Wellbeing: The Single Parent Lie
Children do best with two parents
The U.S. has the world's highest rate of children living in single-parent households, at between 23% and 28%, depending on which “model” is used.
Almost 50% of families in the USA grow up with both parents working. By combining incomes, the American standard of living has purportedly increased.
But at what cost?
I suggest the cost has been to our mental health and the wellbeing of our children.
The reality is that American children suffer from the combined effects of being in institutionalized daycare, long hours away from home, increased time spent “gaming,” increased time being on social media, lack of time spent with parents in meals and doing family activities, little time spent playing outdoors, etc., and all the other ills of not being home and around a parent. Parents are busy and distracted and have little time for child/parent interactions beyond homework supervision and bathtime.
The World Happiness Report shows that the U.S. hit an all-time low for “happiness” in 2024, falling to 23rd place globally. This is the first time the U.S. has not been in the top 20 happiest countries.
Since the 1970s, children growing up in the USA have been fed a lie. That lie told to us by Democrats, teachers, and the like is that a career should come before marriage and children.
That one will be happier to wait until later to marry. That early marriages rarely last. But recent studies dispel that notion. An article summing up recent research concludes with (1):
In this research, I found little support for the widely-accepted idea that marrying in your early 20s produces lower quality marriages. But is earlier marriage still associated with a higher risk of divorce, even if has little effect on marital quality? Again, I found little evidence in this sample to support this general belief that early marriages are at greater risk for breakup,
AI search engines do not find evidence for this trend, and the AI conclusions are that there is an overgeneralization risk in both academic insights and social media that can sometimes bias analysis of this phenomenon.
One of my most interesting observations over the past five years has been a growing awareness of how many conservatives are developed through strong early marriages. In our personal social circle of the quarantine club, almost all of our friends married earlier and have solid first marriages. The women of these partnerships are not subservient, they are strong, powerful people. The couples prioritize their marriages and families over their careers. There are so many examples within the conservative communities. Men in the public eye, like Tucker Carlson, Jordan Peterson, and myself, are examples of one-half of a successful dyad who defied custom and found love early in life.
That one should have many relationships and sexual experiences before finding a partner has been normalized. Having children out of wedlock has been normalized and is even celebrated in mainstream media.
In public schools, girls are taught from an early age that they should prepare for their marriages to fail by building successful careers, maintaining separate bank accounts, developing independence, having many girlfriends as a support system, etc. Feminism teaches young women that life outside marriage is more important than life within a marriage. That society is biased against women. That dropping out of the workforce for a family will mean less pay and less power. The women in charge of a household are somehow less for not having a career. These caricatures of modern family life hurt the chances of a marriage built on trust. A marriage built to last throughout one’s lifetime.
The division of labor in a family, particularly one with children, makes sense. It allows for the specialization of a skill set. It is healthy for children to have one person to stay home, care for them, clean, cook, to homeschool, and ensure a well-managed household while the other leaves the family unit to work. Or for both to work by owning a small business where children can be cared for within the family unit. It is healthy for families to have relatives to rely on. There is nothing wrong with the Amish model of leaving school at the end of eight grade to begin to learn tradecraft and to work alongside other family members.
Nowadays, children are taught that moving away from families for education, jobs, and careers is more important than maintaining close bonds with extended family. They are also told that living in a local community and building a life within that community is limiting. These are falsehoods and assumptions that hurt families and children.
Our children in America are unhealthy. They are overweight and obese. Type 2 diabetes and fatty liver disease are common. They are immunologically compromised, with high rates of allergies and asthma. Autism rates are through the roof. They are fragile. As young adults, they are ill-prepared to be adults. Many are unable to maintain stable relationships as adults. Parents have given up their fundamental duty to raise stable, well-adjusted adults. The use of religion as a cornerstone to create healthy families and communities is rapidly disappearing.
As we all know, Americans have come to expect two cars, eating out five times a week, new computers and expensive phones, brand-name clothes, and all the trappings of an upper-middle-class lifestyle. The truth is that by cutting back on material items and eating out, a two-parent family with only one adult working full-time can mean a more satisfying, dare I write happier life for all involved.
As an example, the art and skill of cooking, whereby one takes wholesome food bought seasonally, is much healthier and cheaper. Cooking requires that someone be in the house - tending to the task. The only way to ensure quality food these days is to cook your own. The only way to keep glyphosate out of our children’s diet is to buy whole foods and prepare those foods at home. Public schools used to place value on teaching children such skills, but that has not been the case for decades. Instead, feeding families is an afterthought for most parents.. Why not just buy some tacos or a hamburger and fries on the way home from work? The average American family gets a freezer stocked with easy-to-prepare, pre-made foods. Little time or effort goes into one of the most essential tasks of the family unit.
Rather than turning children over to the state to be educated, parents might consider returning to a time when parents educated their children. And by that, I don’t mean plopping a kid in front of the computer to engage with a state-sponsored computer program. Options for homeschooling include a pod, a coop, a one-room private schoolhouse, or some other variation. However, the bottom line is that staying at home to raise children requires time and commitment. But this is an investment that yields dividends not only for the family but for the parents.
More money, cars, and fancy restaurants are not the barometer for a successful and happy life. In truth, it is families, marriage, children, and community. Having a partner to go through life with is a fantastic thing.
Now, family life isn’t for everyone, and indeed, having a career can be a great thing for a man or a woman, but the expectation that having a successful career is paramount to success in life is just false. These are expectations that society doesn’t have to place on everyone - man or woman.
Being family-oriented can be a successful trait in itself. Loving one person for all of your life is a successful life.
Teaching children to prepare to have a partner leave them isn’t healthy. It is setting young people up for failure.
Instead, we should teach children how to be successful adults, navigate life, and build healthy, long-term monogamous relationships.
Single Family Households:
Since the 1960s, only about 9% of children have lived with single parents. By 2012, this had risen to 28%, reflecting a substantial shift in family dynamics over the latter half of the 20th century. This is not healthy for families, parents or children.
Research shows that married individuals, especially those with children, are significantly happier than single childless individuals. According to the General Social Survey (GSS), about 40% of married women with children reported being "very happy," compared to only 25% of married childless women and 22% of unmarried childless women. For men, 35% of married fathers reported being very happy, in contrast to less than 15% of unmarried childless men.
Single parents, particularly mothers, often face economic challenges, with estimates that nearly half living below the poverty line.
Children from single-parent families are approximately twice as likely to experience mental health issues compared to those living with married parents. The mental health conditions include anxiety and depression, social fear and avoidance, suicidal ideation, behavioral problems and conduct disorders, and substance abuse issues (2)
As society celebrates single-parent and non-traditional families in TV and movies, more and more women view raising children in a single household as the preferable option. The images below this essay show example after example of how women are encouraged to think that independence from marriage leads to increased happiness and self-actualization. This is not healthy.
As parents and grandparents, we have to lead by example. But more than that, we have to counteract the influences of MSM, public education,, and public messaging that self-actualization means living a life whereby one places one’s own self-advancement ahead of family is paramount to success.
Reference:
Age at First Marriage and Marital Quality: Updating Outdated Social Wisdom. Jones, A.M.J. Institute for Family Studies, May 29, 2024.
The single parent family and the child's mental health. I Moilanen, P Rantakallio. Soc Sci Med 1988;27(2):181-6. Soc Sci Med 1988;27(2):181-6.
doi: 10.1016/0277-9536(88)90327-9.
A random walk through Instagram and facebook reveals that these are the types of messages that young people receive about love, family, and marriage.
Are these the messages that children need to see as learn to navigate life?
What about messages of how to navigate difficult subjects, how to build compromise, how to commit to a person and to family.
Instead, society teaches that walking away is independence, strength, and courage.
I submit that this society needs to change the narrative of what makes a successful life. That marriage, family, community, religion is how to build happiness and how to build healthy children.