Ruth Institute Blog

In a previous post, I discussed a Life-Style Leftist blogman’s outraged response to a perfectly reasonable statement about a very sound study, and analyzed the rhetorical strategy of accusing your opponent of saying  something he didn’t say. In this post, I want to talk about the substance of the study, what it shows and what it doesn’t.

It is always dangerous to speculate about people’s motives of course. I’ve never met Zach Ford, the blogman over at Think Progress, so I don’t know exactly what he is thinking. But I can say this: the logic of the marriage redefinition movement requires its advocates to deny that gender matters.

If gender is to become legally irrelevant to marriage, the logic of their position drives them to claim that gender is irrelevant to parenthood. The gender of parents doesn’t matter.  The gender of children doesn’t matter.  There is no difference between “mothers” and “fathers:” those are just empty, social constructs. There are only generic parents. In fact, everyone is a generic person. There are no sons and daughters either, only generic children.  So, the impact of an absent father on a girl should be exactly the same as an absent mother on a girl, or an absent father on a boy, or as an absent mother on a boy.

But now, take a look at the study that Mr. Ford claims that Mr. Stanton has mischaracterized.  The title of the study reveals that it is profoundly about gender, “The
Trouble with Boys: Social Influences and the Gender Gap in Disruptive Behavior.”  Mr. Ford characterizes the paper thus: “If anything, the Booth study supports arguments Read more…

An urban high school teacher in Connecticut talks about unwed motherhood, fatherlessness, and how it affects the kids in his classroom.

by Gerry Garibaldi

…Here’s my prediction: the money, the reforms, the gleaming porcelain, the hopeful rhetoric about saving our children—all of it will have a limited impact, at best, on most city schoolchildren. Urban teachers face an intractable problem, one that we cannot spend or even teach our way out of: teen pregnancy. This year, all of my favorite girls are pregnant, four in all, future unwed mothers every one. There will be no innovation in this quarter, no race to the top. Personal moral accountability is the electrified rail that no politician wants to touch… Read more…

Tomorrow on my regular Issues Etc segment, I will talk about David Cameron’s recent speech on the importance of the family.

Some of the worst aspects of human nature tolerated, indulged – sometimes even incentivised – by a state and its agencies that in parts have become literally de-moralised. So do we have the determination to confront all this and turn it around?  I have the very strong sense that the responsible majority of people in this country not only have that determination; they are crying out for their government to act upon it.

I will be drawing on these sources:

My book review of Patricia Morgan’s book, The War Between the State and the Family.  This is still a good and timely book, which you can purchase through the IEA in the UK.

A 2011 Report detailing the taxpayer cost of out of wedlock childbearing in the UK.

Tune in, and listen live!

Totally not cool. Those poor kids.

Twenty percent of US mothers have children with different biological fathers, a study presented at the Population Association of America meeting revealed today. Cassandra Dorius, from the University of Michigan Institute of Social research added that mothers of multiple children of different biological fathers tend to be less educated, under-employed, and have lower incomes.

Meaning: Multiple partner fertility defined as having children with more than one partner.

When Dorius examined patterns in families with more than two children, she discovered that 28% of them had different birth fathers. “It’s pervasive.”, Dorius added. Read more…

The Ruth Institute Launches Contest to Promote
Positive Views of Lifelong Marriage
SAN MARCOS, CA – The Ruth Institute, a project of the National Organization for Marriage Education Fund, announces its first annual Reel Love Challenge, a video contest for young adults, aged 18-30. The contest is open to all young adults, married or single, male or female, in college, out of college, or never been anywhere near a college. This contest is for everyone in the next generation to give their ideas about what sustains love over the course of a lifetime.

Young adults should submit 30 second to 3 minute videos on the Reel Love Challenge website answering either or both of these questions: What makes lifelong love possible? Why is it worth the effort? Contestants should enter soon and take advantage of the Early Bird Contest: $100 to the first 7 videos submitted before January 6, 2011. Read more…

by Carolyn Moynihan

One of the most studied aspects of childhood in recent decades is early, non-maternal childcare. Research tends to show benefits for a child’s cognitive development but not for emotional wellbeing and behaviour. Now a study has found that youngsters are less likely to succeed at school if their mothers return to work within a year of their birth. Read more…

From the Blog Villainous Company:

From the author of a longitudinal study of the long term effects of early child care:

“In America today, it is normative for children to start childcare at some point in the first year of life and stay there until they start school. This is the case for over 50% of children,” he says. He continues: “Let’s imagine these are small effects. But let’s imagine a reception class of 30 children in which two-thirds of them have small effects that make them a little bit more aggressive and disobedient … versus another class of 30 in which only 10% of them do. Are those teachers going to be doing more time managing and less time teaching? Are those playgrounds going to be less friendly? Are those neighbourhoods going to be affected? Read more…

Economists have known for a long time that discrimination per se accounts for relatively minor part of the wage differences between men and women. By far the largest factor is the impact of children on people’ work/life decisions. Children affect men and women differently. This was already very apparent in data when I started in economics back in the 1970′s.

Now, here is a story from USA Today that demonstrates that the process of wiping out labor market discrimination is complete:

Single, childless women in their twenties are finding success in the city: They’re out-earning their male counterparts in the USA’s biggest metropolitan areas.
Women ages 22 to 30 with no husband and no kids earn a median $27,000 a year, 8% more than comparable men in the top 366 metropolitan areas, according to 2008 U.S. Census Bureau data crunched by the New York research firm Reach Advisors and released Wednesday. The women out-earn men in 39 of the 50 biggest cities and match them in another eight. The disparity is greatest in Atlanta, where young, childless single women earn 21% more than male counterparts.

Take away the impact of children, and voila! No more wage difference. Read more…

Washington Times Columnist Cheryl Wetzstein interviewed me for this article on the new book Red Families v. Blue Families: Legal Polarization and the Creation of Culture. Cheryl ably summarizes the basic premise of the book:

In blue states, families tend to be well-educated, have high-paying jobs, be tolerant of diversity and be politically liberal. They marry later in life, have children in wedlock and are dedicated co-parents….

Red-state families, however, seem to be stuck in a time warp — Read more…

The thought of kids having kids is really disturbing to me. I had my first child when I was 25, and I can say, it’s serious business. I can’t imagine doing it while trying to go to high school or even college. And who is really going to be raising these children anyhow? My guess is, the grandmothers. Let’s do a survey of how mothers of pregnant teens feel about teen pregnancy.

The picture a 13-year-old boy sitting next to his baby, which accompanied an article on this topic a while back, still burns in my memory. It was such a heart-wrenching sight. The thirteen-year-old  looked so tiny. Plus his face spoke volumes of “What have I gotten myself into?” This dad is still asking to have his pb and j cut into triangles and for rides to the library. I wouldn’t let a 13-year-old boy babysit my toddlers. Babies deserve more. Read more…

What else is buried in The Tomb of the Unknown Health Care Bill? Over at NRO, John Graham points out one of the implications for the family. Commenting on the fact that health insurers are now required to cover subscribers’ children until they turn 26:

The idea of a 26-year old “child” is curious in itself. However, there are a couple of limitations: The “child” has to be unmarried, and the coverage does not include the “child of a child receiving dependent coverage” [§ 2714(a)].

So, just to make it clear: The law will compel an employer to pay for health insurance for an employee’s unmarried, unemployed, 25-year old son or daughter; but doesn’t compel the 25-year old to pay for his or her own baby — the employee’s grandchild.

I guess that’s what they call “social justice” under Obamacare.

To marry or not to marry? That is the question. If you’re 25 and don’t have a job, but do have a baby, you can get health insurance under your parents’ plan, but your baby can’t. The baby isn’t anybody’s responsibility, evidently. If you get married, and still don’t have a job, you can’t be covered under your parents’ plan, and neither can your baby.
The incentives to out of wedlock childbearing creep up into the middle class….

Who are we kidding, people? Can anyone really argue that the trend toward cohabiting vs. marrying and single parenthood vs. natural two-parent biological parenthood is a good thing? What are those crazy Brits thinking? (And I’m half British, by the way.) Just like it’s a no brainer that food straight from the ground is far better for you than processed, hormone-injected, insecticide soaked food from the supermarket, marriage should be left the way nature intended. Do we really need to debate this?

Carolyn Moynihan

A report about families from Britain says forget about marriage; another report from the United States says save it. They can’t both be right.

One of the remarkable things about research on the family is that studies can start from the same data and reach quite contradictory conclusions. This makes family research a bit like climate change studies, with probably some doctoring of the evidence here and there. On the other hand, while climate data is invisible to most of us and the weather we experience is thoroughly confusing, what is happening to families is out there on the street for all to see. Read more…

So, basically Britain has given up on the traditional family. The Family and Parenting Institute’s new chief executive might as well resign and disband the institute then.

Carolyn Moynihan

Golly, it’s hard to keep up with the Brits and their reports on families and parenting. You would think that government and academics actually understood something about those subjects, but more often than not they add to the confusion.

The latest “major report” to pronounce on the fate of the family advises the government not to try to preserve the “traditional family” as it crumbles under the impact of marital breakdown and workplace pressures. The Family and Parenting Institute says the family as we knew it is no longer “the norm” and government efforts to rescue it are futile; members of the extended family — grandparents, uncles and aunts, even siblings and cousins — can make up for absent parents, says the FPI. Read more…

by Helen M. Alvaré, J.D., Senior Fellow in Law and Academic Advisory Board Member of the Ruth Institute.

This is the last in my series of columns on out of wedlock births.  By now you know that 4 in 10 U.S. births are nonmarital; this rises to 7 in 10 for African-American Women, and  5 in 10 for Hispanic women, our fastest growing minority population. Women in their 20s and 30s account for the lion’s share of the trend. [1]  Reactions to our predicament are suitably alarmist, but still terribly predictable. The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy will push for both more abstinence, and higher rates of contraceptive usage among the unmarried. They will call for less complacency and more parental involvement.[2]  Planned Parenthood took the occasion to bash abstinence programs while abstinence programs linked the rise to the fact that 68% of public schools employ contraceptive instruction, which has a 4 to 1 funding advantage over abstinence in the United States. [3] Read more…

by Helen M. Alvaré, J.D., Senior Fellow in Law

“Jon and Kate plus Eight.” “Kate plus Eight.” “Jon and the Other Kate.” If there was ever a time we wanted to shield our eyes from supermarket tabloids, this must be it.  Yet, while their story is topping the pop culture charts, it seems fitting to look more closely at it in order to acknowledge not only the emotional wreckage involved, but also the light it sheds on the travesty we call our divorce laws. Read more…

by Helen M. Alvaré, J.D., Senior Fellow in Law, Culture of Life Foundation

This is the last in my series of columns on out of wedlock births.  By now you know that 4 in 10 U.S. births are nonmarital; this rises to 7 in 10 for African-American Women, and  5 in 10 for Hispanic women, our fastest growing minority population. Women in their 20s and 30s account for the lion’s share of the trend. [1]  Reactions to our predicament are suitably alarmist, but still terribly predictable. The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy will push for both more abstinence, and higher rates of contraceptive usage among the unmarried. They will call for less complacency and more parental involvement.[2]  Planned Parenthood took the occasion to bash abstinence programs while abstinence programs linked the rise to the fact that 68% of public schools employ contraceptive instruction, which has a 4 to 1 funding advantage over abstinence in the United States. [3] Read more…

Carolyn Moynihan Mercatornet.com

British family researchers seem to be working overtime to keep up with trends that have won the UK the label, Breakdown Britain. A new report from the relationship support organisation One Plus One reviews the evidence on the effects of marital or partnership breakdown on the wellbeing of both adults and children. It finds a definite negative impact and argues that better interventions to support parents could prevent some family ruptures. Read more…

Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D.
IN 2007, THE MEDIA HAD A FEEDING FRENZY around a voice-mail message actor Alec Baldwin left his daughter. He screamed at her for not answering her phone. The public was shocked: many assumed that he was yet another self-absorbed celebrity, with neither control over himself nor regard for his daughter. But in fact, Baldwin had been caught in the web of the totalitarian nightmare known as the American family court system. Read more…

by Helen Alvaré, J.D.,
Senior Fellow in Law
and Ruth Institute Advisory Board Member

Several columns ago, I addressed the worry that our country’s nearly 40% out of wedlock birthrate might represent some sort of tipping point for marriage, for children’s well-being and for our society’s shared future. I reviewed in-depth interviews with single moms which revealed nearly bottomless wells of mistrust regarding the men who fathered their children. The men’s behavior did not seem to merit better. Read more…

By by Helen Alvaré, J.D.
Senior Fellow in Law and Ruth Institute Advisory Board Member

In my last column, I concluded that while public and private actors have taken many different and sometimes logical approaches to reducing out of wedlock pregnancies, they have also missed a crucial aspect of the problem: the difficulties men and women are experiencing in their relationships with one another, as evidenced by their unwillingness to commit to one another, even after a baby is conceived. Read more…