y ago
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
ppsreejith 3y ago
There's a lot of confounding variables here. Divorce could be a symptom of an underlying cause which could be the actual reason why kids do worse. Or it could be that when people pool their resources, it creates a more stable home (in resources and labor) and stable homes are a stronger cause. Re:stable homes, it'd be interesting to envision whether non-nuclear family structures would be more stable. Maybe matrilineal/ matrilocal cultures (even if they're patriarchal) where children of a family are those born to it's women (more stable family since you don't divorce your siblings/mom, much freer relationships, paternity maybe unknown etc). The book Sex a At Dawn (controversial book!) explores these ideas.
- anon291 3y ago
  Coming from a culture that embraces extended family I'll tell you that divorces within the family fracture the family worse than anything. On its own marriage extends your family because two extended families become one. Divorce ruins the whole thing. It's even worse the more relatives you have. More people are affected. Extended families are stable because the social pressure to remain married is impossible to overcome for most people. Most Americans have no idea how oppressive a full extended family can feel and simply think it's all unicorns and rainbows. It's not.
  - ppsreejith 3y ago
    Agree that divorce in extended families can be worse. I was making the (additional) claim that matrilocality & children being raised by woman's family can make families more stable (i.e divorce resistant).

36 points by meristohm 3y ago

"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. As an economist, she sees marriage as a long-term contract between two individuals to pool their resources and share household responsibilities, including raising children. Two is greater than one. The genders of the parents are irrelevant."

langsoul-com 3y ago
The gender is irrelevant part is technically true, if the argument was 2 > 1. But deeper down, it does matter. The care a father VS mother gives is entirely different.
- SoftTalker 3y ago
  Also, at least up to a point, a family with mother and father in the home, but with some level of marital strife, is still better for the child than divorce/parents living separately.

underseacables 3y ago

It is interesting that with how much the phrase toxic masculinity is thrown around, that children with both parents, especially those with fathers, do better than those without. Masculinity was so toxic than children raised without fathers should be better.

clipsy 3y ago
"Toxic masculinity" does not mean "all masculinity is toxic."
SonOfKyuss 3y ago
The dads that stick around and help raise their kids aren’t the ones that are toxic. It’s the ones who don’t, which as the article points out, is a growing number.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  I think we need a lot more context before judging a person's actions with their children.
  - irrational 3y ago
    This is about statistics rather than a case by case basis, isn’t it?
    - johnnyanmac 3y ago
      Do you have statistics to support that fathers leave due to "toxic masculinity"? Only statistics I'm aware of is that divorce rates are up and the #1 divorce rate are due to financial issues.regardless, "someone who X is Y" is not a statistic, it's a stereotype (which may or may not have statistical support). I don't know of much literature that looks into single mother's and why they are single.
      - randomdata 3y ago
        > #1 divorce rate are due to financial issues Stands to reason. For what other purpose would you get divorced? When it comes to social division you can simply part ways. The only reason you would initiate divorce is to get help sorting out the financial aspects of the relationship.
        johnnyanmac 3y ago
        I believe #2 is infidelity. Looking it up: https://www.forbes.com/advisor/legal/divorce/common-causes-divorce/ https://www.forbes.com/advisor/legal/divorce/common-causes-d... I was slightly incorrect. Financial reasons was the #1 reason to get married. Apparently the #1 reason for divorce was "lack of family support". Which I suppose can still come down to financial issues in some way. Though, it does seem to shift depending on the stage of marriage. First year divorces happen mostly due to incompatibility, whereas long term (8+ years) happens due to infidelity.
healsdata 3y ago
You seem to misunderstand how the adjective "toxic" is functioning in that phrase. Toxic masculinity describes a particular type of masculinity in the same way that "electric car" describes a type, or subset, of cars. Not all cars are electric just like not all masculinity is toxic. Hope that helps!
- klipt 3y ago
  Sounds like a dog whistle to me. If someone talked constantly about, say, "toxic women", would you really believe they were only talking about a subset?
  - irrational 3y ago
    Well, people do talk about Karens, shrews, bitches, etc. which all seem to be different kinds of toxic women. Maybe there are just more named subsets for toxic women than for men?
    - anon291 3y ago
      There are academic articles on karens, shrews and bitches? You're claiming that the worst used in 4chan, reddit, and popular magazines carry the same societal weight as academic articles in policy and sociology journals. They don't.
    - klipt 3y ago
      ...isn't using the word "bitches" widely considered a dog whistle for hating all women? Seems like you're agreeing with me.
- Jensson 3y ago
  They really should change phrases like this that causes a lot of confusion and misunderstandings before changing stuff like "whitelist".
- dryanau 3y ago
  I doubt there's any confusion. The purported meaning of the phrase is clear. But its usage in practice is often (but not always) quite punishing toward masculinity in general.
DonaldTruck 3y ago
It's also interesting how little discussion there is about "toxic femininity". I dislike both, to be clear, but if we're going to tackle the harm caused by men being violent, cold, disloyal, absent, etc then we also have to be frank about the role of women in the creation of broken homes by selecting such awful husbands and fathers.
- stOneskull 3y ago
  anything toxic really. it is interesting which toxins are focused on though.
- thealchemistdev 3y ago
  Talk is cheap. Just let the results of your actions in the response to the zeitgeist speak for itself.

paulpauper 3y ago

There are so many confounders. It's not the marriage, but rather having more money. Marriage confers various financial benefits. I am sure celeb kids do fine despite their parents having messy personal lives (e.g. Woody Allen's kids). Divorce is pretty bad too, though. It's possible that divorcee undoes most or all the benefits.

porknubbins 3y ago
I’m not covinced money can overcome lack of stable family relationships. It certainly helps but seems like a small piece when it comes to healthy childhood development. I know lots of messed up rich kids and celebrity kids are not famously stable either.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  It may not, but consider a) financial issues are the #1 reason for divorce. so statistically speaking, higher financial status will lead to less divorces which supports the notion given in the article b) a hopefully agreeable premise that a rich unstable relationship ends up with a better kid than a poor unstable relationship. it's not as simple as "money solves problems", but it seems to correlate .
- paulpauper 3y ago
  maybe not as stable, but they do better in terms of life outcomes anyway . like earning more money due to name recognition and trust funds. To say otherwise is moving the goalposts. Economists when they talk about life outcomes are talking about quantifiable things like wealth.

mgamache 3y ago

There are a couple of things to consider. 1) Women don't need men in modern society. They would likely stay married longer and be more picky about the type of man to bread with if they were stuck with him forever. The benefit is that women don't get stuck in abusive relationships. 2) Modern dating is turning us into polygamists. Women will pursue the top 10% (or so) of men and those men have little incentive to get married. There is a financial penalty to having children, but much less than getting married and having children. Of course this leads to single mothers with, at best, part time fathers.

yowlingcat 3y ago
This is an oft repeated trope that flies in the face of evolutionary history [1]. Because it doesn't actually work, I think that it reflects socioeconomic class demarcations -- that is, the upper class and the lower classes take different strategies. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K_selection_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K_selection_theory
- mgamache 3y ago
  My hypothesis is supported by dating and sex data. And no it doesn't work at scale or for very long, but it is a driver of mate selection.
  - drjasonharrison 3y ago
    Peer reviewed citations or we'll assume that your data is anecdotal. And skewed from a sub-population that is interested in data and sex rather than mating and marriage. The platforms that provide matches aren't very motivated to find perfect matches that lead to marriages. They haven't yet expanded into the marriage industry. Women raising children alone may be due to a large number of factors and grouping them into "women don't need men, they just need sperm" is missing the support (sometimes) available from their male partner.
    - mgamache 3y ago

djrobstep 3y ago

This research is entirely bogus. As Matt Bruenig points out: > In general, there was some kind of problem present in the family that experienced the divorce that was not present in the family that did not experience the divorce. To actually analyze the effect of the divorce, you would need to compare the divorced family to a hypothetical version of itself that did not divorce despite whatever the problem was that lead to the divorce. > Another way to put this is: you need to compare couples with the same kinds of relationship dysfunctions, but where one couple splits and the other couple stays together. Comparing a split-couple with a certain relationship dysfunction to an intact-couple that does not have that relationship dysfunction, which is what all of this research does, is an obvious mistake. > To put this in less abstract terms, if dad beats mom and they get divorced, it’s not accurate to say that, but for the divorce, the kids would have fared exactly the same as a similar non-divorced family where dad does not beat mom. Yet that is what the research Kearney relies upon assumes. Full post here: https://mattbruenig.com/2023/09/20/doing-the-marriage-thing-again/ https://mattbruenig.com/2023/09/20/doing-the-marriage-thing-...

barsonme 3y ago
Matt’s blog post does not convince me that this is “entirely bogus.” > To put this in less abstract terms, if dad beats mom and they get divorced, it’s not accurate to say that, but for the divorce, the kids would have fared exactly the same as a similar non-divorced family where dad does not beat mom. Yet that is what the research Kearney relies upon assumes. Is she really suggesting that an unstable, abusive 2P household is significant better than any 1P household? Given her quotes in TFA, this doesn't seem to be the case. Matt also writes: > As with any group, the missing parents are a heterogenous bunch, but that population almost certainly skews towards below-average earnings and below-average domestic contribution, with many actually having a net-negative domestic contribution, whether because they are abusive, demanding, or otherwise. > This is easily the goofiest thing about this discourse. To hear Kearney talk about it, you’d think that the single mothers of the world are turning down $44,000 and hundreds of hours of free child care each year. But why would someone do that? If that option is as incredibly beneficial as Kearney says it is, why don’t people select it? Do people want their lives to be bad rather than good? TFA states that 50% of children in the US are born to unmarried mothers. Should we assume that 50% of fathers are abusive or demanding or just an overall net negative like Matt suggests? That seems like /quite/ a stretch. Matt assumes that the single mothers turning down “$44,000 and free childcare” must be doing so rationally (because their potential partners would be a net negative). But people don’t always think rationally, especially young people having children out of wedlock. It can be an incredibly stressful and difficult situation. That, or he ignores social stigma and the amount of work it takes to work and raise a child and quite naively assumes that unmarried mothers have the same ability to find a long-term partner as somebody without kids. Perhaps many of those unmarried mothers actually do want $44,000 and free childcare, but find it difficult to get that after having a child?

langsoul-com 3y ago

A sub note is that happy married parents do better. Happy, married and engaged parents. The disengaged parent does much much harm. Like someone who had a father who was never engaged and, growing up, he felt he missed that father figure, got into trouble, rebelled and, now as a father, is terrified of inflicting the same wounds onto his son.

usefulcat 3y ago
> now as a father, is terrified of inflicting the same wounds onto his son Anyone who at least has that worry is still way ahead of those who had an absentee father (or parent) and doesn't think it caused them any harm even though it obviously did. I've met both kinds.
ajju 3y ago
Working hard to ensure you don’t repeat the mistakes of your parents already makes you a good parent - one who cares and strives. I worry too, especially about the weaknesses I share with one of my parents. Occasionally though, I find that my inward focus on my concern about a mistake I might make causes me to focus less on my kid or his concerns in an important moment. Since I learned this, I try to be present enough to react to life while it’s happening, instead of ricocheting painful memories while life is happening! The good news is that loving parents who strive to continuously do better serve as a good example for their kids, even when they fail. Life is hard and full of failures. Even when you fail, and even if you fail frequently, showing your kid that you’ll keep striving to do better - now that may be the most valuable lesson of them all.

swayvil 3y ago

If 2 parents make a good kid then maybe 3 parents make a better kid. It used to be people lived near their extended family. Lots of parents there. Be aware that this "nuclear family" is a recent and historically strange thing. It has not been tested in the long term. In all likelihood it's bad for us.

klipt 3y ago
Extended family is definitely better for raising kids. The problem is nuclear family is better for chasing good jobs and making money (likely far away from extended family). As the saying goes, you can serve Mammon/wealth, or god/your community of origin, but not both.
randomdata 3y ago
> It used to be people lived near their extended family. Maybe in very early human history, but research suggests that humans had already moved beyond Africa 180,000 years ago. For all intents and purposes, people have always left their family in search of a better life. What is recent is the practical ability to keep in touch with extended family even when afar. It is possible that hinders the creation of supportive communities to stand in for where biological families are missing.

agnosticmantis 3y ago

"Most single mothers start from behind; they're less likely to have a college education or a high income. Single motherhood is a lot less prevalent in higher-educated women. This college gap exists for white, Black and Latino families." These seem to be things to control for before making a causal claim. I haven't read the original study, but wouldn't be surprised if they didn't control for these (and other) important factor because then they'd likely not reach their desired result.

Loocid 3y ago

I would like to see some stats for children of a happy couple that have been together for 10 years, both married and unmarried to see if they differ. As far as I can tell all she is saying is that happy couples are more likely to be married, and children of happy couples are more likely to succeed. Seems like this has everything to do with having happy, loving parents and nothing to do with having married parents despite the title.

ARandomerDude 3y ago
> 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. They appear to have a higher bar for a potential spouse than their partners, or the fathers of their children, have met.
yowzadave 3y ago
Precisely. Matt Bruenig wrote a pretty compelling analysis of why the statistics in the book are either misleadingly presented or so banal as to be useless: https://mattbruenig.com/2023/09/20/doing-the-marriage-thing-again/ https://mattbruenig.com/2023/09/20/doing-the-marriage-thing-...
- ajju 3y ago
  I understand his critique of the stats, but I wonder if Mr. Bruenig disagrees with the author’s points of view. In particular I wonder what he thinks would be best for his own kids. He seems to be, per wikipedia, married to a high-school friend (sweetheart?) for almost a decade with two kids. While I do not think his personal actions have any bearing on the accuracy of his statistical critiques of the author, it does seem like his revealed preferences support the author’s points of view. I would be shocked if he believes the health of his marriage has no bearing on the overall wellbeing of his kids. Regardless, I wish him and his wife a long and happy marriage, because I believe that would be the best outcome for both of them and their kids.
  - 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

ppsreejith 3y ago

There's a lot of confounding variables here. Divorce could be a symptom of an underlying cause which could be the actual reason why kids do worse. Or it could be that when people pool their resources, it creates a more stable home (in resources and labor) and stable homes are a stronger cause. Re:stable homes, it'd be interesting to envision whether non-nuclear family structures would be more stable. Maybe matrilineal/ matrilocal cultures (even if they're patriarchal) where children of a family are those born to it's women (more stable family since you don't divorce your siblings/mom, much freer relationships, paternity maybe unknown etc). The book Sex a At Dawn (controversial book!) explores these ideas.

anon291 3y ago
Coming from a culture that embraces extended family I'll tell you that divorces within the family fracture the family worse than anything. On its own marriage extends your family because two extended families become one. Divorce ruins the whole thing. It's even worse the more relatives you have. More people are affected. Extended families are stable because the social pressure to remain married is impossible to overcome for most people. Most Americans have no idea how oppressive a full extended family can feel and simply think it's all unicorns and rainbows. It's not.
- ppsreejith 3y ago
  Agree that divorce in extended families can be worse. I was making the (additional) claim that matrilocality & children being raised by woman's family can make families more stable (i.e divorce resistant).