Marriage and Children | Marriage and Health -7/4/07

[Smartmarriages]

- MARRIAGE MATTERS FOR CHILDREN: RESEARCH
- KIDS AND MARRIAGE NO LONGER INSEPARABLE
- MARRIAGE GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH?

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- MARRIAGE MATTERS FOR CHILDREN: RESEARCH

Marriage Matters for Children - Research
4 July 2007
Press Release: Family First
MEDIA RELEASE

Marriage Matters for Children - Research

Research published by the International Child and Youth Care Network Online
Journal this month has supported the volumes of research already published
showing that the very best environment for children growing up is with two
continuously married parents.

Professor Paul Amato, Professor of Sociology, Demography and Family Studies
at Pennsylvania State University first published a meta-analysis of studies
dealing with the effects of divorce on children in 1991. This was updated in
2001, and THIS LATEST META-ANALYSIS CONFIRMS WHAT PREVIOUS STUDIES HAVE
FOUND - that children with divorced parents continued to have lower average
levels of cognitive, social, and emotional well-being, EVEN IN A DECADE IN
WHICH DIVORCE HAD BECOME COMMON AND WIDELY ACCEPTED, AND NOT ONLY DURING
CHILDHOOD BUT ALSO IN ADULTHOOD.

Compared with other children, those who grow up in stable, two-parent
families have a higher standard of living, receive more effective parenting,
experience more cooperative co-parenting, are emotionally closer to both
parents, and are subjected to fewer stressful events and circumstances.

Interestingly, cohabiting parents tend to be more disadvantaged than married
parents. They have less education, earn less income, report poorer
relationship quality, and experience more mental health problems. The risk
of relationship dissolution also is substantially higher for cohabiting
couples with children than for married couples with children

The research shows that single-parent families have an elevated risk of
economic hardship, greater challenges in functioning effectively as parents,
and greater exposure to stress due to their circumstances.

Negative outcomes for children can include academic failure and suspensions,
delinquency, violent behaviour, the need for counselling, and suicide
attempts.

The researchers recommend policies that strengthen marriage, decrease the
rate of divorce, and lower non-marital fertility through promoting marriage
and strengthening marital stability, but supplemented by policies that
improves the economic well-being and strengthens the parent-child bonds of
single-parent and stepparent households. This includes improving the quality
and quantity of time that non-resident parents, especially fathers, spend
with their children.

Family First looks forward to the Families Commission and the Commissioner
for Children advocating strongly for marriage and its benefits, and
promoting it at governmental policy level in the best interests of children
and families.

The full research can be viewed here
http://www.cyc-net.org/cyc-online/cycol-0707-amato.html

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- KIDS AND MARRIAGE NO LONGER INSEPARABLE

> In a culture where everybody talks about doing what is best for kids, more and
> more people are separating marriage from childbearing and childrearing. . .
> Ironically, these new developments come at a time when the experts agree that
> marriage is not just good for children¹s wellbeing; it is best for children in
> every way.

[There are several thousand articles analyzing the Pew survey on separation
of parenting from childrearing - an issue long ago identified by Popenoe and
Whitehead at the National Marriage Project.  Many have catchy headlines
about helping with housework being the key to a good marriage or

Kids and marriage no longer inseparable
Townhall.com 
By Janice Shaw Crouse

July 3, 2007
In a culture where everybody talks about doing what is best for kids, more
and more people are separating marriage from childbearing and childrearing.
A just-released Pew survey of over 2,000 adults indicates what the
Washington Post calls a ³widening gap between parenthood and marriage.²
While parents are crazy about their kids, they no longer view them as a
reason for marriage. In fact, out of the nine factors being measured by Pew
as essential to success in marriage, children came in next to last. A mere
41 percent of those responding to the Pew survey said that children are
important to a good marriage. In contrast, in 1990 fully 65 percent of
respondents claimed that children are part of a good marriage.

In other words, marriage today is all about the adults¹ preferences; it is
all about ³me.² If couples get married at all, the ³until death do us part²
aspect is disappearing; many couples get together or stay together only when
they see some personal benefit in the togetherness. The end result is that
nearly 60 percent of children in the U.S. live in single-parent families
whose poverty rate is 4-5 times higher than married couple families. Indeed,
cohabitation has increased 10-fold since 1970 with more than 5 million
couples today living together without marriage and with 37 percent of
American children currently born out-of-wedlock.

Ironically, these new developments come at a time when the experts agree
that marriage is not just good for children¹s wellbeing; it is best for
children in every way. An Urban Institute study in 1999 revealed that
children in married-mom-and-dad homes fare better than those in any other
household arrangement when it comes to a child¹s well-being ­­ including
rate of poverty and behavioral standards.

The old song rhapsodized, ³love and marriageŠ go together like a horse and
carriageŠyou can¹t have one without the other.² Likewise, for the vast
majority of couples in the past, marriage came before children, and children
were an integral part of marriage. Couples sang: ³we could raise a family, a
boy for you and a girl for me.² Today, though, the Pew study revealed that
by a 3-to-1 ratio, adults viewed marriage in terms of their own ³happiness
and fulfillment² instead of including the ³bearing and raising children.²
Though these attitudes prevail, not everyone is happy about the changing
views on marriage and family. More than 65 percent of adults think that
single motherhood is bad for children and society, and nearly 60 percent
disapprove of unmarried cohabiting couples. Nearly 70 percent agree that a
child needs a mother-and-father family for his well-being and to produce the
best outcomes.

While marriage and family remain an ideal for raising children, the Pew
survey reveals a generation gap that should cause concern for those who care
about children. Younger adults are less worried about out-of-wedlock births
and cohabitation than are older adults. Further, Pew reports, those young
adults live out their lack of concern ³at rates unprecedented in U.S.
history.² Women over 25 are currently driving the nearly 40 percent of
out-of-wedlock births and nearly half (47 percent) of women in that age
bracket have been in a cohabiting relationship.

The ramifications of these trends are disastrous for women. In the 1970s
about 60 percent of cohabiting couples married within three years. By the
1990s, it was less than 40 percent. The average length of cohabiting
relationships is only 18 months and cohabiting couples who marry are 50
percent more likely to get divorced. Sadly, sexually transmitted diseases
are 6 times higher among cohabiting women than married women and having
three or more sexual partners in a lifetime increases the odds of cervical
cancer by 15 times. Women are 62 times more likely to be assaulted by a
live-in boyfriend than by a husband.

The trends can be equally disastrous for children. The absence of a father
in the home has dramatic and serious impact on both boys and girls. Boys
without fathers in the home are 300 times more likely to get into trouble
with the law. Girls without a father in the home are five times more likely
to become promiscuous. The Urban Institute has detailed many of the negative
outcomes that are risks in mother-only households. These are serious
outcomes that need to be acknowledged by young adults.

We caught a brief glimpse of how these trends played out in one young
woman¹s life last weekend at a restaurant. Our waitress was an almost-surly
teen who at first appeared to have a speech impediment, which turned out to
be simply the challenge of trying to talk with a large metal stud in her
tongue. Toward the end of the meal, after establishing rapport, I asked her
why she had the stud. She replied, surprisingly with a smile, that she got
it when she was 15 to make a statement to the effect that she was a
³semi-bad² girl ­­ I didn¹t press for an explanation of what constituted
semi-bad. I didn¹t have the heart to hear about it.

When I asked what her mother had to say about the stud, her reply was, ³Oh,
she¹s cool with it.² And her dad? He¹s ³irrelevant.² But then, curiously,
she interjected rather fiercely, ³Oh, he is around.² Clearly she wanted it
understood that, even though her parents were divorced, she did indeed have
a father and that they did make contact from time to time. But then as she
amplified the details a bit, it became clear that for the most part the
contact ­­ when it occurred ­­ was because she initiated it. ³I call him
sometimes,² but, ³he doesn¹t matter, my mom is the one that counts.²

She is not a statistic; she is a lovely young woman who, sadly, can be
described as emotionally malnourished. It is written all over her,
especially in the ways that she interacts with others. She is a living
example of how our personhood is formed in our earliest childhood by those
with whom we are connected . . . or not. Life can¹t be perfect, but life¹s
hurts shouldn¹t start where love ought to begin.
Janice Shaw Crouse, Ph.D., Senior Fellow at the Beverly LaHaye Institute,
the think tank for Concerned Women for America, is a recognized authority on
domestic issues, the United Nations, cultural and women¹s concerns.

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- MARRIAGE GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH?

Nothing new here for folks on this list, but I'm posting it because 1) We're
going to have a big focus on the health benefits of marriage at the 2008 SF
conference and 2) It's interesting to track how this info is filtering into
the media and to the public - this was written by the senior producer of
medical news at CNN. Also interesting that he's asking HOW to maintain a
happy marriage.  - diane


Marriage good for your health?
A. Chris Gajilan, Senior Producer, CNN Medical News
JULY 2, 2007 

"The last time I felt free was before I was married," said a friend who has
been with her husband for 40 years.

"Great..." I said as I smiled and nodded politely.

I'm getting married on Saturday - and everyone has advice. My mother tells
me not to get too stressed out before the wedding. Other people give me
directives: to breathe, to enjoy the day and to be sure to have someone save
us some cake. Trusted friends share their wisdom on how to keep a marriage
happy. My doctor-friend lists off the health benefits of being blissfully
wed.

It's true. Married people were healthier for nearly every measure of health,
says a 2004 CDC study. Married couples live longer lives, suffer less from
heart disease, back pain, headaches and serious psychological distress. They
are also less likely to smoke and drink heavily.

More recently, an Ohio State University study out this year found that
depressed people gain more from being married than single people. They fared
better on depression tests than when they were single, but they do report
less-happy marriages overall.

The one area where married people did worse? Weight gain. No surprise there.
I must admit that this trend started long before the nuptials for me. I like
to call it happy fat. It makes me feel better. In the long run, middle-aged
married men tipped the scales the most. From ages 45 to 64, three out of
four married men were overweight or obese. Single men and women who had
never been married were the leanest groups.

Interestingly enough, cohabitation didn't earn the same health benefits.
People with live in partners tended to score similar to divorced or
separated people in terms of health.

But a bad marriage can have serious negative effects on your health. Just
one example, marital stress is as strong a marker as work stress when it
comes to your risk of heart disease according to Dr. Richard Stein of the
American Heart Association.

What is it about marriage that leads to better health? Do you think single
or married people have higher levels of stress? Why do you think live-in
partners don't share the same health benefits? Do you have any advice on
maintaining a happy marriage?

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