Research findings appearing in a recent issue of the International Child and Youth Care Network Online Journal bolsters the claims of previous studies that children from stable two-parent families do best overall.
The meta-analysis research, led by esteemed sociologist Paul Amato at Penn State University, backs up previous studies he did in 1991 and 2001, as well as volumes of others. Indications are that despite a culture in which divorce is prevalent and less stimatized than in previous generations, children with divorced parents continued to have lower average levels of cognitive, social, and emotional well-being.
Add to that the fact that cohabiting parents of children tend to be more at risk, as do single parents. The analysis suggests that these parents
...have less education, earn less income, report poorer relationship quality, and experience more mental health problems.
Amato points out that divorced and single parents often do marry, and expect that outcomes for the children will improve as a result.
Studies consistently indicate, however, that children in stepfamilies exhibit more problems than do children with continuously married parents and about the same number of problems as do children with single parents.26 In other words, the marriage of a single parent (to someone other than the child's biological parent) does not appear to improve the functioning of most children.
Clearly the best place for a child to be nurtured, Amato and team point out, is in an intact never-fractured family
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 (especially fathers), and are subjected to fewer stressful events and circumstances.
This distinction is even stronger if we focus on children growing up with two happily married biological parents.
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