We have been studying family structure long enough to know that there are three staples of a child’s emotional diet: the love of their father, the love of their mother, and stability. Increasingly, America’s children are being denied one or more of these critical emotional nutrients. How do we expect them to thrive in life when we are handing them a famine? What do we honestly think we are creating for our nation and the next generations when not only individual adult decisions but also national law ignore children’s most basic needs?
In 2004, 61 percent of children under the age of 18 grew up with their mom and dad in an intact marriage and family. Now, 14 years later, that number has dropped down to 50 percent. One out of every two children is growing up without one or both of their biological parents. That also means they are much more likely to be living in unstable households. The data we have on the adverse impacts on children growing up within broken family structures is staggering and yet our culture continues to promote and even celebrate the various non-biological family structures. Our culture fixates on the adults’ romantic desires and relationships, with rarely even a nod to the children having to endure their parent’s hookups and breakups.
In this piece Nicholas Zill, a research psychologist and a senior fellow of the Institute for Family Studies asks, “Is growing up with married birth parents advantageous for a young person’s school success and later life chances?” According to his data, the answer is clearly YES. He details several of those advantages:
As shown in numerous analytic studies, students with stably-married parents are more likely to do well in school and less likely to cut classes, repeat grades, be suspended or expelled, or drop out. And significant advantages persist after controlling for related factors like parent education level, family income and poverty status, student race and ethnicity, parent involvement, and teacher or school quality. Rich or poor, this is a type of advantage that parents from all social classes can bestow upon their children: the privilege of a growing up in a stable, married two-parent family.
Many studies show the disadvantages for children growing up without their biological mother and father in the home. Here are some examples: teens living in single-parent families are not only more likely to commit suicide but also more likely to suffer from psychological disorders, when compared to teens living in intact families. 69 percent of children that are sexually abused come from broken family structures. Fatherless children are at a dramatically greater risk of drug and alcohol abuse, mental illness, suicide, poor educational performance, teen pregnancy, and criminality. Their physical health is compromised. The majority of recent mass shooters come from homes with no or minimal father involvement, as shown by Warren Farrell, author of “The Boy Crisis.” Mr. Farrell states that, “numerous factors are cited for a rise in mass shootings, but boys with significant father involvement are not doing these shootings. Without dads as role models, boys’ testosterone is not well channeled and they become among the world’s most destructive forces.”
Bad ideas have victims. Our culture has accepted the distorted idea that if the adults are happy then the children will be happy. Many adults are happier after an easy divorce, when they “came out” and left their spouse and children for a same-sex relationship, in uncommitted sexual relationships, or when they solved their infertility by using a sperm or egg donor. Our culture is wrong and as a result 50% of our children are emotionally malnourished and all of society is suffering the fall-out.
How low will that number need to get before we start to prioritize the rights and needs of children?
Blame the selfishness of the feminist elites.
They wanted it all. They wanted to have careers and, if necessary, to be single mothers.
It was all turned into a choice, all about me, me, me.
Never mind love, family, and mutual commitment to the child.
And all these children who are raised by single parents cannot even conceive of a real family since they never experienced such.
On the other hand those who grow up with heterosexual parents who stay together are more likely to have insecurities if they’re unable to have children. This is due to society views that people without kids are second class citizens and not important to society.
Both of the prior comments hit on very important social factors and I agree, I have a couple of other observations to add.
First, I would say that the feminist elite mentioned by Andrea didn’t arise independent of men who were more than happy to relate to women who would have sex and earn money without wanting to have children, that seemed like a boon to the men who agreed to that arrangement, so that is a two sided coin.
The other thing I would say to G. is that I am noticing a really alarming rise in the number of infertile couples, especially young ones. Fully one third of the couples who I know are unable to get or stay pregnant. The doctor who delivered my youngest has changed from being an OBGYN to being a full time “fertility” doctor, and I looked at his website, the services he offers are absolutely disgusting. Children are products to him. But why are people infertile like this now? I am reading a book about nutrition called Deep Nutrition and the author, a medical doctor, referred to people born in the last decade as Generation Z, because she expects fertility to dip that low. What is going on?
Camren,
I will say that I’m and have always been a healthy male throughout my life. Always physically active never obese. I just happened to be born with a rare genetic condition. I think our environment being as polluted as it is contributing to declining fertility rates especially in the Western World.
But to be fair to your OBGyn all medicine is a commodity. Doctors get paid whether you live or die. We are customers not patients.
Rise of infertility is due to multiple factors: years on the BC Pill starting in teens before maturity of endocrine system and the Pill mimics pregnancy—it was never tested long term and no one envisioned girls/women using it for years, even decades. IUDs have much higher post-use infertility rates than MDs tell the patient, also contain BPA and other endocrine disrupters. Increased exposure to same disrupters in food/environment. Early exposure to STDs from having multiple partners too. Teenagers don’t recognize signs of infection because sex Ed is all about “how-to” instead of “risks of”. Water supply contamination by fluoride which is an aluminum processing byproduct (alum. causes systemic inflammation), and again the hormones from the Pill go into the water supply unchanged. Use of acetaminophen and other NSAIDS now known to decrease sperm counts & viability. People who eat organic don’t think twice about using all kinds of drastic methods to treat fertility like it’s a disease. The doctor who thinks the BC Pill fixes every female problem will send a woman to IVF where they often require her to end her real fertility first so they can control everything….thus taking us Full Circle. Now there’s something called Post-Birth Control Syndrome.