Are Children Better off Being Raised in a Two Parent Family - Essay Example

?Are children better off being raised in a two parent family? Moreover, a problem of divorce is one of the most striking issues of the modern society. Both spouses suffer from divorce. Nevertheless, the major victims of the divorce are children. It is not only about divorce, actually. The following discussion presents a wide range of different issues. Thus, family status, stability, a modern position of marriage in the society and the importance of family in the development of individuality are connected with the issue of children rising by two parents. The paper discusses potential problems of children, who come from single-parent families, have step-parents and compare these children with those, who were raised in two-parent family of their biological parents. Introduction Motherhood and a successful career are often correlated as two integrative components of a modern life of any woman. Still, a price for a career may be too high. Very often modern women prefer choosing their career at the expense of motherhood. Modern children are exposed to depression at their teenage age, may experience anxiety or suffer from behavioral difficulties. The absence of social role models in the lives of children from one-parent families often prevents these children from a versatile development. Therefore, there is a serious erosion of the traditional family. Contemporaries reject from official registering of their relationship. As a result, very often husbands leave their children and then visit them very rarely. Consequently, a child suffers from a lack of parental attention. A new economic independence of women enables them to make their own living and remain independent. Still, there is a need to underline the important role of a father in the process of children’s upbringing. In accordance with modern researches and studies, a close relationship between a father and a child leads for friendship development, empathy and high self esteem for a child. Behavioral problems of children from one-parent families Very often, we can see in media, read in the books or see on TV the way children suffer from a lack of attention of their parents. At the same time, public attention is mainly captured by the incidences, which are rather exceptions and not rules. For example, in the family of the same sex parents may grow up a perfect girl or boy, or a family adopted many children and all of them live happily together with their step parents in their artificially created families (Belgrave, Van Oss Marin, & Chambers, 2000). It should be noted, that such cases are rather exceptions than a rule. Therefore, further on modern researches and studies on different families and their influence of children will be discussed. Deviant behavior of children from families with a bad status, potential sexual activity in their teenage age or inclination to having drugs may be explained by a challenging situation in their families (Belgrave, Van Oss Marin, & Chambers, 2000). These scaring facts lead us to ask a question: why to have children in the families, which are not families, actually? Is it an intentional degrading of the child’s individuality? We can ask much more questions and express our ideas, but it is better to focus on facts. In the studies of 90s, a special attention was paid to a financial status of a family. A low-income family was proven to be a favorable atmosphere to start up an early sexual life. In accordance with the studies of 90s, overviewed by Simons (1999) “…the rate of adolescent pregnancy among African American adolescents of lower income families was 53% higher than among African American adolescents of middle-income families” (Simons, 1999). Still, there are also ambiguous data in the studies and researches in this filed. Some of them underline, that girls, who grew up in mother-alone families are less sexually active at the age of 12, than those girls, who grew up in families with other structures. In order to evaluate a role of family functioning, we would focus our attention on family cohesiveness. This factor indicates a smaller degree of sexual activity in the early teenage age. Nevertheless, there are some researches and studies, in accordance with which teenage girls from two-parent families experienced a greater degree of sexual activity in their early age. This conclusion was made on the basis of data obtained from African American families (Belgrave, Van Oss Marin, & Chambers, 2000). Moreover, another problem, which may exist among children from different families, is a behavioral problem. As a rule, children from two-parent families experience less behavioral problems, than those children who live in stepfamilies or lone-parent families. Nevertheless, there is another privilege for children from step-families. The involvement of the grandparents is greater in step-families and is lower in two-parent families. Grandparents very often help their grandchildren from step-families and mitigate the problems, connected with behavioral challenges (Taylor, Casten, Flickinger, 1993). Family stability as integrative factor of children behavior development In accordance with Kamp Dush it is relevant to evaluate family stability as one of the most important factors, which influence on children behavior. Married, biological parents create a stable family. In other cases, family stability may be questioned. Moreover, it should be noted that marriage itself does not contribute much to children’s positive behavior. In case a family is unhealthy, it will be difficult for a child to grow up under pressure. The following facts are basic points at which children may experience challenges. Parental loss in the result of divorce exerts a negative influence on children’s knowledge, experience and resources (Belgrave, Van Oss Marin, & Chambers, 2000). Moral and emotional stresses occur in the result of divorce. Thus, a child must experience challenges of their changed living situations, under new stressful conditions, a lack of parental attention, children’s exposure to family conflict etc. Health problems of children from single-parent families are also evident. Thus, babies, who were born in one-parent family has a lower weight. For infants from single-parent families, there is a greater risk to become victims of the Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (Jayson, 2005). There is a smaller degree of breastfeeding of these children, which influences intellectual development of children, a higher rate of inner infections etc (Jayson, 2005). The most scaring facts are the following ones: “the risk of asthma ran approximately 50% higher among children living in single-parent households than among children in two-parent families. An important and rather startling study has found that children who come from divorced families are likely to die sooner than their peers who grow up in intact families” (Dawson, 1991).  As far as we can see, the consequences of divorce are life-long ones. Moreover, Dawson (1991) claims that emotional impact of divorce is as much evident, as physical impact of divorce on the children. Thus, children from single-parent families received professional help from psychologists of other specialists, as they have experienced emotional and behavioral problems, unlike the children from two-parent families. Psychologists claim, that there is a large number of teenaged patients. This is an irrelevant experience for the previous years. Does it mean that the modern society is more cruel, than it used to be many years ago? Adolescents from a single-parent family or step-mother or father family experience hard emotional challenges and are under a constant psychological pressure of the unpleasant surrounding atmosphere. Consequently, in case a family stability is broken, a child is unable to live his ordinary life and has to adjust to new changes in his family and external challenges and pressure. Two-parent families vs one-parent families: pros and cons for children In order to sum up some of the negative effects of growing up in a single-parent household, it is relevant to focus on the study by Parsons (1990). In accordance with the obtained data, adolescents from two-parent families were more involved in occupational and educational skills development, than those children, who grew up in families with an unstable family structure (Vitz). The reasons for such drastic consequences of divorce can be seen in a changed procedure of a divorce: “Today in most of the United States, either spouse can get a divorce at any time for any reason, if he or she so decides. It is probably the first time in history that a society has had such lenient divorce procedures” (Hughes, 2009). Therefore, in the result of legal changes in the field of divorce, children suffer from emotional, physical and psychological challenges. Psychologists express intolerant attitude to divorce, no matter whether a family has children or not. Divorce is a hard emotional impact experienced by the spouses and it is involuntarily obtruded on their children. Unfortunately, in the modern society the fact of one-parent family dominance cannot be argued: "We're moving towards one-parent families, but not that much; most children are still raised by their biological parents—their original, legal parents" (Fantuzzo, Tighe, Childs, 2000). There is a rapid growth of one-parent families. There is an evident increase from 4.5 percent to 15 per cent. Successful growth and development of children is possible in case children live in two-parent families. World community is worrying about the fact that there is a need to promote two-parent families. Thus, in Canada there is a program entitled "A New Generation of Young Families: Raising Young Children," based on national researches and studies discussing the issues of benefits of two-parent families (Family Stability). There are too critical claims with regards to one-parent families: there is a serious emotional pressure in one-parent families. The supporters of this claim often underline impossibility of upbringing of children in one-parent families. Moreover, the basic claim of the antagonists of one-parent families concern the fact that children in one-parent families have lower levels of financial support from their parents and the level of a low financial income is often referred to as a preventive factor for a full-fledged development of children in such families. Therefore, in accordance with the modern approach to children’s upbringing in one-parent families, economical concerns play a crucial role (Fantuzzo, Tighe, Childs, 2000). Moreover, in accordance with a current research children in two-parent families have such benefits as higher education, better financial income, and have a better health conditions and longevity. Unlike these children, lone-parent children often have alcohol and drug abuse and are often engaged in early sexual affairs (Benefits of family for children and adults). There are the following changes in the family status. Nevertheless, there are also social changes, which led to inevitable growing number of divorce, declining household, social separation etc (Children single mothers how do they really fare). Economical factors should not be considered as the decisive factors of children successful development in different families, because healthy relationship between parents, their mutual understanding, partnership, mutual cooperation etc would contribute to relevant social templates development. In accordance with statistics, only 63 percent of American children grow up in two-parent families with both biological parents. Unfortunately, a happy married life is not experienced by all couples. It is a hard work, because “once they get into living life with busy jobs and raising children, they put their marriage on the back burner for long stretches of time, and that leads to lower levels of satisfaction and affairs” (Benefits of family for children and adults). Therefore, the number of marriages is being gradually decreased. In the result of such changes, children feel a lack of parental attention and versatile family. In accordance with data from together the National Marriage Project the number of couples living together, but staying unmarried in 2007 (Hughes, 2009). Moreover, people are getting married later than in their college years as a rule. On the one hand this tendency may seem to witness the fact that giving birth to children is a greater responsibility for contemporaries, which it used to be earlier. Still, the number of children, which experience difficulties of divorce, is growing. It is very important for parents to keep their children aside from the drastic consequences of divorce. There is no need to tell critical things about another parent or to involve a child in the conflict between two parents. Therefore, there are numerous problems experienced by children in the families, which were inflicted by divorce or one-parent families. In white families, black families and families of ethnic minorities, children experienced a serious stress and lived under a strong emotional pressure. Parental divorce causes a serious impact on children adjustment in the society. Moreover, there is a need to conduct further researches and studies in this field with more attention on cross-national studies. Still, we may suppose that negative consequences of divorce are acutely experienced by children of different nations (Fantuzzo, Tighe, Childs, 2000). Moreover, there is a need to consider mother’s parenting and a level of father’s involvement in children upbringing: “Compared with fathers in nuclear families, the divorced, nonresidential fathers in our sample were less likely to help their children solve problems, to discuss standards of conduct, or to enforce discipline” (Benefits of family for children and adults). Therefore, parental divorce intensifies adjustment problems of children. Both, boys and girls experience behavioral and emotional problems. Moreover, it should be noted that father’s involvement in boys’ upbringing plays a more crucial role than in girls’ upbringing. After divorce, parents experience emotional and psychological stress and strain and post divorce conflict increases delinquent behavior among girls. In accordance with researches and studies considered in this research project, boys and girls experience increase of depression levels, emotional strain etc. Conclusion There is an evident bias in the research and studies discussing the role of two-parent families and children’s behavior. On the one hand, researches underline that boys are more subjected to negative consequences of divorce and emotional stress. On the other hand, girls respond with a greater degree of distress after parental breakup. Consequently, we can claim that researches and studies in this field are more controversial than it may seem. Revelation of controversial issues with regards to behavioral and emotional challenges experienced by children in single-parent families requires a strong theoretical and practical basis. In conclusion, we may claim that family structure is one of the integrative factors in child development. In accordance with our research, children after divorce experience adjustment problems in the society and are engaged in a conflict between two parents. Boys are supposedly getting more depressed, but girls may be involved in early sexual experiences and anti-social behavior. The internalizing problems of boys and girls are negative consequences of divorce or one-parent families. Works cited 1. Belgrave, F. Z., Van Oss Marin, B., & Chambers, D. B. (2000). Culture, contextual, and intrapersonal predictors of risky sexual attitudes among urban African American girls in early adolescence. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 6(3), 309-322. doi:10.1037/1099-9809.6.3.309 2. Benefits of family for children and adults. Retrieved from: 3. Children single mothers how do they really fare. Retrieved from: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/living-single/200901/children-single-mothers-how-do-they-really-fare 4. Family stability. Retrieved from: http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/familystability.htm 5. Fantuzzo, J., Tighe, E., & Childs, S. (2000). Family Involvement Questionnaire: A multivariate assessment of family participation in early childhood education. Journal of Educational Psychology, 92(2), 367-376. 6. Hughes, R. The Effects of Divorce on Children. Apr 10, 2009. Retrieved from: . 7. Jayson, Sharon. Sept. 13, 2005. Kids better off in two-parent families. USA Today. Retrieved from: 8. Simons, Ronald, L. et al, (1999). Explaining the Higher Incidence of Adjustment Problems among Children of Divorce Compared with Those in Two-parent Families. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 61 (4), 1020+. 9. Taylor, R. D., Casten, R., & Flickinger, S. M. (1993). Influence of kinship social support on the parenting experiences and psychosocial adjustment of African-American adolescents. Developmental Psychology, 29(2), 382-388. 10. Vitz, Paul C. Family Decline: The Findings of Social Science. Retrieved from: . 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