[humanser] Putting Children First

[Mary Ann Robinson]

Putting Children First
  6/3/2011 Linda Chavez
  For the first time in history, less than half of Americans now
live in married-couple households.  The new finding by the Census
Bureau reflects the most profound change in the nature of
American society ever to have occurred, yet practically no one
talks about it.  Only 48 percent of American households are made
up of married couples.  These numbers reflect a sea change in
living arrangements.  In 1950, married couples were 78 percent of
all households.
  Some of these figures reflect our aging population: We have
more widows and widowers than at any time in the past.  But they
also reflect changing mores.
  People are marrying at older ages, and larger numbers are
choosing not to marry at all, not to stay married, and to have
children outside of marriage.  A new Gallup poll shows that more
people now approve of both out-of-wedlock births and divorce.
Only 41 percent of Americans believe it is morally wrong to bear
a child outside marriage, and a mere 23 percent think divorce is
morally wrong.
  What all this means is that increasing numbers of children are
growing up without two parents, and few policymakers seem to
care, even though the societal consequences bode ill for the
future.  Myriad studies have documented that children who grow up
without two parents are more likely to do worse in school, drop
out, commit crimes, and earn less during their lifetimes than
those who are raised with both parents, even adjusting for
economic status and race.  They are also far less likely to have
stable relationships and marriages as adults, thus fueling the
cycle of marriage breakdown.
  Perhaps the most alarming result of this family breakdown comes
from a new analysis of longitudinal data from a large cohort of
young children -- primarily bright, white children born to
middle-class and affluent parents -- who were followed throughout
their lives.  The study found that even relatively privileged
children suffered when their parents divorced.  According to
researchers Howard Friedman and Leslie Martin, the children of
divorce had an average lifespan five years shorter than those
whose parents stayed married.  And children of divorce aren't as
bad off as children whose parents never married, who now make up
the vast majority of African-American children, and a growing
number of Hispanic and working-class white children.
  So what are policymakers doing about the problem? Not much.
Indeed, the rare discussions that take place on public policy
toward marriage focus on whether gay couples should be allowed to
marry.  But that's hardly the biggest issue.  However individuals
feel about gay marriage, the real threat to the institution of
marriage is one posed by the decline in the institution among
heterosexuals.
  There isn't much government can do to encourage people to
marry; but for the last 40 years, government has been heavily
implicated in encouraging divorce.  All states now have no-fault
divorce laws, which make it easier to dissolve a marriage
contract than a cellphone contract.  One thing policymakers could
do is revisit the ease with which we allow couples -- especially
those with minor children -- to dissolve their marriages.
  A new group, the Coalition for Divorce Reform, is trying to do
just that.  Chris Gersten, a former Bush administration official
and my husband of 44 years, started the organization -- and he is
joined by many of the leading marriage and divorce experts in the
country.  They are working together to promote legislation that
will require divorcing couples to take research-based
skills-training programs, which have been shown to reduce
divorce.  The aim is to help those couples in low-conflict
marriages if they have minor children and neither partner has
engaged in physical abuse or is addicted to drugs or alcohol.
More information can be found online at wwwdddivorcereformddinfo.
  This effort may not rescue the institution of marriage from the
peril it's in, but it's a start.  New research tells us that 30
percent of divorcing couples say they would be willing to
reconcile if there were low-cost approaches to saving their
marriages available.
  In the end, it's the children who pay for the devastating
effects of divorce.  It's time we start putting our kids first.
  Linda Chavez is chairman of the Center for Equal Opportunity
and author of Betrayal: How Union Bosses Shake Down Their Members
and Corrupt American Politics.