I don’t disagree with your points, I think I was responding to your comment that men are really only needed for the sperm. The data is overwhelming on the multiple parent households, and interestingly enough, outcomes typically are better even if one parent is “dysfunctional”, i.e alcoholic,etc.
Hope those links work. This is in response to Piggingtons “all other bring data” mantra.
So you see, marriage does in fact matter, but, as you say, it is certainly possible to raise a child singly if you have the resources, it is just more difficult. The concept of a single professional woman having a child independently is much less common than you might think.
By the way, slightly OT, want to hear something gross? Research has shown that the top 10% most sexually active males have sex with 50-60% of the females in a given population. This is true for all mammal species, including humans. No wonder I’m treating so many STD’s.
My post was intended to point out the importance of the family. You’re right, love is important, but so is the message to teach our children that it is important to make things work. For much of my early life my father was an opiate abuser and an alcoholic, and those years caused my mother a great deal of pain and hardship. But suddenly in 1977, when I was 12, he got his collective shit together and cleaned himself up. If my mother had caved during the addict years I and my 4 siblings would have done much more poorly than we have. I’m sure I wouldn’t have summoned the energy to put myself through school the way I did. Quite simply, my parents taught me perserverence, a lesson all too frequently ignored in todays society.
