This entire article is a construct to support an argument that cannot be proven. I enjoy Yoffe's column but she has always been on the conservative side. My parents were married for 25 years... and miserable. I got married myself, and we had a daughter...I'm divorced now. Is having to love in two houses better for her than one stable house with one parent would have been? Especially if that house was free of the emotional violence of a married couple breaking apart? It's not, and never will be, as black and white as Yoffe wants it to be. To suggest otherwise, or even to think one can sum up the entirety of the issue in a two page article, is ridiculous. Everyone is different and marriage is not a catch all for raising kids. Period. I might be willing to marry again down the line, so I haven't given up on the concept, but to say that marriage is automatically better that the alternatives is just moronic. Life isn't as simple as little advice snippets. I wish it were.

It is always possible to find individual exceptions to any general rule. But that does not invalidate the rule.

If every marriage in this country ended tomorrow, the nation's kids would be much worse off, on average. If every single mother married the father of at least one of her kids, the nation's children would be better off, again on the average. If every woman waited to procreate until she had found and married a suitably stable man, that would be even better for the children.

These are just plain old facts. Disliking them because they are politically incorrect or "judgemental" does not make them go away.

As someone who was raised by a single mother, I think Yoffe is on the ball. IF YOU DON'T TRUST SOMEONE ENOUGH TO MARRY HIM/HER, WHYON EARTH ARE YOU HAVING A CHILD WITH HIM/HER?

Yes, unhappy marriages are a bummer. But I know too many women - educated, bright women - who have had children unmarried. While they haven't had to deal with the drama of divorcing the bozos, they have had to deal with being connected for the rest of their life to someone who is a co-parent - and has very different ideas of how to raise children (one even became a Rastafarian!). Mind you, marriage would not have stopped these dudes from being loons - but having waited a bit before procreating (which the engagement-wedding-having kids chronology often entails), perhaps these women would have chosen different men.

Stability for children is the key - and the lives of too many single mothers (without childcare and the support system that the extended family used to provide) are hard going. Again, if someone's not good enough to marry, then skipping the wedding for the baby shower is not a good idea.

seriously, you all are talking as if women everywhere are saying "screw men, i just want a baby". i'm not saying there aren't those people and i'm not saying you guys aren't right about what an "ideal" situation might be for some people. but i think that you guys are discussing people that probably are idiots and not going to be the best parents anyways. did you ever consider trueconservative that the people you describe might be more of an exception than the others? but don't bring into play those people that have 5 different baby daddies or anyone else we might see on springer or maury. those people are idiots and marriage will not make them any smarter.

They're NOT plain old facts, and never will be, true conservative. Life isn't as simple as we want it to be and to pretend otherwise is both foolish and dangerous.

Don't generalize from a sample of one. Yoffe has done her homework. In general single parent households are downwardly mobile and children of single parents are significantly worse off by most measures than children in two-parent households.

We all know single mothers [fathers] who are exceptions. Doesn't mean the research lies. I'm an educator and have worked with a variety of student populations. It quickly becomes clear that single parenthood and poverty go hand in hand.

I wish Yoffe had been more direct on one point--the problem isn't too little mariage--it's too many births. Birth control and abortion are the solutions to this problem. Work around young people as long as I have and you'll see that these precious little miracles turn into unwanted rejects all too often--regardless of class, color or education.

it's not that people have kids and suddenly become poor. they were poor or on their way there already.

clarknova:

They're NOT plain old facts, and never will be, true conservative. Life isn't as simple as we want it to be and to pretend otherwise is both foolish and dangerous.

You really believe that for most people in most situations, the mother and father being married isn't the best for the child?

No, I believe you can't say with 100% certainty that's true... So you shouldn't. And let's not pretend that this doesn't play into how each of us feels about marriage as an institution and it's value as such. Emily believes in marriage and often sees it as a solution to many problems when giving advice. That's fine, that's her point of view. But that doesn't make it a fact. It's an opinion.

Didn't I say so? Single parenthood and poverty go hand in hand--I didn't say single parenthood leads to poverty. I actually know the data on this topic. The single greatest predictor of poverty is....poverty. Having a baby doesn't cause the mother to be poor--it only increases the likelihood that now one more human being is going to be poor. If Yoffee were only talking about teenagers having babies out of wedlock, this would be a different article--but she's talking about women in general, and women in their 20s and 30s might have different reasons for having babies outside of marriage. Young girls in poverty are less likely to "postpone" for a whole host of reasons. A 30-yr-old woman who gets pregnant and decides to keep the baby even if she can't "afford" it is making a different set of choices, I think.

clarknova:

No, I believe you can't say with 100% certainty that's true... So you shouldn't. And let's not pretend that this doesn't play into how each of us feels about marriage as an institution and it's value as such. Emily believes in marriage and often sees it as a solution to many problems when giving advice. That's fine, that's her point of view. But that doesn't make it a fact. It's an opinion.

I never said anything about 100% certainty. I said on average. That does not mean there can be no exceptions to the rule.

Look, I earned about $75,000 last calender year, and I can tell you with utmost certainty that my kids' lives would be poorer if I was raising them by myself. Just purely on a economic level, my wife's contribution to the family is worth $40,000 a year at retail prices, without even taking into account the emotional benefits the kids get from her.

Two functional, emotionally stable adults contributing to the care and raising of children can do more than one. What could it possibly be any easier to understand?

So a woman staying with a husband that, for example, beats her and/or their children or sleeps with other women and brings diseases into the home or puts all their money into a needle that he shoves up his arm is somehow a better situation to raise children in than one with just one parent that is mentally stable? I fail to see the benefit of marriage in that one.

happy2bsinglemom:

So a woman staying with a husband that, for example, beats her and/or their children or sleeps with other women and brings diseases into the home or puts all their money into a needle that he shoves up his arm is somehow a better situation to raise children in than one with just one parent that is mentally stable? I fail to see the benefit of marriage in that one.

Ummm . . . The situation you describe is hardly relevant to the topic under discussion. The question was, why would you have kids with someone who is unsuitable for marriage?

Nobody, to my knowledge, is suggesting that a wife should stay with an abusive husband. All I am suggesting is that if a man is abusive, or a drug addicted philanderer, maybe you shouldn't be planning to make more babies with him.

Gilbyboy wrote: "As someone who was raised by a single mother, I think Yoffe is on the ball. IF YOU DON'T TRUST SOMEONE ENOUGH TO MARRY HIM/HER, WHYON EARTH ARE YOU HAVING A CHILD WITH HIM/HER?"

This is the thinking:

"Because he's so sexy and the kids I have with him will have this advantage. I'll worry about the money later - perhaps he'll win the lotto and we'll get married!"