Why Children of Married Parents Do Better
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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.
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.
The healthy home environment causes the lack of divorce, not the other way around.
A marriage certificate is not a 100% vaccine against what imho are the shared root causes of divorce and unhealthy home environments - like mutually incompatible or self-centered human beings (absence of love as a noun), lack of commitment (absence of love as a verb).
With or without marriage - partners with a shared world view do well if (a) both partners want happiness for the other as much as they want it for themselves and (b) both openly expect to be a good partners to each other for life, even as both partners inevitably change, grow, fall short, succeed, fail etc.
We don’t have to call (a) “love” and (b) “marriage”, but these remain the most common shared names for these concepts in many societies.*
IMHO though, since we are very much imperfect animals and social animals, society having a shared expectation that couples strive for (a) and (b) matters - and I would be willing to consider all the ways in which this can be done.
* - We also face the separate and important problem that we have harmful definitions of these words in some sub-sections of human society -
Marriage is many things, but amongst them, it is also a safety net for the children of that marriage. At its best, it brings the resources of two extended families and friend networks together to support the couple and the children. I wonder if Matt would agree with the view that Marriage is the most “atomic” form of socialism (which he seems to support)
At its best, it is exactly the same in that regard as coparenting without marriage is at its best. Having had both married and unmarried parents in committed (also, in other cases, failed—both married and unmarried) relationships in my extended friends and family network, the degree of support I’ve seen them get doesn’t seem to be very different.
I would agree that it is the commitment that matters.
Where we may agree:
Social norms really do impact human behavior. Marriage is a social norm supporting long term commitment. In communities where it has been replaced with another social norm supporting commitment (eg my well-off friends in Europe), it has become less relevant.
I also posit that adults in committed coparenting relationships constitute a small minority of unmarried adults in America (vs. France for example where a majority of my friends with kids match your description).
Where we probably disagree:
In my observations of close friends in loving relationships with children, previously in loving marriages, are now divorced and in respectful and functional coparenting but not cohabitating relationships.
For a considerable amount of time, they are functionally single parents. In most cases parents and siblings of one ex-spouse are unlikely to want to support the other ex-spouse with in-person child support.
The bright exception to this rule seems to be divorced co-parents who live in close proximity or in one instance in the same duplex and are good friends.
Or as Shakespeare would say, "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet."
Because it's a farce. There is nothing permanent or guaranteed from marriage, so all that's left is commercialization of my affection, which is not for me, and a big bill which can be used for other life goals which I find more appealing.
I won't go into more details for the "ceremonial part", because there is an alternative: sign a piece of paper harshly and be done. This is cheap and effective, sharing finances simplify managing them and in case of medical emergencies you are "allowed in" as husband/wife.
Here, Canada, after living together for 1 year it's equivalent to being married, so we have literally lost any incentive to do so: we can skip all legal costs. Actually we joke about it, saying "I'll merry you" in moments of affection, but that's about it.
common law rules are quite strong where I live, so there isn't really much of a reason to jump through those hoops.
needless effort, familial drama, legal wrangling, and for what? doesn't mean they'll love me more or less. doesn't mean they're more likely to put away the dishes, or get paid more.
> 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-...
> 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?
She does not consider the quality of the household whatsoever. That is the problem.
> 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.
That doesn't mean 50% are divorced. For instance, my own partner and I are unmarried and recently had a child together, but we aren't divorced.
> Matt assumes that the single mothers turning down “$44,000 and free childcare” must be doing so rationally
? No he doesn't.
> quite naively assumes that unmarried mothers have the same ability to find a long-term partner as somebody without kids
Again, no he doesn't assume this at all. In fact, the article doesn't mention repartnering whatsoever.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
As the saying goes, you can serve Mammon/wealth, or god/your community of origin, but not both.
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.
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 .
If someone talked constantly about, say, "toxic women", would you really believe they were only talking about a subset?
Seems like you're agreeing with me.
If toxic masculinity encompasses a big chunk of masculinity, if there's no clear definition of non-toxic masculinity that's actually masculine, and if toxic femininity isn't ever discussed, it can seem like masculinity is considered to be an overall toxic trait while femininity isn't.
I think the GP was responding to the broader idea that masculinity is especially toxic in comparison to everything else, rather than the narrow "some men light themselves on fire to prove they're macho and get hurt, and that's bad" defensible academic usage.
I don't know of much literature that looks into single mother's and why they are single.
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.
Looking it up: 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.
>Like, if infidelity lead you to never want to look at the other person again, you could just carry out the rest of your life pretending they don't exist.
Sure, not all infidelity leads to divorce, some stay together for the kids, others forgive or drop it, others "get even" and then forgive/drop it. Infidelity also isn't illegal and open relationships are a thing, so you can indeed remain legally married and proceed to date aroind as if you are single.
But general societal pressure dictate that if you want to properly separate you divorce. Which is probably why the top two reason come from not being a good partner (i.e. Being unable or unwilling to take care of the family or not being faithful).
Polygamy is also a problem: because while there's no real punishment for it in society for engaging in polygamy, you are legally not allowed to have multiple spouses. If you ever imagine re-marrying you want to get that divorce over with ASAP. And the process can take a while.
But isn't that still directly related to finances? The article kind of touches on the same point, where women are "giving up on men" who are not in a good financial position. Not having your finances sorted out with a former partner would also question one's financial position. If one wants to explore other partners after a relationship breakdown, there is social pressure to get one's finances in order.
> If you ever imagine re-marrying
But circling back, you pointed out that the most common reason people get married is for financial reasons. So it seems the reason for divorce, in order to prepare for another marriage, is still for financial reasons.
Which makes sense as the modern marriage contract doesn't cover anything other than financial attributes. Maybe there was an earlier age where there was more to it, but we don't uphold those values anymore.
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.
it doesn't necessarily mean women need men, but people in general are starting to require some partner or otherwise roomate to make ends meet. with the context of a kid, that overwhelmingly implies a partner.
2) if only. it's more like casual sex in general is more popular. Not necessarily a bad thing, but if less people are meeting romantically and are getting their sexual gratification casually, you see how this can lead to less stable relationships (if they form at all).
even in an unofficial capacity, polygamy may be able to solve quite a few problems. But I'm not sure if that sentiment will shift in my lifetime, at least in the U.S.
Your post seems a bit out of touch with reality imo. It’s a very “internet” opinion, which according to statistics is not true.
https://qz.com/1051462/these-statistics-show-why-its-so-hard...
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.
I have no skin in this game in any way that would have me contributing to society; and, from twenty years of experience being told repeatedly I am not good enough, I will act completely selfishly. It is my duty, and the duties of other "leftover men" like me, to minimize any sort of sense of civic duty, contribution, and taxation, and to keep an eye out for a much better deal (even if it's in a foreign country). We must not let The State turn us into cucks: let the nation of single mothers sink or swim on its own without us!
My mom outlived my father by a few years. My grandmothers both outlived their husbands. This is well known pattern.
"men going their own way" may lead to more lonely, sick, unhappy men.
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.