1. Why Two Parents Are So Important to Children:
The US Census Bureau found that children in father-absent homes are almost four times more likely to be poor. In 2011, 12 percent of children in married-couple families were living in poverty, compared to 44 percent of children in mother-only families. Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Children’s Living Arrangements and Characteristics: March 2011, Table C8. Washington D.C.: 2011.
When children are born to a single mother, they tend to show higher levels of aggressive behavior than children born to married mothers. Source: Osborne, C., & McLanahan, S. (2007). Partnership instability and child well-being. Journal of Marriage and Family, 69, 1065-1083.
A study of 1,977 children age three and older living with a residential father or father figure found that children living with married biological parents had significantly fewer behavioral problems than children living with at least one non-biological parent. Source: Hofferth, S. L. (2006). Residential father family type and child well-being: investment versus selection. Demography, 43, 53-78.
A study of 109 juvenile offenders indicated that family structure significantly predicts delinquency. Source: Bush, Connee, Ronald L. Mullis, and Ann K. Mullis. “Differences in Empathy Between Offender and Nonoffender Youth.” Journal of Youth and Adolescence 29 (August 2000): 467-478. 78, 132–147.
Adolescents, particularly boys, in single-parent families were at higher risk of committing crimes against property and against people. Source: Anderson, Amy L. “Individual and contextual influences on delinquency: the role of the single-parent family.” Journal of Criminal Justice 30 (November 2002): 575-587.
The problem isn’t just a problem in the US. In a study of INTERPOL crime statistics of 39 countries, it was found that single parenthood ratios were strongly correlated with violent crimes. This was not true 18 years ago. Source: Barber, Nigel. “Single Parenthood As a Predictor of Cross-National Variation in Violent Crime.” Cross-Cultural Research 38 (November 2004): 343-358.
A study published by the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and the Brookings Institution, noted that the decline in two-parent families has been closely linked with a rise in child poverty. It went on to say that changes in marriage and the family “appear to be depriving children of such documented benefits of marriage as better physical and emotional health and greater socioeconomic attainment.” Moreover, marriage, not just parents in the same household, was the key factor. Children in cohabiting households, although they tend to fare better economically than those in single-parent households, are worse off than those in married-parent households.
2. Dalrock writes about the unmourned death of courtship:
We see the same scenario described in the New York Post article Cheap dates How the ‘price’ of sex has dropped to record lows: researchers found a full 30% of young men’s sexual relationships involve no romance at all — no wooing, dating, goofy text messaging. Nothing. Just sex.
While this starts off as exciting and fun for young women, before very long they are no longer at the apex of their sexual power and hooking up stops being so appealing. By this time however, it is too late to go back and effectively pursue a traditional strategy. They may find a sucker willing to pay filet mignon prices for ground chuck, but these aren’t the same class of men they could have attracted for marriage or a LTR when they were younger.
3. Free Northerner has a superb post on women waiting too long to get married:
You average women will have met a large number of decent guys throughout her late-teens or early-20s. If she has not married one of them that shows that she either:
- Puts a low priority on marriage and children, in which case she is not what a patriarch is looking for.
- Had some flaws that were strong enough that no other decent man pursue he and propose to her, in which case sound judgment would warn any other man to avoid her.
- Has far too unrealistic standards of her husband. Anybody who marries her will not be able to live up to them (that includes you, you’re not special), setting the stage for a bad marriage.
- She has been open to many suitors and either dated a large number of them or simply had one or two long-term relationships that went nowhere. She didn’t end up marrying them because, for whatever reason, none of the men she dated were of sufficient quality for marriage. In this case, she has shown that she has a history of poor choices regarding the type of men she has allowed into her life. These poor choices shows that she has poor judgment in men, which likely means poor judgment in other areas of life. Poor judgment is not something any patriarch should want to attach themselves to. (Either that or see #3;they were of sufficient quality, she just had unrealistic standards).
A women who is still single by her late-20s is simply not the kind of women any patriarch should be looking to marry. She may be a good women, but she is not the type of women a patriarch should choose.
Ironically while this is generally presented by Christians as becoming modern and learning from science, scientists know that the biblical view of marriage actually works… research demonstrating the powerful effects of marital commitment on marital happiness. A strong commitment to marriage as an institution, and a powerful reluctance to divorce, do not merely keep unhappily married people locked in misery together. They also help couples form happier bonds. To avoid divorce, many assume, marriages must become happier. But it is at least equally true that in order to get happier, unhappy couples or spouses must first avoid divorce. “In most cases, a strong commitment to staying married not only helps couples avoid divorce, it helps more couples achieve a happier marriage,”.
In practice the modern Christian approach to marital difficulties ends up being the same approach followed in the secular world; the wife shares her feelings at great length and the husband must listen and do something about it. This inverts the biblical relationship of the husband and his wife’s emotions. In biblical marriage the husband is his wife’s emotional rock, and he lovingly anchors and shelters her when her emotions storm over her. If he didn’t, she would become untethered. In this new bastardized version of Christian marriage the wife’s emotions rule them both… (great care should be taken) not to elevate the wife’s emotions to the point where they are now the driving force in the marriage, and to avoid cutting husbands off at the knees.
5. The importance of both a mother and a father on teenage girls:
The author, Steve Biddulph, a family therapist who wrote a book several years ago about the crisis happening with boys, has noted a new crisis emerging with girls: a culture of early sexualisation. In other words, slut-culture. He quite rightly notes that this is a violently destructive force that is ruining young girls’ childhoods, and he has some good advice for how to counter that force.
His number one piece of advice is to have a devoted, loving father present.
“For a girl, Dad is her personal ambassador from the Planet Male. If she has a good relationship with him, she’s unlikely to settle for less from the other males in her life, or allow herself to be manipulated. Put very simply, psychologists have discovered that it’s good mothers who make girls feel secure – but it’s good fathers who are vital for their self-esteem”.
Gals in their late 20s-early 30s only view men as a golden ticket to spawning and a golden parachute because they are tired of having to go out in the world and make their own money.
I would make the cut off age, 25. After that her youth is basically gone.
I’m afraid you’re right about that, tater. If she’s 28 and not married yet, something’s very wrong. And she’s likely had a number of sex partners, some of whom were more attractive than the man she’s set her sights on now.
If she’s 28 or up, never married and looking, one or more of the following is happening:
1. Baby rabies
2. Wants the status of being married
3. All her friends are getting married
As sad as it is to say, I think you are correct Tate. For one, as you noted, 25 is roughly the point where age starts to cut into a woman’s attractiveness. At that point they aren’t “giving you the best years of their life.” But they will be getting yours as a man.
More important, I think, is the fact that women who are good wife material are so rare these days they get snapped up early. The odds of a late 20′s woman making a good wife? Too low to be worth the effort of investigating, much less worth the risk of actually investing in. Even more so for women in their 30′s.
The entire purpose behind marriage was and still is to provide a safe, predictable, stable environment for rearing children. That’s all it ever was intended to be. Now, due to cultural influences, we have seen the advent of hedonic marriage — which exists to make its participants “happy” and give them fulfilling lives in which the sex is always off-the-charts hot. And so when reality sets in and marriage is not all it’s been built up to be, the women are invariably unhappy and disappointed.
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The article appears to be advocating marriage as an advantage for raising children. If true, I can’t help but point out that comparisons made (in #1) between married and “other” family arrangements overlooks an important detail. Namely, a great many of the “other” family arrangements are also products of marriage. For example the first citation – 44% of mother only households live in poverty – how many of these were a product of marriage gone bad? I suspect a great many.
To be fair, if one were to extol the benefits of marriage to raise children then they would also have to lump in the ill-effects of those marriages ending in divorce and separation. If you selectively remove the effects of bad marriages upon children, i.e. divorce/separation and their emotional and economic consequences, then it’s easy to see why children prosper with “marriage”.
As this reference notes: “once differences in parental education and socio-economic status are controlled for, and disappears entirely once other differences, such as family structure, are accounted for .
This suggests that the majority of the gap in socio-emotional
development between children born to cohabiting as opposed to married
parents is accounted for by their parents’ lower levels of **education and
income.**” (emphasis mine) Source: http://www.ifs.org.uk/pr/marriage_outcomes.pdf
So it’s not that marriage bestows some sort of magic upon children. Parents with higher education tend to read to their children more and have greater input into their child’s own education. And those marriages that last will sustain an economic benefit upon children which is also contributes to their development. But get a divorce and everything changes.
Money and education – the keys to raising well adjusted, successful children.
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