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A new book by economist Melissa Kearney makes a readily apparent but still-provocative argument: Children raised by two married parents do better than children raised by single parents. The difference, Kearney argues, isn’t just financial (although the money matters a lot); the “two-parent privilege,” as her book calls it, is also about parental time investment and familial stability. The problem with the point she makes — and with the firestorm of discussion it’s touched off on the left and the right — is that there are many things that are statistically better for us, but if those things are not...

Elon Musk's 18 year-old son has filed court documents seeking to legally change their gender from male to female and lose his last name, stating: 'I no longer live with or wish to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form.' Xavier Musk, 18, filed the paperwork in Santa Monica, California, on April 18, seeking to be known as Vivian Jenna Wilson. The transgender teenage explained that she wishes to take her mother's last name to distance herself from her dad. She has not commented on whether she receives financial support from her dad - whose...

The percentage of babies born to unmarried mothers dipped below 40 percent for the first time in 9 years in 2016, dropping to 39.8 percent, according to the final birth-data report for that year published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, there were 1,569,796 babies born to unmarried mothers in the United States during that year, according to the report. That made 2016 the 29th straight year (1988-2016) that more than a million babies were born in the United States to unmarried mothers. Over the past 30 years on record (1987-2016), according to CDC data, there have...

Watch As Conservative Pundit @AnnCoulter Goes In On Single Mothers & Liberal Priest!

Children growing up in single-parent households are nearly five times more likely to depend on welfare payments, a study revealed Wednesday. Germany’s 2.3 million children being raised in single-parent households are disproportionately at risk of poverty. A study done by the Bertelsmann Foundation said that more than a third of single-parent families (37.6 percent) were dependent on Hartz IV social benefits. Only 7.6 percent of two-parent households are dependent on the payments. […] One in five families in Germany are single-parent households. …

Two weeks after Bristol Palin gave birth to daughter Sailor Grace, her ex-fiancé, Dakota Meyer, is claiming to be the biological father and seeking joint custody. Bristol's mother, former vice-presidential candidate and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, spoke to ET exclusively about Meyer's claims. "For many months we have been trying to reach out to Dakota Myers [sic] and he has wanted nothing to do with either Bristol's pregnancy or the baby," Palin told ET. "Paramount to the entire Palin family is the health and welfare of Sailor Grace," she added, claiming that Meyer is attempting to "save face." Meyer filed legal...

Fifty years ago this month, Democrats made a historic mistake. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, at the time a federal official, wrote a famous report in March 1965 on family breakdown among African-Americans. He argued presciently and powerfully that the rise of single-parent households would make poverty more intractable. “The fundamental problem,” Moynihan wrote, is family breakdown. In a follow-up, he explained: “From the wild Irish slums of the 19th-century Eastern seaboard, to the riot-torn suburbs of Los Angeles, there is one unmistakable lesson in American history: a community that allows large numbers of young men to grow up in broken families...

Marriage is the new bogeyman for our “progressive” friends. It’s worth asking why that is the case. Consider this recent Slate article entitled: “Just Say No: For White Working Class Women, it Makes Sense to Stay Single Mothers.” The co-authors Naomi Cahn and June Carbone both seem well connected to the school of feminist legal theory that claims marriage is generally an outmoded and “patriarchal” institution. So perhaps it should come as no surprise they would be interested in discouraging it for yet another demographic: white, working-class mothers. Cahn and Carbone walk readers through their case study of Lily, employed...

The Democratic Party has found what seems to be a winning formula in both state and national elections – a “War on Women” being waged by the Republicans. The “War on Women” is based on the premise that women are oppressed if they do not 1) have access to free birth control, 2) have unlimited access to abortion, 3) receive “equal pay for equal work” based on credentials rather than performance, and 4) have the support of the state if they have a child out of wedlock. On closer examination, however, this “War on Women” turns out to be something...

Here's a fascinating chart that probably comports with what you're seeing in real life. The age at which people are first getting married is soaring. (Via John Podhoretz). The jump in the last decade is particularly notable. There are various theories for why people are getting married later, but one notion has to do with cultural attitudes towards marriage, and the growing perception that marriage is a "capstone" of life achievements, rather than a cornerstone.

As Christy Everson was nearing age 40, she made a decision: She wanted to have a child, even though she was single and it meant doing it all alone. Her daughter, conceived via a sperm donor, is now 2½ years old, and Everson hopes to have a second child. “Was it worthwhile? Well, I’m thinking of doing it again, aren’t I?” she says. Everson and women like her are part of a shift in American society. An Associated Press–WE TV poll of people under 50 found that more than 2 in 5 unmarried women without children—or 42 percent—would consider having...

According to a new study by the Centre for Social Justice, almost half of all children in the United Kingdom will see their married or cohabitating parents split up by the time they’re sixteen. Never before in Great Britain’s history has the breakdown of the family been so palpable. Here in the United States things aren’t much different. According to a new report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, one in four children in the United States is being raised by a single parent. The main reason for the high U.S. figure, say the experts, is the growing...

One in four children in the U.S. is being raised by a single parent - a percentage that has been on the rise and is higher than other developed countries, according to a report released today. Researchers found that the U.S. had 25.8 percent of children being raised by a single parent, compared with an average of 14.9 percent across the other countries.

What makes a good parent? Many things, of course. But an obvious prerequisite is someone whose parenting goals have less to do with what he or she wants and more to do with what children need. Sadly, this attitude no longer prevails in mainstream American society. Elton John and Eva Longoria (Neil Patrick Harris, too) are the latest to jump on the Me first, Child last bandwagon. Longoria is in the process of divorcing husband Tony Parker (like most women in Hollywood eventually do), but she has no intention of letting a small thing like that stop her from being...

Reality: Children need tradition. In fact, I’d go so far as to argue that they need it more than moneyed feminists, with Volvos. Over at The Future of Children blog (a collaboration of The Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and The Brookings Institution) Lauren Moore supports the view that tradition liberates us from government’s paternalistic chains. “As The Future of Children: Fragile Families journal explains, fragile families - defined as couples who are unmarried when their children are born - face greater risks than more traditional families, which can have negative consequences on child...

As the new Reuters article "Children of single dads get less health care" (8/8/07) [http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSCOL86095820070808] explains, a new study by Health Services Research claims that single fathers are less likely to take their children to the doctor for routine visits than single mothers, and are also less likely to have health insurance. Despite the alleged disadvantages single mothers face, we're told that "nonetheless, children of single mothers were most likely to make well-child visits to the doctor for preventive care." I think that single fathers should be more careful to make these "well-child" visits and have health insurance, but there...

...the explosive growth of the U.S. Hispanic population over the next couple of decades does not bode well for American social stability. The dimensions of the Hispanic baby boom are startling. By 2050 the Latin population will have tripled, the Census Bureau projects. It's the fertility surge among unwed Hispanics that should worry policymakers. Hispanic women have the highest unmarried birthrate in the country - over three times that of whites and Asians, and nearly one and a half times that of black women, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Social workers in Southern California... are in...

Single Parents - Are You Free On This Passover? By Sara Silber Family Affairs Editor Israel News Agency Jerusalem ---- April 2, 2007..... As the holiday of freedom, Passover or as it is known in Israel as Pesach, approaches, it is desirable to contemplate the themes of this Jewish holiday thereby enhancing your and your family's emotional and spiritual growth. You and your loved ones may want to ponder and discuss the various aspects of freedom – both external and internal. Questions for divorced and single parents to think about: are you free from subjugation of others, from abuse and...

NEW YORK, JUNE 3, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Changes in family structures have placed many children in difficulties. In a nutshell this is the argument of two studies released March 30 by the Institute for American Values. The studies, both authored by Norval Glenn and Thomas Sylvester, are based on an examination of articles published in the Journal of Marriage and Family from 1977 to 2002. Introducing the first study, "The Shift: Scholarly Views of Family Structure Effects on Children, 1977-2002," the authors comment that academic opinions can be broadly divided into two camps. The first can be termed pro-marriage, and argues...

All in the family    JOHN LEO Why a strong, intact home life is the biggest single factor in raising good, successful kids. It took the media a while to acknowledge that most of Katrina's victims were black. Apparently, it will take longer to mention that most of the victims were women and children. I noticed three commentators who brought up the delicate subject of the mostly missing males — George Will, Gary Bauer, and Thomas Bray, a columnist for the Detroit News. Will noted that 76 percent of births to Louisiana's African-Americans are to unmarried women, and probably more...