Cohabitation and the Culture/ Study: mom's multiple live-in partners disruptive to white kids - 3/29/07

[Smartmarriages]

- COHABITATION AND THE CULTURE
- STUDY CONCLUDES: DISRUPTION IS DISRUPTIVE

#################################
- COHABITATION AND THE CULTURE

This clip is from Harry Benson's BCFT Newsletter (UK):

CAN CULTURE MAKE COHABITATION OK?
·        Most researchers today would agree that it might be OK for young
couples starting out to live together when they get engaged but moving in
without plans to marry is risky even if they subsequently decide to marry.
One compelling explanation is that men (much more than women) need to make
clear decisions about engagement and marriage in order to be fully
committed. A drift into cohabitation can easily lead to a drift into
marriage without a really clear decision taking place. Sliding is risky.
Deciding is better.
·        However I was sent a 2004 study this month showing that Danish
couples who marry directly have higher divorce rates than those who cohabit
and then marry. So in Denmark at least, divorce risk appears to depend more
on the total time spent living together than whether couples plan to marry
when they move in together. Interestingly this phenomenon may also apply in
quite a few other countries, e.g. Norway, the former West Germany and New
Zealand. But pre-marital cohabitation is risky in apparently similar
countries such as Sweden, East Germany and Canada. In other words
pre-marital cohabitation may be OK if the culture says it¹s OK. It¹s just
not obvious why it¹s true for some countries but not others.
·        This finding could lead some to claim that cohabitation isn¹t so
bad after all. Alas, not so. Cohabitation may or may not strengthen a
relationship if it turns into a marriage, depending on the country. However
when a baby is born, cohabitation never strengthens parenthood. This finding
is universally true across Europe where cohabiting parents with young
children are an average of 4 times more likely to split up compared to
married parents. 
·        Click here for the full article
<http://www.bcft.co.uk/research.htm#44>

Or, to subscribe: bcft.co.uk

#################################
- STUDY CONCLUDES: DISRUPTION IS DISRUPTIVE

Mom's multiple partners disruptive to kids
By Sharon Jayson, USA TODAY
March 29, 2007 

White children are more likely than black children to act out if their
mothers have multiple live-in lovers, an analysis by researchers at Johns
Hopkins University in Baltimore shows.

The report, published in the upcoming April issue of the American
Sociological Review, found a connection between such family changes and
behavior problems, but only in white children.

The two-generation study of a nationally representative sample of 1,965
mothers and their 3,392 kids examined data from 1979, when the mothers were
adolescents, and from 2000, when the mothers were adults and their children
were ages 5-14. The mothers reported behavior problems about their children,
and kids ages 10-14 reported details of delinquent behaviors such as
vandalism, theft and skipping school.

Sociologists Andrew Cherlin and Paula Fomby found that children who
experienced three to four transitions by age 14, such as a move in or out by
a parent or a parent's romantic partner, had more behavioral problems, such
as acting out or aggressive behavior, than those who had no transitions.

Hispanics were not included in the study because the 1979 data didn't
provide a good sample to account for the dramatic increase in immigration in
the past two decades, the researchers say.

"It's the behavior problems of white children that are driving that
finding," Cherlin says. "Black children's behavior problems don't get worse
when their parents have a series of partners. White children sometimes do."

The authors suggest the strength of the extended black family may mediate
upheaval caused by the breakup of a marriage or a change in a relationship.

Fomby says the study goes further than previous research, which questioned
how much a mother's past behavior influenced her children's behavior. "We
did find relationships between a mother's delinquent behavior and children's
delinquent behavior," she says. But after taking those influences into
account, transitions did appear to make a difference to some children.
"Three to four (transitions) seem to be the trouble point," Fomby says.

The sociologists did not include in their study dating-only relationships if
the partner lived elsewhere, children who didn't live with their mother and
any data on fathers because they were not part of the nationally
representative sample dating back to 1979.

Cherlin says the analysis suggests stability is key.

"A stable one-parent home is preferable to a home in which lots of parents
and partners move in and out," he says. And "if a single parent brings in a
partner and their relationship stays intact, kids can do well. It's the
multiple partners and the speed with which we sometimes go through
cohabiting partners that we think causes the problem."

###########################
- PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE BROWNBACK INTRODUCES MARRIAGE/FAMILY LEGISLATION

McManus 
March 28, 2007
Column #1,335 
How To Strengthen The Family Structure
by Michael J. McManus

> Senator Brownback who told a press conference, as he
> unveiled the proposals, ³I want to be known as the Family President.²
 
³For the first time, less than a quarter of American households are headed
by a married mother and father,² said Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS). ³They have
plummeted to the lowest level ever. Yet the family, with mom and dad bonded
together, is the best place to raise the next generation.²

Therefore, he and Rep. Lee Terry, R-NE, introduced a package of bills, ³the
most important pro-family legislation to be created in several decades,²
according to Dr. Allan Carlson, President of the Howard Center for Family,
Religion and Society. ³It recognizes the importance of parental care of
young children by expanding the dependent care child tax credit to cover
stay-at-home moms.²

At present the tax credit is given only to parents whose children are in
daycare. Imagine what will happen if Congress adopts the Brownback-Terry
proposal to extend the $2,100 credit to mothers who remain at home to care
for young children.  Many will leap at the chance to be full-time mothers.

A new study by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
underscores the importance of this initiative. In a long-term $200 million
study following children from infancy through the 6th grade, researchers
found that putting a child into daycare for as little as a year, increases
the odds the child will become disruptive in class years later

³Children with more experience in center settings continued to manifest
somewhat more problem behaviors through sixth grade,² the report stated.
And this impact on behavior was manifest even if the child attended high
quality day care.

By comparison, children reared by parents or grandparents were ³relatively
stable² emotionally. The report says, ³Parents and children also share
genes, further contributing to the relative strength of associations between
parenting and child functioning through the sixth grade.²

This massive proves what has long been obvious, that kids do better if
nurtured by their own parents.

Therefore, the package of bills proposed by Brownback/Terry is particularly
important:

I            Increase the child tax exemption to $5,000 from $3,400 and
index it to inflation. It started at $600 in 1948 when average family income
was $3,000 and would be $10,000 today if it had been indexed to inflation.

II            Make the child tax credit of $1,000 permanent, scheduled to
sunset in 2010.

III            Make permanent the elimination of a marriage penalty in both
the tax rate tables and the standard deduction.

IV            Allow a simple $2,500 deduction for a home-based business.

V            Give businesses who allow workers to work at home, a $2,400 tax
credit.

VI            Give Social Security credits for at home work, as if the
worker were earning the national average wage, as long as children are under
age 6.

The Social Security provision is particularly important.  My wife was a
stay-at-home mother who was out of the workforce for more than a decade
while our children were young. Although she now receives Social Security
benefits, they are substantially less than if she had been credited as a
full-time worker, which she certainly was - though not for pay.

The Social Security system is in fiscal crisis today because Baby Boomers
had fewer children.  Abortion alone has resulted in more than 40 million
fewer births. Had those children been born, there would be many more workers
to pay for the retirement of their parents in the Baby Boom generation. The
long-term future of Social Security rests on birth rates.

If Congress were to pass this package of family-friendly laws, the lure of
work for parents of young children would diminish, and the joy of being a
full-time mother would be rewarded economically. It would level the playing
field of home and work.

Also, it would begin to rebuild the family structure which has deteriorated
as cohabitation has soared 10-fold since 1970, and as marriage rates have
plunged in half, a million couples divorce annually affecting a million
children, and nearly two out of five children are born out-of-wedlock.

³Why not use the tax code to empower the family, if one parent wishes to
stay home?² suggests Rep. Terry.

However, the package would be very expensive, in the tens of billions. Allan
Carlson suggests one solution: ³Raise the overall tax rate a point or two,
to put more of a burden on people not raising children.²  Of course, such a
hike would be very controversial.

Not a problem for Senator Brownback who told a press conference, as he
unveiled the proposals, ³I want to be known as the Family President.²

END TXT. Copyright © 2007 Michael J. McManus


**************************
Send submissions and comments for the listserv to: diane at smartmarriages.com
Do NOT hit "reply". If you hit reply your email will go into cyberspace and
NO ONE will see your email.

This is a moderated list. Submissions and comments are read by Diane Sollee,
editor. Please indicate if your comment is NOT to be shared with the list.
PLEASE include your email address or url as part of your signature.

Please also understand that with thousands of subscribers, not all comments
can be shared. Also realize that opinions expressed are not necessarily
shared by members of the Coalition.

To SUBSCRIBE, UNSUBSCRIBE, or Change your subscription address,
use the form at: http://www.smartmarriages.com. Click Newslist - in the
column under the puzzle piece.

To read past posts to the listserv, visit the Archive at:
http://lists101.his.com/pipermail/smartmarriages/

11th Annual Smart Marriages Conference, Denver Adam's Mark Hotel,
June 28-July 1, 2007
Download a brochure: http://www.smartmarriages.com/Brochure.07.pdf


List your program and resources on the Directory of Classes at
http://www.smartmarriages.com

Order conference audio & video CD/DVD/MP3s: 800-241-7785 or
http://www.iPlaybackSmartMarriages.com

Coalition for Marriage, Family and Couples Education, LLC (CMFCE)
Diane Sollee, Director
5310 Belt Rd NW, Washington, DC 20015-1961
http://www.smartmarriages.com
202-362-3332

FAIR USE NOTICE: This e-newsletter/site contains copyrighted material the
use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright
owner. We make such material available in our efforts to advance
understanding of marriage, family, couples, divorce, legislation, family
breakdown, etc. We understand this constitutes a 'fair use' of such material
as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with
Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed
without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational purposes. For more
information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you
wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own
that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright
owner.