I think that having two adult role models to give a child love, and to serve as an example of 'how to have good interactions with others' is also quite important.
I was a child of divorce, and honestly it was a bit traumatizing. My parents were (and still are) often quite angry, mean and dishonest. They spent literally over $100,000 on legal fees, but "didn't have the money" to buy me a guitar.
So despite being (relatively) well off, coming from a violent, if not outright abusive at times household, suffering from parental neglect... yeah honestly that may have contributed to things like "skipping class to do drugs".
I think there's a lot of socializing that can happen in a functional two parent household that doesn't happen in single parent households, and this may be an additional advantage, in addition to equivalisation + social transfers/safety nets.
Plus as previous comments have said, if your parent has the trait "functional, responsible adult capable of having healthy relationships", that probably really increases your outcomes.
>having two parents who stay married, are not abusive to each other or their children, and are generally functional human beings is something of a luxury.
"Functional human being(s)" is the key there. Lots of people who were raised by a single parent, divorced parents or occasionally abusive households turned out fine.
From what I understand, most studies show that the most important thing is for kids to have two parents -- kids raised in single parent households didn't do as well (but I'm not sure how many associated variables were controlled for.)
The gender of the two parents didn't seem to have much of an impact.
In what way(s) do single/divorced parents prevent their children from flourishing? That's a bold claim. I hope you have some evidence.
And by that logic, wouldn't having more than two parents be even better for the children? More adults around, more supervision, more household income. Wouldn't that promote "stability"?
Some bad answers (and non-answers) to your question here. There are many studies on this with various conclusions worth reading, example set [1]. At a high level, US marriages (and potentially non-US long-term partnerships) bring stability, additional economic support, an additional role model (completely missing for boys growing up in a single mother household), additional attention & emotional support at home, and the ability to split parenting tasks as the need arises (ex. dad goes to a school event because mom needs to work late, or vice versa).
Also important to note is that parental attention has a large impact on academic outcomes of kids [2], so in single parent households where the parent doesn't have the time to provide sufficient attention, the kids suffer at school compared to their two-parent peers.
I can't speak to individual circumstances. I've certainly seen your situation and know that it happens. Just in aggregate though, children of two parent households overwhelmingly have better outcomes. In fact it's the single largest factor determining success in life, statistically. Certainly this can be in spite of, rather than because of your parents.
I think a big impact on a child's ability to move up in the world is whether they have a father. I recall a study out there saying there is a distinct difference in income between a child from single and two parent homes.
I think the idea is that if you DO nurture and feed your relationship, you're more likely to have the kind of environment where there is love and compassion, and that is an infinitely better situation for the kids than one where the parents hate each other and are resentful.
> It's been proven myriad ways that kids are better off with both parents for many developmental reasons.
Is that true? I know that it's been shown that kids in 2 parent households do better than single parent ones, but I don't know that research has separated out the "correlation vs. causation" aspect of that. I.e. would it be better for the kids 2 parents that hate each other to stick together rather than separate.
Yes. Children with only one parent are more likely to be physically and mentally unhealthy, go to prison, not go to college, use drugs, abuse alcohol, etc. It should be obvious that children are better off when there are two people responsible for taking care of them.
I encourage healthy debate about controversial issues like this. When I opened up my New York Times today, I found this article, which questions how important two-parent households are for childhood success, especially among Afro-American youth:
“living in a two-parent family does not increase the chances of finishing high school as much for black students as for their white peers”
“Greater involvement in extended family networks may protect against some of the negative effects associated with parental absence from the home”
The conclusion of this New York Times opinion piece is that structural racism has more impact on the success of young Afro-American kids than single parent households.
First, children who grow up in an intact, two-parent family with both biological parents present do better on a wide range of outcomes than children who grow up in a single-parent family. Single parenthood is not the only, nor even the most important, cause of the higher rates of school dropout, teenage pregnancy, juvenile delinquency, or other negative outcomes we see; but it does contribute independently to these problems. Neither does single parenthood guarantee that children will not succeed; many, if not most, children who grow up in a single-parent household do succeed.
That, coupled to the fact that marriage improves stability. You have less incentives to overcome disagreements and other issues if not bound by law.
I don't buy the narrative of children from single mother homes faring worse due to not having a "father figure". the hardships fared by such children stem from lack of adequate family finances and lack of parental interaction due to overwork. those families need more financial help, not lamenting about "two parents is always better than one"
I believe Harvard did a study that showed that two parent households were more strongly correlated with child academic achievement than other factors. Granted that's not married couples or biological parents, but two parent households. And academic achievement is only one measure of success.
I was a child of divorce, and honestly it was a bit traumatizing. My parents were (and still are) often quite angry, mean and dishonest. They spent literally over $100,000 on legal fees, but "didn't have the money" to buy me a guitar.
So despite being (relatively) well off, coming from a violent, if not outright abusive at times household, suffering from parental neglect... yeah honestly that may have contributed to things like "skipping class to do drugs".
I think there's a lot of socializing that can happen in a functional two parent household that doesn't happen in single parent households, and this may be an additional advantage, in addition to equivalisation + social transfers/safety nets.
Plus as previous comments have said, if your parent has the trait "functional, responsible adult capable of having healthy relationships", that probably really increases your outcomes.
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