LIFE ISSUES NO. 2870

QUESTIONS & ANSWERS

(Is It Important for Parents to be Married?)

In the last couple of weeks you’ve spoken about the necessity of a mother in the home and the necessity of a father in the home.  Do these people necessarily have to be married?  As I’ve mentioned, we have a very large body of sociologic evidence proving the following statement.  There is one overwhelming conclusion:  children are most likely to be happy, healthy, well-behaved and responsible; they are most likely to succeed in school and in life; they are less likely to be promiscuous, delinquent, to use alcohol and illegal drugs and less likely to get pregnant and have abortions, if they live with their two natural parents, who, in turn, are lawfully married.

Well, that’s sort of an Ozzie and Harriett situation isn’t it?  You may call it that, but what we would call it would be marriage and family, and raising kids that way.  Any specific departure from what I’ve just said, due to cohabitation, legal separation, due to divorce, due to single parenthood and, sadly, even due to remarriage, will predictably lead to more negative results in the children.

What if one of the parents dies?  That seems to be the exception, for that parent still lives on in loving memory and, while this is not a good thing, it’s far less negative than a divorce.

But some marriages should split; they’re just disasters.  If this involves physical abuse or violence, yes.  But even if it’s a troubled marriage with lots of discord, current studies are showing that it’s better for those parents to tough it out and stay together.  If they divorce, their children have twice the chance of themselves divorcing, twice the chance than if they stick it out, even though their marriage is troubled.

These are generalities.  Can you give me a specific example?  Okay, let’s try this one.  A single mother with teenage daughters was found by researchers to be viewed by young neighborhood males as having “an unprotected nest.”  This was true because the “nest” lacked a man—a figure the boys are prepared to respect, a figure who could keep them in line.  So you see, a man and a woman each bring something different and complimentary to the table here.  Each brings something unique and important to the building of a home.  The presence of a man rooted in a home, living with his wife in a neighborhood, has a strong effect in reducing neighborhood crime.  It has a strong effect in reducing out-of-wedlock births.

So each—the husband and wife—is different; each is important.  Neither, alone, can do what the two together can accomplish.  The Biblical “two in one flesh” is not just religious advice, it’s darn good psychology.

[07/05/02]