Brad Wilcox has an interesting post at Double X about single motherhood. He writes extensively about family politics. I'm really glad that Double X published an article that is different from their standard repertoire.
At first glance, I might qualify as the poster boy forKatie Roiphe’s recent Slate article defending single mothers and their children. Raised by a strong and resourceful single mother, I turned out OK. Sure, I had some unusually angry outbursts as a child (like the time I threw my lunchbox across the dining hall at camp for no good reason) and had to endure my share of therapy for that anger. But I have managed to steer clear of prison, earn a Ph.D., hold down a decent job, and marry up. My life is proof positive, as Roiphe argues, that married-parent families “do not have a monopoly on joy or healthy environments or thriving children.”
But, as a social scientist, I can also say that the academic research paints a much more complicated picture of the impact of family structure on children than does my life story or Roiphe’s experience.
Apt. 11d 
Isn’t the reasonable extrapolation here that even more ideal would be a THREE parent family? i mean, a second dad to teach carpentry while the first one handles sports and the mom checks the homework, or another mom to stay home with the kids while the other mom (and the dad) both model hard-working industry in the workplace?
It seems like all of the advantages of the two-parent household over the single mother would be doubled if we added a third parent.
I wonder why we don’t see more articles about that?
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I actually think that adding adults who love and nurture to a family is a big plus for children. Usually the additional adults come in the form of aunts and uncles and grandparents, but third parents could work, too. I know of at least one family where it does (lesbian moms + biological dad). Some stepparent families work with more than two parents, too (I’ve seen some of those, too).
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Ragtime, you are my new hero.
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I am actually in favor of communes.
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Still waiting for headlines like “Fathers Walking Out on their Parental Obligations: Worse for Children!”
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Well, the friend of mine who grew up in a three parent family (in Shiraz, his mom was the older wife, and his dad spent most of his time in the wing he had built for the younger wife) didn’t have much good to say about it.
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I’ve noted before the interesting parallels between standard Russian family structure and working class US family structure. On the one hand, I’ve been friends with quite a number of middle class Russian divorcees who seemed to be doing OK bringing up ONE (1.00) child. On the other hand, I can’t help but notice that both in Russia and in the US working class, there’s a substantial problem with raising boys and turning them into satisfactory men who stay out of prison and don’t embark on a spiral of self-destructive activities. (The male Russian life expectancy is 64 these days and the female life expectancy is 76, which is almost as if the two sexes were living in totally different countries.) Interestingly, there tend to be more boys than girls in Russian orphanages (quite a reversal from the numbers in places like China). While the larger number of Russian boys in orphanages may reflect greater frequency of disability among boys, it might likewise reflect mothers’ belief that if they keep one child, it should be a girl, and that a girl is a better bet for growing up to be a functional, productive member of the matryoshka household.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matryoshka_doll
B.I. mentioned overhearing a conversation between urban boys who were talking about how they wanted to get married and be supportive to their kids and their kids’ mother. Aside from the difficulties that have already been discussed, I note that these boys (and their female counterparts) are terribly disadvantaged with regard to relationship know-how if they have never lived in a household with a mother and father who share responsibilities and expenses and know how to settle disagreements amicably. That all sounds simple, but if you’ve never seen it done, it’s really hard to figure it out yourself. This relationship know-how is part of the middle class tool kit the importance of which we’ve discussed in other contexts. If dad thinks that he should be able to buy a motorcycle without spousal consultation because he works “really hard” and/or mom thinks the same, the family is not going to make it.
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“My life is proof positive, as Roiphe argues, that married-parent families “do not have a monopoly on joy or healthy environments or thriving children.”
But, as a social scientist, I can also say that the academic research paints a much more complicated picture of the impact of family structure on children”
More complicated, shit. The academic research paints a dreadful picture. Now, my lesbian sister and her partner raised their two boys into successful and happy adulthood. One of them went to Haverford, graduated, wife and two. The other has bounced around some, but I don’t see it as problems from having had two mommies, and he is doing well now, about to marry and is valued at his job. My sis and her wife had what AmyP calls the middle class tool kit absolutely down – bought a house, paid down the mortgage, saved for college, took the kids to church, modelled thrift for them, hobbies, read to them as kids, etc.
I think that’s hard to do as an only parent. Single mother, single father, it’s hard. Again, nod to AmyP – easier if you have only one. But still hard.
I am now in conversation with my lads about the Birds and Bees. The schools have blundered through the condom-on-the-banana and where babies come from, but basically nothing about the moral crisis of getting a girl pregnant and having responsibility for a kid, nor about how impolite it is to seduce a girl by lying about your everlasting love for her, etc. I do think I have some standing here as a male parent that their mother would not.
That said, single parent families happen. I think they are undesirable. I think it’s worth working hard to avoid having your own kids raised that way. But as a society, we need to think what institutions etc to put it in place to keep the harm down to these kids, who are after all the innocents, and who we all need as successful adults in future.
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About that middle class tool kit–one place to lay hands on major components of it is Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University.
http://www.daveramsey.com/fpu/preview/
[Warning to Ragtime: There are Evangelical cooties present on that website–proceed with caution.]
These days it’s a 9-week course dealing with the following themes: overview, relationships, budgeting, dumping debt, developing resistance to marketing, insurance, retirement and college, real estate and mortgage, and lastly giving. (I took the course when it was 13 weeks and hope to facilitate the FPU myself sometime in the next few years.)
One of DR’s biggest insights is that money problems are often relationship problems (and vice versa), and to create more functional money processes at home will often radically improve the quality of the marital relationship. A lot of his radio callers are low-income Southern marrieds, who are struggling with a combination of 1) not enough money and 2) one or two spouses who think “I get to [insert stupid idea here] because I work hard for my money,” no matter what kind of disaster that attitude is bringing to their family.
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I was raised both in a 1.5 parent household and in a “takes a village” type situation. I wouldn’t be who I am if I hadn’t had a whole army of relatives/family friends/neighbors to take on parent-like roles with me. I think with a single parent, other adults willing to take interest in your kid are really important, even if it’s not one “dad” or “mom” like figure but multiple people with different roles. Though, this relies having a social network of people including close friends and family, which a lot of people don’t necessarily have, especially if they’ve moved far away from family.
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Oh, and I think that single parenthood is something that is mitigated by other middle class things, like owning a house, saving for the future, having a good career, being able to “model thrift” and some sort of moral education. When my dad died, we already had all those things (house, retirement accounts, church every Sunday, no CC debt, etc.) I think the hard part is single parenting often occurs with people for whom it’s most damaging, a.k.a., those without the financial or social resources to provide stability and have a safety net.
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If a “village” (community, extended family) has only a few single parent-headed families, perhaps the “village” can provide sufficient support to those families. Past a certain percentage of SPHFs, though, it becomes difficult or impossible, doesn’t it?
Grandparents have traditionally helped their children raise the grandchildren. Of course, many American parents don’t live near their families. And, having children at older ages means the community now has more 70 year-old grandparents (with associated health limits) than 50-year-old grandparents.
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Ragtime, you are my new hero.
I read that in Cameron’s little-kid voice from “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”
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Cranberry said:
“Grandparents have traditionally helped their children raise the grandchildren.”
A lot of grandparents just aren’t into grandparenting. One of the benefits of having working relationships with two families of origin is that you double the chances of having an interested and available grandparent, aunt, etc.
“Of course, many American parents don’t live near their families.”
Single mothers aren’t that mobile usually, are they? (At least not across large distances.)
Just guessing, but isn’t hyper-mobility more typical of nuclear families and the upper-middle class?
“And, having children at older ages means the community now has more 70 year-old grandparents (with associated health limits) than 50-year-old grandparents.”
Doesn’t that also interact with class? The older grandparents are also probably more prosperous grandparents, so what they lack in joint flexibility, they may be able to make up in financial wherewithal.
B.I.,
I’m not having any luck looking it up right now, but my recollection is that orphaned children of married parents have much more positive outcomes than children from homes where the parents never married. I forget where children of divorce fit in, but I believe the different groups are quite distinct in profile.
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nice says
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Ever since familyscholars.org went over to navel-gazing, I’ve been having trouble keeping up with the latest family structure studies, but as I recall, step-families are also distinct. In fact, if I’m remembering correctly, they may even produce worse results than single parent families, a very counter-intuitive result.
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@AmyP From my life anecdata with extended families, stepparenting really is about the worst situation you can get into if both parents are not mature, thoughtful individuals with an abundance of communication skills.
Personally I don’t think I always make the most clear-headed decisions in the thrill of the first months of romantic love (despite having been married 18 years :)) so I have had to make a bottom-line deal with myself that if I were to end up a single parent I would just have to have an absolute rule about no cohabitating until the kids are grown, and if divorced as opposed to widowed, date only on non-custodial nights/weekends.
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