In studies of some of the difficulties that Flanagan so recklessly pins on single parenting, such as substance abuse and behavioral problems, evidence of those difficulties can be traced back as far as 12 years BEFORE the parents divorced. (References are in Singled Out.) The timeline is not: parents split, kids freak out. Rather, the kids are already troubled well in advance of the divorce, while they are living in the supposedly ideal household run by two married parents.
Another relevant study was based on a nationally representative sample of more than 10,000 high school students followed over time. The author compared the students whose parents spit up over the course of the study to those whose parents stayed together. He found that the students whose parents would eventually split were already doing less well on math and reading and had more behavioral problems even while their parents were still together. Their family environments were different - they saw their parents as getting along less well with them (the adolescents) and with each other. Their parents were also less involved in their educations (such as by discussing school-related issues with them).
The "just get married" advice of marriage-promotion programs (and of those who would simplify or caricature the issues) rests on a teetering assumption - that if those parents who fight constantly or endure each other in icy silence would just stay together, then their kids (who are already having problems) would be just fine.
I do not want in any way to minimize the emotional pain and other difficulties that can face children in any type of household, including single-parent homes. But it is also wrong to blatantly misrepresent and exaggerate those problems.
One Last Reason to Stop the Stigmatizing
The utter inaccuracy of the claim that kids living with both parents "drastically outperform" children of single parents "in all cases" is more than enough reason to make that sort of irresponsible stigmatizing stop. Here's another. Single parenting can't all be pinned on wandering, lying, hypocritical South Carolina governors who spend Fathers Day with a South American mistress instead of their kids. Death happens. Ongoing wars mean that scores of children who go to sleep at night with two parents wake up in the morning with just one. Medical calamities outside of war zones create instant one-parent families, too.
If readers were to take Caitlin Flanagan's proclamations at face value, then they may be tempted to conclude that if death or anything else turns their two-parent household into a one-parent home, then they should hurry and marry again. Perhaps Flanagan should have said a word about the conclusion of the book she mentions. In The Marriage-Go-Round, Andrew Cherlin ends with this piece of advice - "Slow down":
"Americans' pattern of going quickly from partner to partner is problematic for children...we should focus not only on Americans' tendency to end relationships too quickly - the most common critique - but also on their tendency to start relationships too quickly (p. 194)."
The message, in a way, is a familiar one: Stability is good for kids. The difference between Flanagan's argument and Cherlin's or mine, though, is that Flanagan seems to locate stability only within two-parent households. Sure, it can be there, but if that's the only place you see it, then you are standing out in the rainstorm of conventional wisdom and need to invest in an intellectual umbrella.
After reading stacks of research papers in the professional journals (and not just going by the claims of people such as Judith Wallerstein or members of the Heritage Foundation), I came to this conclusion in Singled Out:
"Single parents can provide stability, too. When they settle in with their kids, maintain a good connection with them, and do not jump from one marriage to another, they are probably going to have children who are as healthy and secure as anyone else's (p. 182)."
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REFERENCES
Davis, E. C., & Friel, L. V. (2001). Adolescent sexuality: Disentangling the effects of family structure and family context. Journal of Marriage and Family, 63, 669-681.
Hoffman, J. P., & Johnson, R. A. (1998). A national portrait of family structure and adolescent drug use. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 60, 633-645.
Lansford, J. E., Ceballo, R., Abbey, A., & Stewart, A. J. (2001). Does family structure matter? A comparison of adoptive, two-parent biological, single-mother, stepfather, and stepmother households. Journal of Marriage and Family, 63, 840-851.
Park, H. (2007). Single parenthood and children's reading performance in Asia. Journal of Marriage and Family, 69, 863-877.
Pong, S.-L., Dronkers, J., & Hampden-Thompson, G. (2003). Family policies and children's school achievement in single- versus two-parent families. Journal of Marriage and Family, 65, 681-699.
Sun, Y. (2001). Family environment and adolescents' well-being before and after parents' marital disruption: A longitudinal analysis. Journal of Marriage and Family, 63, 697-713.
