Indeed you can, so long as it is not criminal behavior and even that is rapidly changing, but a new study from MIT concludes that if you want children who succeed in life, a little cooperation is the ticket. Specifically, children who are raised in two-parent homes have much better outcomes than those living with a single parent:
This in turn can lock in generational cycles of poverty, something of which Sen. Daniel Moynihan warned all the way back in the 1960s:
"Even more concerning is that male children born into low-income, single-parent headed-households—which, in the vast majority of cases are female headed households—appear to fare particularly poorly on numerous social and educational outcomes. A vicious cycle may ensue, with the poor economic prospects of less-educated males creating differentially large disadvantages for their sons, thus potentially reinforcing the development of the gender gap in the next generation."
Single parenthood has been a growth sector in the the U.S. across all racial demographics and if this study is accurate, it does not bode well for the development of capable adults. Seen at a macro level, this means that the fabric of the United States will be less strong, less resilient, than in decades past and that is a problem since the world we live in is changing faster and more violently than ever before.
The traditional family has been under attack for some time. If we really are serious about meeting the challenges of the future, policies that strengthen the two-parent family would be a crucial place to start.
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