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MOTHERHOOD AND MARRIAGE: In red: what the pundits, spin-meisters, and study summarizers SAY the studies have found (frequently interposed with could-bes, should-bes, what-ifs, comments, faulty conclusions, and suppositions without cites), and, in black: what the research actually says! Myth -- "Maternal instinct" means that in general women both seek fulfillment through children and are naturally nurturing. Fact: To the extent there are biological forces at work in connection with mothering behavior, they also are not necessarily "maternal instinct" as that term has been used to mean indiscriminately nurturing. While "maternal responses that are biologically based are surely going on in the human species," nevertheless "mothers do not automatically and unconditionally respond to giving birth in a nurturing way."
Fact: "A number of studies have shown that human females in almost any age group prefer pictures of infants to those of adults more than males do, and are more likely to interact with live babies in a variety of circumstances than males are (e.g. Berman, 1980; Blakemore, 1983; Edwards, 1993; Feldman, Nash & Cutrona, 1977; Fullard & Reiling, 1976; Maestripieri & Pelka, 2002). Female responsiveness to infants is greatest in childhood and adolescence, and declines in middle-aged and elderly women, whereas a similar pattern is not observed for males (Berman, 1980; Feldman et al., 1977; Frodi & Lamb, 1978; Fullard & Reiling, 1976; Maestripieri & Pelka, 2002)."
Fact: While there is no scientific support for the kind of "maternal instinct" that has been used for ages to restrict women into child-bearing, child-rearing and homemaking roles, there is some scientific evidence that during pregnancy, women are physiologically "primed" for the tasks of nurturing their own infant.
Fact: "Despite clear evidence of hormonal and physiological factors in maternal instinct and behavior, there is no indication that this applies to the care of grown men, let alone those outside one's immediate family. "
Myth -- There is no such thing as "maternal instinct" at all.
Myth -- Parental bonding begins at birth; mothers and fathers feel the same about their newborn infants. Fact: "Many doctors and psychologists now understand that bonding doesn't begin at birth, but is a continuum of physiological, psychological, and spiritual events which begin in utero and continue throughout the postnatal bonding period. When this natural evolution is interrupted by a postnatal separation from the biological mother, the resultant experience of abandonment and loss is indelibly imprinted upon the unconscious minds of these children, causing that which I call the 'primal wound.'
Fact: Mothers have a lower threshhold of response to their infant's needs than fathers, that is, they are physiologically aroused to a greater degree by infant signals and cries, and also respond more readily; however, in instances of severe distress, the response reactions of mothers and fathers (and probably other adults in proximity) are similar.
Fact: An experiment providing ultrasound imagery of their fetus over a period of two weeks to both mothers and fathers resulted in increases in mothers' but not fathers' antenatal attachment to the fetus.
Myth -- Newborn infants are "blank slates" who will feel the same about any caregiver, and have no special feeling for or bond with the gestating mother. Fact: Infant learning and familiarity with its environment begins in utero.
Fact: A newborn infant has an immediate bond with its mother. So long as that mother remains present, until age 2 to 3, the child's closest bond and primary attachment will remain its mother.
Myth -- Pregnancy does not negatively impact a woman's health, body, or her employment effectiveness or functioning in other spheres of life. Fact: It depends on the pregnancy and on the woman, and the same woman may experience different pregnancies differently as well. While being pregnant in and of itself does not justify a presumption that any particular woman is lesser-abled or disabled from her customary functioning, neither does it justify a presumption that pregnancy always will have no effect. Forty percent of all pregnancies have some complications; fifteen percent have severe complications; and even the best pregnancies will result in temporary and permanent side effects. Pregnancy is not "no big deal" -- it is a major event in a woman's life, and a major investment of time, and physical, emotional, social and opportunity-cost resources, and it not only entails a measure of sacrifice, but also can be a major health risk.
Myth -- Early feminists sought to throw off the shackles of having to care for their children and supported joint custody. Fact: They fervently sought the right to have legal custody and care of their own children, both in marriage and in the event of divorce, and to be permitted the means to support themselves and their families. They did not seek to TRADE their abilities to bear and rear children or to form families in return for self-fulfillment in other areas, but the right to control the destiny of their own bodies and minds, and not be limited to the development of only part of their human potential. Foremost feminist philosopher Elizabeth Cady Stanton, argued in favor of maternal preference for young children.
Myth -- Breastfeeding offers no significant advantages to infants over bottlefeeding; "I wasn't breastfed, and I turned out just fine!" Fact: Two decades of research indeed have established that breastmilk is far preferable to formula -- for both the baby and the mother! Among other benefits, breastfeeding: stimulates the release of the hormone oxytocin in the mother's body promoting bonding between mother and baby; satisfies baby's emotional needs; provides superior nutrition; helps prevent maternal breast cancer, endometrial cancer, ovarian cancer and osteoporosis; helps prevent future breast cancer in infant girls; promotes higher infant IQ; helps pass baby's meconium; provides immunization against disease; is more digestible than formula; aids in mother's post-partum physical recovery; helps protect the infant from Crohn's disease, juvenile diabetes, allergies, asthma, SIDS, hemophilus b. virus, cardopulmonary distress, ulcerative colitis, necrotizing enterocolitis, and other medical problems; enhances vaccine effectiveness, and is a natural contraceptive.
Fact: Children who are breastfed are significantly less anxious as ten years later than children who were not breastfed. The study included a comparison of breastfed and non-breastfed children who later experienced their parents' divorce. " Breastfed babies are more resilient as they cope better with stress in later life than bottle fed babies..."
Comment: Breastfeeding and related nurturing also may mitigate against aggression in grown males.
Fact: Breastfeeding directly from the breast offers significant benefits over bottlefeeding expressed breastmilk for both mother and infant, including, among others: infant jaw development, infant control of milk flow, psychological attachment of infant to mother, health benefits for mother that pumping the breast does not achieve, infant's ability to feed on demand, the stimulation and maintenance of mother's milk supply that pumping alone cannot achieve (and some women cannot successfully pump), avoidance of problems such as that some babies will not move back and forth easily between bottle and breast, nutritional variation of milk during the breastfeeding, that it's cheaper and avoids the need for a variety of feeding equipment, and that breastmilk from the breast is always fresh and free of contaminents.
Fact: "The nutritional benefits of breast milk appear to be the factor in the average intelligence gain of breast-fed infants. Researchers estimate that 60% of the increase comes from the food value of the milk with the other 40% from the maternal-child bond."
Fact: Controvery exists over the safety of polycarbonate plastics widely used in baby bottles and other food containers, especially when heated. The industry (which has a financial interest) marshals studies and arguments claiming the clear plastic is safe, while environmental safety groups claim otherwise, and point to research that has found widespread harms in animal studies.
Myth -- Babies will be better "socialized" if they get used to a variety of caregivers, rather than depending on just one. Fact: "The most important relationship in a child's life is the attachment to his or her primary caregiver, optimally, the mother. This is due to the fact that this first relationship determines the biological and emotional 'template' for all future relationships. Healthy attachment to the mother built by repetitive bonding experiences during infancy provides the solid foundation for future healthy relationships. In contrast, problems with bonding and attachment can lead to a fragile biological and emotional foundation for future relationships."
Fact: A new study released in 2003 by Carol George and and Judith Solomon of Mills College found that two-thirds of 12- to-18 month-olds who regularly spent overnight visits away from their mothers exhibited disorganized attachment to both their mothers and fathers, compared with babies who were not subjected to this arrangement (e.g. who saw their fathers only during daytime visits.)
Comment: The study news release [4-3-03] optimistically proclaims that "overnights per se" were not the sole factor that caused the problems. However, confounding factors were those virtually certain to be present in contested custody disputes, e.g. disagreement and emotional tension between the parents, inconsistency in parenting, inability of the parents to communicate harmoniously.
Fact: "Secure attachment is understood to be an important feature of adjustment in infants and children, much of which is organized in the child's earliest experiences. The mother is presumed to be the only attachment figure before Lamb, among other researchers, conducted a series of studies to determine the conditions under which infants and toddlers preferred mothers over fathers (e.g., Lamb, 1976a, 1977a, 1977b). Attachment relations were not restricted to mothers. Children chose the available parent under distress, and when both parents were available, the mother was preferred."
Myth -- Having a child "cements" a marriage and brings a couple closer together. Fact: More often, the birth of a first child disrupts marital harmony and requires adjustment. Among other things, "the increased time spent with the newborn often reduces the time husband and wife spend together. The decreased time spent alone as a couple for first-time parents often contributes to a decline in marital satisfaction."
Fact: "This meta-analysis finds that parents report lower marital satisfaction compared with nonparents There is also a significant negative correlation between marital satisfaction and number of children. The difference in marital satisfaction is most pronounced among mothers of infants (38% of mothers of infants have high marital satisfaction, compared with 62% of childless women). For men, the effect remains similar across ages of children. The effect of parenthood on marital satisfaction is more negative among high socioeconomic groups, younger birth cohorts, and in more recent years. The data suggest that marital satisfaction decreases after the birth of a child due to role conflicts and restriction of freedom."
Fact: "Married mothers' lives are marked by more housework and more marital conflict but less depression than their childless counterparts. Parental status has little influence on the lives of married men."
Myth -- Women and men are now equal economically; mothers are no longer dependent spouses. Fact: "Several recent studies have shown a negative association between motherhood and wages. However, an analysis of change over time in the motherhood penalty has not been conducted. Using two cohorts of young women drawn from the 1975-1985 National Longitudinal Survey of Young Women and the 1986-1998 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, we explicitly test the relationship between motherhood and wages across two cohorts and examine whether that relationship has changed. Even after controlling for unobserved heterogeneity and human capital variables, each additional child is associated with a negative effect on women's wages. Moreover, our findings suggest that the penalty has not diminished over time."
Fact: "Women's own earnings matter more to their housework performance than do their earnings compared to their husbands', that is, their relative earnings." Women who earn more (relative to other women) do less housework and childcare, and vice versa. It is possible that as women earn more, they purchase lower-cost third-party help. But that women do more in the home bears little relationship to whether their husbands earn more or less relative to their wives.
Fact: "Married mothers in dual-income households generally experience more positive affect at work and more negative at home. In contrast, their husbands experience the reverse: experiencing more negative emotion at work and more positive at home. What seems to account for these differences is that these men do less housework and cooking, engage less with their children, and enjoy more relaxation and leisure when at home than do their wives."
Fact: "Although men's relative contributions have increased, women still do at least twice as much routine housework as men."
Fact: "[E]mployed women tend to label unbalanced divisions of labor as fair and from research showing that men who do little persist in seeing the allocation of household tasks as fair (Ward, 1993). Suitor (1991) replicated the oft-cited U-shaped curve of marital satisfaction by finding that wives' satisfaction with the division of household labor is highest in the preparental and postparental stages and lowest when children are present (i.e., when women do the most domestic work). In contrast, husbands' fairness ratings and satisfaction with housework show little variation across the life course."
Fact: "Studies find that young teenage girls do about twice the amount of household labor as young teenage boys do (Juster & Stafford, 1991), with girls concentrating their efforts on routine inside chores of cooking and cleaning and boys concentrating their efforts on occasional outside chores such as yard care (Antill et al., 1996; Blair, 1992b; Goldscheider & Waite, 1991; McHale et al., 1990)."
Myth -- The divorce rate is increasing, and more couples than ever are getting divorced. Fact: Our population has grown in numbers, however "[t]he rate of divorces per year per 1000 people in the U.S. has been declining since 1981."
Fact: "The divorce rate per 1,000 population was 4.7 in 1989 and 1990 and is 11 percent lower than the peak rate of 5.3 in 1979 and 1981."
Fact: Touting a "fifty percent divorce rate" is misleading. Touting a "quadrupling in the numbers of divorced persons," given the increasing population is misleading. In 1970, 3% of all persons over 18 years of age were divorced. After nearly 25 years of a lessening on legal restrictions hampering the right of persons to get out of untenable marriages, in 1994, post the "divorce revolution," the percentage of all persons over 18 who were divorced was 9%.
Myth -- Premarital counseling can help prevent divorces. Fact: While couples who experienced premarital counseling claim to be more satisfied in their marriages than couples who did not, in the end there is no difference in marital outcomes between those couples who have had extensive premarital counseling and those who have not.
Myth -- Religious faith and Christian family values can help prevent divorces. Fact: The states with the highest divorce rates in the United States are those in the South which also have the most Christian churches, the highest percentages of persons who identify as being "churched," the lowest percentages of women who identify as "feminist," and the most pervasive and traditional perspectives on family roles. "[F]our of the five states with the highest resident divorce rates in the country are in the Deep South, where families pray together but, apparently, can't stay together. Metropolitan states like Massachusetts and New York, supposed havens of marital dysfunction, actually have comparatively low divorce rates."
Myth -- Living together before marriage increases the risk of breaking up after marriage. Fact: No research has found this. Some of the research has found a correlation (not causation) between premarital cohabiting and later divorces. It's likely that a significant percentage of these couples cohabited, delaying their marriage, because they were unsure of each other to begin with, and that others ended up marrying because of social pressures connected with the cohabiting. "DeMaris and MacDonald (1993) found that the only situation in which cohabitation is associated with a higher divorce rate is among 'serial cohabitors' -- people who have cohabited with more than one partner. That's a small portion of all cohabitors. The study actually concluded that for first-time cohabitors who then marry their partners, there's no increased risk of divorce."
Myth -- Women [who file for two-thirds of divorces] often file for divorce for vague or frivolous reasons, such as "boredom," or to "find themselves." Fact: "[Th}e first major study of divorce reasons ... found that wives cited twice as many complaints as husbands, and were far more likely to complain of physical abuse, financial problems, drinking, and verbal abuse; husbands were more likely to cite in-law trouble and sexual incompatibility. Results varied by socioeconomic status: lower-status couples seemed more concerned with problem behaviors, while middle-class couples concentrated on emotional issues."
Fact: "The majority of men and women in this study mentioned affective dimensions of their marriage relationship - encompassing communication problems, incompatibility, changed lifestyle desires and instances of infidelity - as the main reason for their divorce... Differences between men and women emerged where abusive behaviour was cited as a main reason," with far more women citing abuse.
Fact: "Presland and Gluckstern (1993) found that one-third of women aged 45 and over who had been married for at least 15 years and who had initiated the final separation also had not wanted the marriage to end, or were uncertain about it. A husband's affair was a main contributing reason for initiating separation..."
Fact: "[T]he more a man buys into masculine stereotypes, the worse it will be for his wife, because this kind of relationship puts a huge amount of strain on women. As she's the one feeling the stress, it's not surprising that she's the one to say 'enough'. However, saying 'enough' comes only after women have tried to find ways to make the marriage work, by accessing counselling services and support from friends and family."
Fact: "In Britain in 1995, 26% of divorces were granted on grounds of adultery; 44% for unreasonable behaviour; 23% after a two year separation by mutual consent; 6% after a five year separation and fewer than 1% on the grounds of desertion. Identifying the point of 'irretrievable breakdown' is difficult, and many factors contribute to divorce..."
For more, see: Why Do People Divorce? (Why women file for the majority of divorces.)
Myth -- Mothers in two-parent homes are better parents than single mothers. Fact: "[T]here does not appear to be a significant difference in quality of parenting between divorced mothers and mothers in intact homes, when controlling for income.
Fact: "[S]ingle mothers have higher poverty rates than other families and ...a substantial portion of their poverty is a consequence of marital disruption."
Fact: "A new multiethnic study at Cornell University has found that being a single parent does not appear to have a negative effect on the behavior or educational performance of a mother's 12- and 13-year-old children What mattered most in this study, Cornell researcher Henry Ricciuti says, is a mother's education and ability level and, to a lesser extent, family income and quality of the home environment. He found consistent links between these maternal attributes and a child's school performance and behavior... The study is a follow-up of children who were assessed when they were 6 and 7 years old. The first study, published in 1999, found that single parenthood did not affect young children's school readiness or social or behavioral problems..." Adverse affects of "single parenthood" did not emerge over a period of 6 to 7 years in which children's mothers did not have a spouse or partner living in the home.
Fact: Stress negatively impacts parenting, as well as other kinds of functioning. Stress factors that are more likely to be present and to affect single mothers than happily married mothers include: financial problems, living in a bad neighborhood, juggling increased outside employment and childcare demands, post-break-up domestic violence and harassment, divorce and custody litigation, and interference with family and household routines by nonresident parents and other third parties (i.e. responsibility without decision-making authority).
Fact: "The most stressed of all mothers are those who are married, employed, have young children, and encounter difficulty in locating and affording child care and handle child rearing mostly alone (Benin & Keith, 1995; Hughes & Galinsky, 1994; Marshall, Barnett, et al., 1998; Neal, Chapman, Ingersol-Dayton, & Emlen, 1993; Sears & Galambos, 1993)... When economic conditions are constant, single and married women experience similar levels of maternal distress (Ross & Van Willigen, 1996)."
Myth -- Children raised in single mother homes are more likely than children raised in two-parent homes to have problems with their adult relationships. Fact: It's not true. A study of family interactions spanning three generations and comparing the adult relationships of children from single mother households with those from two parent households found that children who had warm, supportive relationships with their single mothers formed satisfying, committed relationships with equal success to those who had similar parent-child relationships in two-parent homes. It depends upon the parents.
Myth -- Single mothers have less time and energy to give their children than married mothers. Fact: Not necessarily. And it's not directly correlated with employment of the mother, either. Being married and maintaining a household with a man itself consumes a significant amount of mother's time and attention, both directly to the relationship as well as in heavier homemaking burdens (even men who "help out" in the home seldom contribute equivalent to the chores they create.) In addition, "Engle and Breaux (1998) have shown that some fathers' consumption of family resources in terms of gambling, purchasing alcohol, cigarettes, or other nonessential commodities, actually increased women's workload and stress level."
Fact: The studies look at this issue more honestly when it's a man other than the children's father, e.g.:"[T]he two-adult structure of a coresidential or cohabiting arrangement might benefit children, providing more adults to supervise, monitor, and be emotionally involved with children. At the same time, cohabiting males or stepfathers may compete with children for mothers' time and resources, thereby diminishing children's well-being."
Fact: "Our major finding is that union formation and/or the disruption of new unions have very few effects on mothering. Mothers' and children's reports sometimes produce different results, but the patterns do not suggest that children's reports are any more or less accurate than those of mothers. The most consistent effects of union change indicate that the presence of a partner reduces mothers' time with children... Remarriage or repartnering is not good if we value time for and supervision of children. Children in intact unions at the second survey report spending less time with their mothers than children whose mothers were single."
Fact: "[H]usbands seem to create more labor in the household by their mere presence - as much as eight hours more labor per week - despite the work that they do perform in the home. In other words, even when a man's labor in the household has been taken into account, he causes eight additional hours of labor for his spouse (South and Spitze 1994)."
Fact: "Controlling for work hours, single parents are not more likely than married parents to feel that they spend insufficient time with children."
Fact: "Marriage increases the amount of time that women spend in household labor (Bianchi et al., 2000) and decreases the amount of time that men spend in household labor (Gupta, 1999). Not surprisingly, marriage curtails women's free time and has few effects on men's free time (Mattingly & Bianchi, 2003). Upon the birth of a child, the household division of labor becomes even more traditional (Gjerdingen & Center, 2005; Sanchez & Thomson, 1997; Thompson & Walker, 1989) and the gender gap in free time becomes even more pronounced (Mattingly & Bianchi). These household demands affect women's work. Married women are more likely than married men to report that family demands have caused them to turn down overtime hours and beneficial work assignments (Keene & Reynolds, 2005).
Fact: "Employed and full-time mothers generally engage in the same array of child care activities, with the exception that full-time mothers watch more television with their children (Bryant & Zick, 1996; DeMeis & Perkins, 1996). Mothers holding employment do not spend less time with their children than full-time homemaker mothers (see Bianchi & Robinson, 1997). Further, many employed mothers "compensate for their absence from the home during work hours by increasing the amount of time they spend in intense interaction with children during nonwork hours [Mischel and Fuhr, 1988]" (Amato & Booth, 1997, p. 60)."
Fact: Women first shave time from their own personal activities when there is a deficit because of employment or other factors, not from the children. Even in circumstances in which lone mothers have less time for their children than they would if married, the studies all are quite clear that lone fathers spend even less parenting time with children. So flipflopping children in joint custody won't alleviate this situation -- it merely will rotate the children from one parent who is devoting less time than she formerly did to another who is devoting even less time. For more on joint custody, see liznotes.
Myth -- Divorce, especially in and around the time of litigation, causes mothers to become overwhelmed and results in a diminishment in mothers' parenting. Fact: Parenting practices are unrelated to divorce. "...to determine whether divorced parents exhibit a diminished capacity to parent in the period following divorce. Using 2 waves of data from a national survey of Canadian children, the current study prospectively follows 5,004 children living in 2-biological parent households at initial interview and compares changes in parenting practices between households that subsequently divorce and those that remain intact. Results show that divorce is unrelated to changes in parenting behavior, suggesting that there are more similarities than differences in parenting among recently divorced and continuously married parents."
Fact: "...Freeman and Newland (2002) detected no differences in parental control or responsiveness among newly divorced and stable two-parent households, either prior to or following marital change. Similarly, Hanson, McLanahan, and Thomson (1998) failed to find postdivorce differences in maternal supervision between divorced and continuously married parents. These findings further support the limited applicability of a diminished capacity to parent in the aftermath of divorce...The finding that parenting practices are unrelated to divorce appears to fly in the face of accepted wisdom. In actuality, such beliefs are intuitive only to those inclined to view divorce as unavoidably destructive or who infer that people with failed marriages must also lack the qualities required of a good parent... the expectation that all parents will be adversely affected not only is unfounded but may also represent an inefficient use of resources and services for those who do not need them."
Myth -- Divorce harms children. Fact: "Based on two waves of a large, nationally representative panel, this study demonstrates that even before the disruption, both male and female adolescents from families that subsequently dissolve exhibit more academic, psychological, and behavioral problems than peers whose parents remain married. Families on the verge of breakup are also characterized by less intimate parent-parent and parent-child relationships, less parental commitment to children's education, and fewer economic and human resources. These differences in family environment account for most well-being deficits among adolescents in predisrupted families. Furthermore, the deterioration in different domains of the family environment appears to be associated with maladjustment in different aspects of children's lives. The postdisruption effects on adolescents can either be totally or largely predicted by predisruption factors and by changes in family circumstances during the period coinciding with the disruption."
Fact: "The quality of the single-parent family environment is at least as important for children's well-being as the fact of the divorce itself."
Fact: "Meta-analysis supports the notion that the impact of father absence appears to be mediated by family conflict; father absence in itself may not affect children's well-being. The family conflict perspective was strongly confirmed by the data. This perspective holds that children in intact families with high levels of conflict should have the same well-being problems as children of divorce, and the data supported this hypothesis."
Fact: "[T]he most psychologically salient long-term influence on children is their relationship with the residential parent, not the physical separation of the parents, although it may be the most obvious and acutely distressing aspect of divorce."
Fact: "Various researchers conclude that it is intraparental conflict which most adversely affects children in divorce (e.g., Johnston et al., 1989; Furstenberg and Cherlin, 1991; Emery, 1988; Ferreiro, 1990). Many children enter the divorce phase already disadvantaged by exposure to parental strife and conflict (Chase-Lansdale and Hetherington, 1990; Block et al., 1988; Block et al., 1986; Hetherington et al., 1982; Wallerstein and Kelly, 1980). Without question, as a large body of literature demonstrates (e.g., Furstenberg and Cherlin, 1991; Seltzer et al., 1989; Seltzer, 1991a), many children are adversely affected economically when fathers fail to contribute financial support subsequent to divorce: only about half of divorced fathers comply fully and regularly with child support orders. Moreover, child support payments amounted to only about 17% of the total income of custodial mothers and their children in 1989, with the average monthly child support payments made by fathers, not including those who contributed nothing, being 277 dollars (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1992). Mothers in several studies argued that the economic hardship which accompanied divorce was the source of most of their and their children's difficulties (Arendell, 1986; Kurz, 1995)."
Fact: "Research seeking explanations for the links between divorce and the adverse outcomes experienced by some children has found that: financial hardship and other family circumstances that pre-date, as well as follow, separation play an important part in limiting children's educational achievement; family conflict before, during and after separation is stressful for children who may respond by becoming anxious, aggressive or withdrawn; the ability of parents to recover from the distress associated with separation is important for children's own ability to adjust." Another important factor is multiple changes in family structure.
Fact: "Controlling for predivorce parental socioeconomic and psychosocial resources fully accounts for poorer child mental health at initial interview among children whose parents later divorce... a significant interaction between parental divorce and predivorce levels of family dysfunction suggests that child antisocial behavior decreases when marriages in highly dysfunctional families are dissolved."
Fact: "[W]e discovered that many of the seeming effects of childhood divorce disappear when we control for pre-divorce circumstances including background characteristics of the family and measures of how the child was doing at age 7 before parents separated."
Comment: "Undoubtedly, children benefit from being raised in an emotionally and economically secure two-parent family but if this is not possible the evidence from this study suggests that in the context of the long-term welfare of children we should be as concerned about the conditions that precede divorce and sometimes lead to divorce, such as poverty and economic uncertainty, as well as with the consequences of marital breakup."
Myth -- Children do better post-divorce with the continuing involvement of nonresidential fathers.
Fact: "A recent survey of 9,816 secondary school students in the Netherlands indicates that the level of well being of children living in single mother families is higher than that of students living in two parent families with much parental conflict, the well being of children living in single mother families with no parental conflict and with a great deal of contact with the departed father is lower than that of children living in two parent families without parental conflict and finally, the degree of parental conflict after divorce is more important for the well being of the children than the degree of contact with the departed father (Dronkers, 1996)."
Fact: "Using data from the United States National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth, Jekielek (1996) found that both parental conflict and marital disruption were associated with decreases in the children's well being but children who remain in the high conflict environments do worse than children who experienced high conflict but whose parents had divorced at least two years previously. The results suggest that parental divorce following high conflict may actually improve the well being of children relative to a high conflict status. Using a 12 year longitudinal study, Amato, Loomis & Booth (1995) also found that the consequences of parental divorce depend on the degree of parental conflict prior to divorce."
Myth -- Mothers "gatekeep" and thereby interfere with the development of paternal involvement in childcare. Fact: "Nonresident fathers showed slightly lower levels of involvement when their adolescents did not live with their biological mothers, supporting previous work that suggests a pattern of mothers pulling nonresident fathers into parenting (Harris & Ryan, 2004), rather than gatekeeping to limit contact with the adolescent."
Fact: "The results of this study support a gender system view of parenting, as parent gender, compared to parent residence, was found to be the stronger dimension underlying parent-adolescent involvement. In terms of involvement frequency, mothers tend to be more involved than fathers, and even nonresident mothers engage in as wide a range of activities with children as do most resident fathers. Moreover, in the multidimensional scaling analysis, parent gender accounted for approximately 95% of the variance between parent categories in patterns of involvement. Macrostructural, normative, internalized, and even biological aspects of the gender system may allow, encourage, or sanction mothers to participate in a wide range of activities and forms of communication with their adolescent children, irrespective of living arrangements."
Fact: It is fathers' beliefs about roles, and NOT mothers' that influences fathers' participation in childrearing. "Mothers' traditionalism was not a significant predictor of paternal involvement. Fathers married to egalitarian mothers are neither more nor less likely to become involved with their children. Instead, the influence of gender ideology is direct. Controlling for mothers' ideology, fathers with less traditional attitudes about gender are more involved in both breadth of involvement and proportion of hours spent with children. These findings have important implications for how we understand the division of parenting labor. Although prior research reminds us that parenting is a dynamic process resulting from parents' negotiations with each other (Glass, 1998; Greenstein, 1996), the ideas mothers have about gender are inconsequential to some measures of paternal involvement. Instead, fathers' ideas about gender influence their levels of involvement."
Fact: "Although an initial lack of experience or support [from mothers] might be expected to diminish father involvement over time, relations between maternal protective attitudes and fathers' relative involvement did not hold longitudinally... the lack of longitudinal relations may suggest that father involvement is primarily self-determined and that mothers' attitudes are in part a consequence of how involved fathers actually are in childrearing. Fathers who resist active participation may indeed be less skilled, less comfortable, or less interested in the parenting role, and mothers' protective attitudes-particularly with respect to fathers' direct interaction with their children-may emerge as a result.
Fact: In a study of unwed adolescent mothers, "while over 80% of mothers reported that their children's fathers had at least some contact with the children, approximately 80% of mothers indicate that the fathers themselves had some sort of emotional or behavioral problem... While their father's level of involvement did not have an effect on the children at first, between the end of the second and third years, children's problem behaviors were directly related to fathers' involvement."
Fact: "[N]umerous factors influence the amount of time fathers spend caring for their children. These factors include individual, family, larger system, and cultural influences... fathers' involvement with their children is a complex reality with multiple levels of influence."
Fact: Perhaps the most significant predictor of father involvement inside and outside of marriage is the father's relationship with the mother. It is not that mothers actively work to prevent paternal participation in childrearing per se; rather, father's roles in the family are mediated by mothers and integrally tied to the father's relationship with the mother. Father's relationships with their children are social constructs, not direct. Where the marital relationship is poor, or where the mother otherwise receives lower emotional and financial support from the father, the mother is less inclined to actively work to facilitate the father's relationship with the children. (There also may be a correlation between the father's personality and both his child-nurturant qualities and beliefs with the success of the marital relationship.)
Fact: "[Five] factors influence the level of fathers' involvement: child characteristics and paternal sociodemographic characteristics; motivation; skills and self-confidence; social supports; and institutional factors or practices.... no single factor emerges as the most important, but all show valid degrees of influence on fathers' involvement." The authors warn that much of the research on "father involvement" is flawed because it fails to account for the quality of that involvement. By the measures used in many studies, a frequent child beater would have a high score of "father involvement."
Fact: "Mother Nature sets the threshhold for direct and exclusive care of young higher in fathers than in mothers. If primate mothers respond to infant needs right after birth, they are unlikely to ever misdirect their care. Males cannot be so sure... the majority of hunter-gatherer societies are characterized by close infant-mother proximity for at least the first several years. Care of infants by fathers is unusual, and care by male alloparents rarer still. But the recipe is not carved in stone... Female primates have always entrusted infants to willing allomothers whenever a mother could be confident of safely retrieving them." [Apply that to divorce custody theory. -- liz]
Fact: "If the circumstances are conducive, almost any primate male can be induced to behave in a nurturing way. How is it, then, that it is almost always females who end up holding babies? In only a tiny minority of species do males care for infants even remotely as much as mothers do... The simplest answer is that... [people follow] the path of least resistance... the mother is more sensitive to infant needs than the father... And that's just the point. The act of caring has its own consequences -- habits of mind and emotion... insignificant difference in threshholds for responding to infant cues gradually, insidiously, step by step, without invoking a single other cause, produces a marked division of labor by sex... Since the women's movement revolutionized the way that we talk about male caretakers and paternal roles, there has been a marked change. It would not be honest, however, to pretend that this represents a revolution... fathers in the United States spend much more time today directly caring for children than they did at the beginning of the twentieth century, but the change is still measured in minutes per week, not hours... From a newborn infant's point of view... little has changed. Mothers are rarely as close or consistently available as the infant desires. Babies have no way of knowing that the mother who went out of town on business is not dead, that sabertooth tigers are extinct, jaguars scarce, abandonment illegal, or how few modern mothers would, in fact, contemplate it."
Comment: "[C]onsiderable debate exists as to the role of maternal attitudes and behaviors in determining father involvement (Walker & McGraw, 2000). Some research has found no relation, whereas other work has indicated that men's involvement in fact predicts mothers' opinions about their fathering (Aldous et al., 1998; Bonney et al., 1999; Marsiglio, 1991). Further, although mothers are in a position to inhibit father involvement, they are poised to facilitate and support it as well (Walker & McGraw). Men's own attitudes toward fathering and perceptions of their skills are related to their level of parenting involvement (Beitel & Parke, 1998; Bonney et al.), and they themselves may exert substantial control over how and when they choose (or choose not) to be engaged with their children. Moreover, specific combinations of parenting attitudes (e.g., a very authoritarian father with a highly protective partner) may be particularly detrimental for fathers' involvement."
Comment: "The idea that women who've been the primary caretakers should simply adjust (read, 'lower') their standards of child care when men decide they are ready to try out being more involved fathers is unfair and unrealistic. Rather, we suggest that men who've not been much involved in day-to-day child care should ask lots of respectful questions of their partners to learn how and why they developed their routines with the kids, what cues to notice in the children about what they need, and what seems to work best."
Myth -- When children's relationships with their fathers falter post-divorce, a likely cause is custodial mothers' interference with the relationship. Fact: This phenomenon occurs even when the "children of divorce" are adults, indicating that something else is going on. "The implications of later life parental divorce and widowhood for relations between parents and young adult children are explored in a sample of 3,281 young adults who grew up in intact families. Family disruption that occurred after children were grown had sizable effects on parent-adult child relations. Later life parental divorce lowered relationship quality and contact between adult children and parents. The effects were stronger for father-child than for mother-child relations, and stronger for father-daughter than for father-son relations. Widowhood had negative effects on father-child but not on mother-child relations."
Fact: "[D]ivorce is linked to altered parent-child relationships, even when it is postponed until the children are adults... most of the variability in relationships immediately following the divorce was associated with situations arising after the divorce or with aspects of the divorce process itself, rather than with predivorce family dynamics. However, one predivorce factor that had negative effects on postdivorce intimacy was parental drinking, especially on the part of fathers."
Fact: "Prior
to divorce, 57% of adolescents reported a very close relationship with
their father compared to 71% who reported being very close to their mother...
In terms of predivorce experiences, the results indicate that compared
to offspring whose relationship declined following divorce, those who maintained
a close relationship with their father had a stronger mother-offspring
bond and a greater sense of well-being... It appears that a high-quality
mother-offspring bond, along with a strong sense of well-being, may encourage
nonresident fathers to continue their relationships with their children...
We found that a predivorce familial experience (mother-offspring relationship
quality) and an individual attribute (offspring’s feelings of wellbeing)
played major roles in preventing close father-offspring relationships from
deteriorating...
Fact: "Researchers have looked mainly at post-divorce withdrawal, but there is some evidence that paternal disengagement begins well before separation. In a 10-year study of personality and cognitive development of children in 110 families (41 of whom experienced divorce during the study), it was found that the fathers who eventually divorced withdrew from their children long before the crisis period and end of the marriage. Paternal disengagement and unreliable behaviour -- particularly with regard to sons -- coincided with the mother's wish that the father would become more involved in parenting. If indeed disengagement develops before separation, explanations relating to post-separation variables may be regarded as partial. Efforts to address the disengagement of fathers, however, have focused on post-separation variables, such as custody and access language. The fact that paternal disengagement begins before separation and may continue regardless of what happens afterward has been given little attention."
Fact: "[M]others are more likely than fathers to state that a nonresident father should have visitation (38.9% vs. 31.2%) and decisionmaking rights (23.3% vs. 20.9%) if he can afford to pay [child support] but does not."
Fact: "Becoming the noncustodial parent resulted in severe deterioration of the father-child relationship. Noncustodial mothers, in contrast, enjoyed relations with adult children that were nearly as good as those of custodial mothers... In custodial father families, the father's remarriage sharply reduced the quality of adult children's relations with nonresidential biological mothers. In custodial mother families, in contrast, mother's remarriage had only a slight negative influence on adult children's relations with nonresidential biological fathers."
Myth -- When charged with the responsibility of parenting, fathers and mothers can and do parent similarly. Fact: "[W]hen families are observed in unstructured situations in which they are permitted to go about their everyday household routines, there is very little similarity between mothers and fathers in sheer quantity of involvement. These data thus highlight the need to distinguish between parental competence and performance, that is, between what fathers can do and what they in fact do on a routine day-to-day basis."
Fact: "Some argue that single fathers adapt to single parenting by taking on more stereotypical "mothering" activities (Risman, 1987), making their involvement no different from that of single mothers. Downey (1994), however, finds that single mothers provide more interpersonal resources, whereas single fathers provide more economic resources. Given mothers" greater involvement in school activities, biological mother absence may have a more negative influence than biological father absence. Downey, Ainsworth-Darnell, and Dufur (1998) found mixed evidence of gender differences among single-parent families on a comprehensive list of child outcomes; all of the significant differences, however, occurred in educational measures and consistently showed a disadvantage for children living with single fathers... I find support for the hypothesis that, at least in early childhood, mother changes have more lasting influences on college expectations and school discipline than father changes..."
Fact: "...children residing without biological mothers fare worse than those without biological fathers, across most outcomes. In addition, only longitudinal measures of mother absence directly influence school outcomes. The time lived away from the biological mother is related to adolescents grades and school discipline, while the number of mother changes significantly reduces adolescents college expectations."
Myth -- Fathers play with their children more than mothers do. Fact: "Mothers' interactions with their children are dominated by caretaking, whereas fathers are behaviorally defined as playmates. Mothers actually play with their children much more than fathers do, but as a proportion of the total amount of child-parent interaction, play is a much more prominent component of father-child interaction, whereas caretaking is much more salient with mothers."
Fact: "[A] number of studies that have pointed to the fact that fathers engage in more playful kind of 'companion' types of interaction with their children, whereas mothers’ interaction is less playful and little bit more focused... those differences are seen in many of the Anglo Saxon countries... you don’t see it in many other cultures. ...Middle East ...Sweden ...other parts of Europe don’t show those major differences... I would say it’s probably not that important in itself for the child’s development..."
Myth -- Children will experience more stability post-divorce in joint custody arrangements than in sole custody arrangements. Fact: "[M]aternal custody arrangements appear to be more stable than other arrangements: children who live with their mother after divorce are more likely to remain in this arrangement during the first three to four years after separation, while over half of the children who start out by spending time in each parent's household or who start out living with their father make at least one change (Maccoby & Mnookin, 1992)..."
Myth -- Children do better in single mother households when the mother is employed. Fact: The income level of the household is determinative; not maternal employment per se.
Fact: "[C]hildren who grow up in poor or low-income families tend to have lower educational and vocational attainments, are more likely to become teenage parents, and are more likely to become welfare recipients than more affluent children. Mothers' employment during a child's early years appears to have a modest adverse effect on educational attainment."
Fact: "The existing research has not demonstrated clear effects, either negative or positive, of mothers' employment on children's development or educational outcomes."
Fact: "[C]hildren with employed mothers view the family as more together and organized. Similarly, the family is more structured and tasks are routine and pre-defined for mother and children. Children of employed single-mothers also have a higher self-esteem, a solid sense of their mother's beliefs, and their beliefs were more similar to the mother's."
Fact: Where women work full time outside the home whether married or not, "raising children alone is often easier for women than taking care of a husband not participating in daily family responsibilities as well."
Myth -- Girls from permissive homes which give them too much freedom are more likely to engage in premarital sex. Fact: "70% of the sexually active teenage girls studied had initiated sexual relations with male peers as a result of parental restrictions on activities and as a way to assert autonomy."
Myth -- More teenage girls are having babies than ever before. Fact: Teen birth rates in the United States have reached their lowest level since record keeping began 60 years ago.
Myth -- Children of young, teenage mothers are at higher risk merely because of their mothers' youth. Fact: "Using multiple techniques to control for background factors, we analyze 2,908 young children and 1,736 adolescents and young adults in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79) and the NLSY79 Children and Young Adults (CNLSY79) data sets to examine whether early childbearing causes children's outcomes. We find evidence that teen childbearing plays no causal role in children's test scores and in some behavioral outcomes of adolescents. For other behavioral outcomes, we find that different methodologies produce differing results. We thus suggest caution in drawing conclusions about early parenthood's overarching effect."
Myth -- Girls are most at risk of sexual abuse in single mother households. Fact: "[S]ociologists have found that the factor most decisive to a girl's increased sexual vulnerability was living in a household with adult males after her parents' separation. This increased risk held true whether that male was the natural father or someone brought into the family by the child's mother... Research findings also confirm that stepfathers represent a greater proportion of abusers than their incidence in the general population would predict. [However, d]aughters living in their father's custody are equally at risk. A national survey of sexual abuse risk factors found "markedly higher risk" for girls following their parents' divorce, "particularly when living alone with [their] father. "[C]ompared to children living with only females after separation, children living with males in their household after separation "were more than 7 times more likely to be abused. Girls living with males in the household after separation are not only at a markedly higher risk for sexual abuse, but that risk is substantial: Bolen found that 53% were sexually abused."
Myth -- The increase in single mother households over the past 25 - 30 years has contributed to increased violent crime among children and adolescents. Fact: "Violent crimes committed by young people have dropped sharply. In 1998, the serious violent crime offending rate for youth was 27 crimes per 1,000 adolescents ages 12 to 17, totaling 616,000 such crimes involving juveniles -- a drop by more than half from the 1993 high, and the lowest level since data were first collected in 1973."
Myth -- Either single mother households, or loosening morals, or feminism has contributed to the rise in violence by young women proportionate to that committed by young men. Fact: There has been no such rise in violence by young women. "From 1980 to 2003, the UCR data show that the percentage of girls arrested for assault (combined figures for aggravated assault and simple assault) rose from 20 percent to more than 30 percent; the NCVS victimization data show up-and-down swings over the same period but with the female-to-male percentage of assaults averaging about 22 percent in both the 1980s and 1990s. The female percentage was 20 percent in1980 and 19 percent in 2003."
Myth -- "Parents or caretakers may be charged with a form of criminal or civil penalty called 'failure to protect' when they do not prevent another person from abusing the children in their care." Fact: "Although couched in gender-neutral terms, defendants charged with failure to protect are almost exclusively female."
Myth -- Unwed mothers would improve their chances for their family's economic and long-term viability if they would just get married. Fact: Not according to the mothers. A study of mostly single women on workfare indicated that women believed that "they themselves had to take primary responsibility for making ends meet and for child rearing... Marriage as a mode of support was not a preferred option. Virtually no woman believed she should marry for the sake of her children. In fact, they saw marriage as undermining their ability to care for their children. Men were simply another demand on their time... Many women had suffered stormy relationships. Domestic abuse, cheating, substance abuse, and inability of the men to hold a job were common complaints. They also felt that men contributed little to the household and, instead, competed with their children for their attention. Other concerns included the safety of their children. Many women believed that men who were not the fathers of their children posed a risk of abuse, both physical and sexual.
Fact: "The negative consequences of a parent change, especially a mother change and especially for young children, are greater than the deficits incurred by living without both parents in adolescence, if in a stable family. Recent policy initiatives that encourage single parents to marry overlook the negative effect of family instability. Simply marrying to provide children with a twoparent family, particularly if the spouse is not the child's biological parent, will not eliminate the disadvantages children face (Lichter, 2001). In contrast, policymakers should focus on preserving the long-term stability of families, regardless of their structure. Doing so is particularly important for new families with young children; given recent patterns of nonmarital childbearing and cohabitation, young children are most likely to be exposed to family instability (Osborne, Manning, & Smock, 2004). Finally, the importance of parent gender is dependent on the timing of parent presence and transitions. Parenting is still a gendered activity..."
Myth -- Welfare reform, i.e. workfare, sending mothers to work, has had a positive influence on child wellbeing, because it teaches them lessons in responsibility. Fact: "Our analysis suggests that welfare reform has not reduced teenage fertility and school dropout. We find modest evidence that welfare reform is associated with higher risk of teenage births for girls in welfare families and higher risk of school dropout for girls in poor families."
Myth -- If single mothers would just get married, their children would be better off because children do better in two-parent homes. Fact: "The findings from this study indicate that regardless of whether a parent remarries or forms a cohabiting stepfamily, child outcomes are similar. The addition of a cohabiting partner is not associated with higher levels of well-being relative to living in a single-mother family."
Fact: "Although there is some evidence that children living with their married parents, even parents in unstable marriages, have better outcomes than children living in certain nonmarital arrangements, the findings vary across domains and specifications, and the effect sizes are generally small. Thus, any benefits of policies aimed improving child well-being by encouraging and enhancing parental marriage are likely to be modest at best."
Fact: "The salutary effects of being raised by two married, biological parents depend on the quality of care parents can provide. Using data from an epidemiological sample of 1,116 5-year-old twin pairs and their parents, this study found that the less time fathers lived with their children, the more conduct problems their children had, but only if the fathers engaged in low levels of antisocial behavior. In contrast, when fathers engaged in high levels of antisocial behavior, the more time they lived with their children, the more conduct problems their children had. Behavioral genetic analyses showed that children who resided with antisocial fathers received a "double whammy" of genetic and environmental risk for conduct problems."
Fact: "In much of the policy debates about fatherhood an |
