John W. Kennedy: could you give me a cite on your statistic that children of single parents are 3 to 4 times more likely to become drug addicts? I don’t believe that statement as it stands. At very least, I need to know how they are defining “single parent” and “drug addict.” (Too often, “drug addict” means “admitted to smoking a joint more than once” which is a far cry from being a junkie.) Again, I’m also curious if the study considered class, family history of drug use and abuse, income level, geographic location, all the sorts of factors that make a difference in whether or not someone is more or less likely to be exposed to drugs in the first place. And did you know that DARE is a risk factor? Kids who go through the DARE program are more likely to do drugs, not less.
Gotta throw in with pumpkin in that the Iceland numbers are truly meaningless. In Iceland, there is essentially no stigma attached to bearing a child out of wedlock, nor to being such a child; it has been that way for generations. As much as some in the U.S. would like that to be the case here, it is not, though the stigma here has certainly faded.
Sociologic and economic statistics uniformly indicate that hatching babies without a papa close at hand is a recipe for failure in this country. A dab of common sense lends reason to this fact. (Thus the stigma!)
Oh, and I think that “persons of color” are not a statistical relevancy in Iceland. Comparisons of the behavior of “persons of color” in the U.S. to the behavior of folks in locales that have practically no “persons of color” at all fall a bit flat with me.
These variables may be associated, but you have to wonder about causation. I would think that, though there are many well-adjusted single moms, a woman who is a drug addict or has chemical problems of some kind is more likely to have a child out of wedlock. And that child is more likely to inherit those genes or be brought up in an environment that causes it, whether she’s an otherwise good mom or not. What I’m saying is that drug use might be associated to single parenting in some ways, but single parenting doesn’t cause drug use.
I can’t find a cite; it was on the radio. (A thoroughly respectable station: WCBS-AM in NYC.) I wouldn’t have mentioned it, except I had heard the story that very day.
Think “freedom to choose your burdens”. Like the freedom to climb Mt. Everest. It would be difficult, and I could die, but I have the freedom to do so.
TBone2 said:
I think the point was “white people do it too”, which is why Iceland was considered relevant because they don’t have “persons of color”. Of course the relevancy may be canceled by other factors, such as the social climate where marriage is not considered in the same light.
Since I’m Icelandic you have to believe me on the stats on single moms here.
In the year 2000 out of 4315 children born, 603 (14%) were to single mothers (not married nor living with father) and 2210 (51%) to mothers living with (but not married to) father.
So 2813 (65%) born to not married mothers (both kinds) and 1502 (35%) to married moms.
Make what you like of the statistics, if you want more stats see: http://www.statice.is/
But it is true that being a bastard is not relevant here, not even as a source of teasing in kindergarten.
I don’t know if your browser will support this but in icelandic we even have a special smilie, the sticking-out-tounge one or :þ
<< there was a news report only today that children of single parents are substantially more likely (3-4 times more likely) to become drug addicts. >>
I see Jill beat me to it, but I agree. There may be a relationship between having a single parent and being a drug user, but it hardly seems like causality. It’s like, I see a strong correlation between people having umbrellas open and the pavement being wet, but I’d be hard pressed to argue that opening the umbrella causes the wet pavement. Correlation does not imply causality, despite the way the media love to jump to such conclusions.
I also echo what others have said. My wife and I have been married to each other for over 30 years. My brother has been married and divorced four times. Within our family, therefore, 80% of all marriages end in divorce. It can be a misleading statistic.
Women tend to marry at an earlier age than men. (To put it another way, women generally marry men older than themselves.) Since a greater percentage of women in a given age cohort is married, there are more of them to get divorced.
kung fu lola writes:
The increasing number of female-headed households has been widely associated with the “feminization of poverty.” See http://www.olin.wustl.edu/macarthur/working%20papers/wp-mclanahan3.htm . “McLanahan and her colleagues blamed the feminization of poverty on changes in the family which had uncovered women’s latent economic vulnerability. Among working age adults, the growth of single parent families was the crucial factor.” The paper goes on to say the incidence of such poverty may have leveled off in recent years but that women are still much more likely to be poor than men. Calling this “bad news” is amply justified.
Note also I have had a brief exchange with Ed, whose job includes checking Cecil’s sources, on the question of how one person with multiple divorces affects the statistics.
There are two different ways of looking at the situation. One is to phrase the question in terms of marriages “ending in divorce” in which case a single person with multiple divorces will have an obvious impact. Consequently, demographers (such as those whom Cecil cited) prefer the other view, namely to speak of “persons divorced at least once.” This more squarely addresses what Cecil (and the demographers and the questionner) think is the real issue, namely, how many married people will get divorced at some point in their lives.