Shocking News: Marriage is Good For Children!
There have been some strange rumblings on this blog as of late.
The rumblings have been about my conservative “pro-marriage” stance and my obvious disdain for single people.
I will quickly dismiss with both of these by saying that if I looked down on single people, I’d have no clients and fewer friends.
Plus, I’d be a hypocrite, since I was single for 35 years before getting hitched 3 years ago.
So, no, I don’t look down on single people. However, that doesn’t mean that I think single people are in the best position to raise kids.
Which is why the commentary about how I’m suddenly “conservative” for believing in marriage is so absurd.
Have we really gone that far away from reality that conservatives “own” the marriage issue? Are liberals really advocating for a world in which nobody gets married, nobody gets bad grades, and nobody passes judgment on anybody else? Because if that’s the case, we liberals are fighting a foolish and losing battle. It’s important to pay attention to science, which, at its best, should simply reflect reality.
I’m a die-hard liberal who believes that when it comes to raising kids, marriage is in important institution. This isn’t my reality. This is reality.
Note that I did not say that everyone has to be married or there’s something wrong with you if you’re not.
Note that I did not say that it was impossible for millions of non-married families to raise perfectly good children.
Note that I did not say that marriage is at all a guarantee of happiness and stability.
I am saying that, overall, if you’re going to raise children, they are more likely to turn out healthy if they come from a loving two-parent household. And, since most relationships that last for thirty years in which people raise children together are called “marriage”, that’s the term that I’m choosing to use today.
Here’s a paper from the Marriage and Religion Research Institute that cites 20 different independent studies that verify that children from married couples fare better in school, in behavior, and in life, overall.
This is not to suggest that two people in a miserable marriage should stay together strictly for the kids. This is only to suggest that the institution of marriage – far from being obsolete – tends to produce healthier children overall than children who are born raised in alternative ways (grandmother, cohabiting, single parent, for example.)
To clarify one last time, I’m not saying it’s not possible for kids from alternate homes to turn out great (Thank you President Obama!), but rather that if studies show that marriage tends, in general, to be a stabilizing force for children, why would this be a controversial stance? Are facts that contradict your personal narrative that hard to digest? I sure hope not.
For example, if you think that, since getting married, I’m blindly pro-marriage, you would be incorrect. I’m pro-marriage for people who are confident, self-aware, self-sacrificing, and willing to make smart trade-offs, especially in service of raising children. I’m anti-marriage for anyone who a) doesn’t want to be married and b) doesn’t have the capacity to be a good partner in life, with all that entails. I’d much rather have fewer good marriages than more bad marriages (which usually result from two people who feel chemistry but haven’t stopped to consider whether they’re truly compatible).
Further evidence that marriage isn’t a panacea comes from David Kahneman’s “Thinking, Fast and Slow”: “There was no overall difference in experienced well-being between women who lived with a mate and women who did not…Women who have a mate spend less time alone, but also much less time with friends. They spend more time making love, but also more time doing housework, preparing food and caring for children. And of course, the large amount of time married women spend with their husband is much more pleasant for some than others. Experienced well-being is on average unaffected by marriage, not because marriage makes no difference to happiness, but because it changes some aspects of life for the better and others for the worse.”
No argument here. But that is about whether married women are happier, not whether kids are better off with two parents at home.
And studies like the one above suggest that they are.
I, for one, am much better equipped to raise my daughter with my wife than either of us are to raise her without each other. And the fact that we’re married, not merely cohabiting, affirms our commitment to each other and our daughter and makes it more real and tangible. The fact that many marriages fail doesn’t mean that marriage isn’t a more serious commitment than “living together”.
So without repeating the fallacious ad hominem attacks – and trying to shoot down the source of the studies, which is another common trope from those who don’t like their conclusions – let’s consider one question:
What advantages are there to raising children without the stable, two-parent household which is most commonly known as “marriage”?
Sorry, but I’m coming up dry.
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50 Comments »Filed Under Marriage, Relationships
sthrnphoenix 1
I’m a divorced mother of 2 children whose father is completely out of the picture. He doesn’t communicate with them nor does he pay child support. And I will be the first to tell anyone who asks that a loving two-parent marriage is a much better place for 2 children to grow up in. I think I do pretty well; my children are happy, healthy, and fairly well adjusted. But it’s not an easy road and there are times my children don’t get something they need as quickly as I would like because I’m doing it by myself. I’m fortunate that I have male family members to help out. But I don’t think my children are better off for being raised in a single parent household. So thank you, Evan, because it’s absolutely true. Children are much better off growing up in a marriage of two people who love, help, and support each other and the children. Can they be raised adequately and be healthy and well adjusted without married parents? Of course! But who would want to if they can instead be in a loving marriage to the other parent and benefit both themselves and the children in that way?
Henriette 2
Agreed, Evan. Sadly for many of us, it comes down to do we want to be with some guy who isn’t actually a good match for us, or do we want to have a child on our own. And… please stop using conservative like it’s a dirty word. Many of those who follow your blog count ourselves as conservatives.
Michelle 3
Thank you Henriette regarding the conversative ‘label’. I don’t even know the context for which it’s being used, as liberal and conservative in my world means very different political philosophies, and it’s being used in a societal sense consistently in the blog. There’s very little tolerance here, that’s for sure! But it’s my blog and I can leave any time.
It’s also very interesting how one’s outlook can change when circumstances and adult responsibilities start to kick in.
Personally, having a child with just one parent to me is self centered. Children benefit from both a male and female consistent influence. Over the years, there’s been a concerted effort to dismiss men from society as being unneeded and useless. Even being divorced doesn’t sit well with me. I wish I would have been more patient with waiting for a man that was more suitable to me.
Evan Marc Katz 4
Oh, and even though I wrote this post over a week ago, look at what just came in to the New York Times today:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/18/us/for-women-under-30-most-births-occur-outside-marriage.html?_r=1&hp
Christina 5
I don’t see information like this as inherently judgmental. I know a lot of single parents who do a great job, but there’s no question that their lives are harder and their children have to make do with less time and attention, in most cases. For that reason alone, I don’t see the appeal of voluntary becoming a single parent. I understand the biological imperatives of a woman approaching middle age, but taking on a child at a time when many parents are seeing their children leave the nest is a huge commitment and one that shouldn’t be undertaken lightly.
SugarBB 6
And the lessons the children learn from watching their parents negotiate with each other, compromise, apologize, reconcile, poke fun at, as well as see that the relationship is still strong and survives intense moments… these are all absorbed by the children through osmosis and they pick up necessary partner skills. With a partner missing, even when the parent is superior, there are missing lessons. My mother was widowed when I was five. She and my father had a strong, loving, mutually beneficial and agreeable marriage and they compromised often. As hard as my mother tried, she could not make up for his absence. My older sister and I fared better than my younger sister, who did not have a memory of her father.
Oh, and another thing two parents have over a single is the ability to accept/receive help and ask for help from the partner. This proposition becomes awkward when a single parent.
Su 7
Funny that the one post that gets me to comment has nothing to do with dating, as I find your advice in that department right on. This whole marriage single-family household? Not so much. However, the stance taken is a very Western/anglo stance. How about communities that tend to raise their children together? Though both my divorced parents were in the picture (one more than the other), the rearing responsibility was split between my parents and my maternal grandparents. By this, I don’t mean the occasional visits and presents from grandparents, but fully being brought up by grandparents + single mom + single dad. This is not uncommon in many cultures around the world, such as the Hispanic culture (to which I belong). This is all to say that being single does not immediately equate to having an unstable (as you use the term “without a stable”), 1 parent household. I think there is an problem in the underlying assumption that lack of marriage=single parent home. Without it, the argument doesn’t hold. Do love all your writing on dating though!
Susan 8
Your headline should read:” A good marriage is good for children’”
Unfortunately noone has a crystal ball so it can happen that the man of your dreams with whom you have 3 children is a cheater and emotionally abusive and no longer wants the suburban life with a wife and kids but a single life in a city. You can only do so much work to save a marriage if the other person is not willing to so the same.
So yeah, kids also do better when they are in financially stable homes, they are good looking, athletic and get good grades. Unfortunately the real world isn’t prefect so you do the best with the hand that you are dealt.
Studies have shown that children are better off in stable one parent homes than in homes with parents who have a poor or abusive relationship.
BC 9
Ah, well, I can’t stand kids, never wanted ‘em and don’t have them, so this is a non issue for me. However, I argue that unhappy marriages in which people claim to stay in for that age old reason of it being for “the sake of the children* is crap though. My parents had a miserable marriage, my brother and I were well aware of it, and I don’t see how my unhappy parents stayingtogether enhanced our childhood, other than the obvious financial stability that a family situation creates. My parents did finally divorce, way after we were all grown up, and I only wondered why they hadn’t done it sooner!
SnowdropExplodes 10
Has anyone ever explained that correlation does not imply causation?
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that conditions that are harmful to a marriage’s longevity may also be harmful to the educational prospects of a child to that marriage.
In fact, I would argue that they’ve given the evidence to prove that marriage is not the key factor here, but it is more likely to be down to economic factors (sources 28-31), and perhaps marriages suffer when the household economy is in bad shape. Source 28 in the list (one of only a few where the pdf file is freely available) talked about a term used by economists called the “marriage premium” but nowhere demonstrated that people experience a wage-earning boost on marrying, only that being married is correlated with having higher earnings than those in similar occupations and of similar age. My reasoning is that being better-paid makes it easier to get married, rather than getting married results in higher pay.
The conclusions drawn do not seem to be supported by the evidence, and I would argue that for similar social background and income levels per person in the household, then there is probably not going to be a significant difference. I don’t know of any studies that have been done to try to demonstrate this, but that would be my guess after looking at the evidence presented in the MARRI list.
What advantages are there to raising children without the stable, two-parent household which is most commonly known as “marriage”?
Well, I’m going to say that I believe that most of your advantages for the two-parent household are nebulous at best. Why do you need a marriage certificate to affirm a commitment? For a person who is, “confident, self-aware, self-sacrificing, and willing to make smart trade-offs, especially in service of raising children” surely the commitment would be enough in itself, you don’t need something from outside to “affirm” it.
And if two parents are better equipped together to raise a child than one alone, then why not three parents, or four, or fifteen? Surely, the same argument could be made to suggest that polyamory or polygamy is an even stronger family setting – or perhaps, a commune life where all adults in the local community are responsible for the collective upbringing of all children, with no biological favouritism?
Perhaps, for a single parent with the equivalent income per family member of a monogamous nuclear family structure, there would be some advantages. Here are a couple of ideas off the top of my head that may or may not have any truth to them (but are as well-founded as some of the suggestions above in favour of 2-parent structures): It would be far easier to be consistent in things like discipline and values imparted – no difficulties of one parent seeming to overrule another on any of those matters. Also, no divided affections between family members with the Freudian rivalry scripts that may or may not arise from that.
Evan Marc Katz 11
Snowdrop – so you just explained your feelings about why marriage is obsolete. Unfortunately, for you, kids who come from married households fare better in life. See the NY Times article above. This isn’t my opinion I’m expressing. Which is why it’s always amazing that people want to argue for some devil’s advocate position – like the woman on my Facebook page who said that because men’s sperm is “worse” when they get older, it’s a good thing that 23-year-olds are having kids out of wedlock. Yeah, that’s some sound logic.
So while marriage is not a cure-all; it does happen to provide for the best structure for raising kids in the U.S.
Evan Marc Katz 12
One other point – no one suggested that people should stay in bad marriages.
The takeaway is not to have kids with someone who’s a bad partner; yet millions – nay, BILLIONS – of people do. It’s not a perfect method, but there’ll be fewer kids born into adverse circumstances if people thought a little bit ahead.
Susan 13
“Thought a little bit ahead?” Duh Evan. Look at my post @8 above.
Are you are saying divorced people didn’t at one time think they’d be married with children forever? Ridiculous. Noone, and that means you included, can foretell what the future brings. You cannot predict the future behaviors of another person, even if it is your spouse. Period. It’s nice you flaunt your “perfect” family life, but with so many marriages that don’t work out, you are not immune from anything.
SS 14
Evan, I know you’re taking a lot of heat for this (which I don’t quite understand why… I guess I never saw what was so controversial about saying that the best situation for a child is having good mother AND father in his or her life who are committed to each other through marriage)… but I just want to say thank you for standing for quality marriages and for the importance of good fathers in a child’s life.
You mentioned Barack Obama in your post and I know a lot of people try to use him as an example of absentee fatherhood not having any negative long-term effects on a child. But I notice something else… notice that Barack did NOT want to repeat that situation for his own family and entered into a marriage before he had children.
If you don’t mind, I’d like to post an excerpt of one of his Father’s Day speeches. He honors his non-traditional family and the work his mother and grandparents did (although I notice he never mentions how much he was molded by a loving stepfather as well), but is clear to say that he did not want his own children to go through what he id.
“I know what it means to have an absent father, although my circumstances weren’t as tough as they are for many young people today. Even though my father left us when I was 2 years old, and I only knew him from the letters he wrote and the stories that my family told, I was luckier than most. I grew up in Hawaii, and had two wonderful grandparents from Kansas who poured everything they had into helping my mother raise my sister and me — who worked with her to teach us about love and respect and the obligations we have to one another. I screwed up more often than I should’ve, but I got plenty of second chances. And even though we didn’t have a lot of money, scholarships gave me the opportunity to go to some of the best schools in the country. A lot of kids don’t get these chances today. There is no margin for error in their lives. So my own story is different in that way.
Still, I know the toll that being a single parent took on my mother — how she struggled at times to the pay bills; to give us the things that other kids had; to play all the roles that both parents are supposed to play. And I know the toll it took on me. So I resolved many years ago that it was my obligation to break the cycle — that if I could be anything in life, I would be a good father to my girls; that if I could give them anything, I would give them that rock — that foundation — on which to build their lives. And that would be the greatest gift I could offer.”
jules 15
EMK: That’s a great takeaway — just don’t have kids with someone who’s a bad partner. So, what’s the time frame for determining this? You’ve already waited a certain amount of time (enough to decide they were worthy of marriage–in my case years). Then what, wait a year to have kids? Five years? Ten years? At what point do you say this is a good partner to have kids with? Problems in marriages sometimes show up immediately, sometimes after many years. Abusive behavior, addicitons, cheating, gambling, and along list of more mundane problems. So if you have kids after one year of marriage, and then your spouse cheats on you or becomes an alcoholic, your answer is that I shouldn’t have had kids with him in the first place. I should have known better.
I realize I’ve stretched a bit what you said, but your takeaway came off a bit judgmental, implying people (women) don’t “think ahead.” I don’t, in theory, disagree that all else being equal, a stable two-parent family is good for kids. But what happens when your wife cheats on you in another year and you decide a divorce is in your best interest. Should you not have had a child with her?
Lara 16
Well, read Cherlin if you want more info. He’s one of the nation’s most prominent sociologists studying the topic. He says that countless studies show that it’s the stability of a child’s relationships and not the form those relationships take that is key to the well-being of the child. So a child who is raised by her grandmother, or a child who is raised by his single mother (without a lot of revolving door romances), would do as well emotionally and academically as a child raised in a nuclear family setting. Also, if the nuclear family setting is dysfunctional the child does less well, a finding that suggests that it’s the quality of home life, and not the form that it takes, that harms or helps a child’s development.
BC 17
Ha! Well, I’d imagine that when you are standing at the altar saying your I do’s you aren’t thinking or imagining that you are, down the road, going to be having children with a “bad partner”, you are thinking, like most couples at that stage, that this is for life and happily ever after. So saying not to have kids with bad partners is really oversimplifying things.
The person who makes a great partner at twenty, may or may not still be a great partner at 30 or 40, and that’s just the sad fact of it. In an idyllic world, there would be perfect marriages and perfect children and all would be happy, happy. Just because my parents’ marriage didn’t end up as one of those perfect statistics doesn’t mean that I, or my brother shouldn’t have come to be. Thinking ahead to avoid a bad marriage and less than ideal circumstances for your kids…please. You know that human emotions don’t play out that easily and by the book! Life is messy, relationships are up and down, and none of that will ever change. You take a leap of faith when you commit to even the most thought out relationships. You find your way, and that is life.
Evan Marc Katz 18
To anyone who is annoyed by the simplicity of my statement: “choose a better partner and don’t have kids with a bad one”:
I think it’s quite obvious that life will throw us all a few curves. He loses his job. She is clinically depressed. Their kid has autism. She grows, he doesn’t. He cheats, etc.
All I’m suggesting is that, since you can’t control what happens in 30 years, you CAN make better decisions from the get-go.
And if everyone waited 3 years for the excitement, passion, and chemistry to wear off and THEN made decisions about character, commitment, marriage and kids, there would be a lot fewer bad marriages, divorces, and kids borne out of passionate irresponsibility to ill-matched parents.
SS 19
Reading the New York Times article, what I noticed was that the women were involved with men from the beginning who had not shown themselves to good long-term material. So while it was probably best that they did not marry these men, the disconnect in my mind is that they had no issue dating and sleeping with men, who, in their own words, were basically losers.
That’s completely different from dating and marrying a man who changes and leaves after 10 years. These women knew from the beginning that these men were not ones they’d ever consider marrying, but they still proceeded to have sexual relationships with them.
I realize as well that in poorer communities, maybe the mindset is different about long-term life planning, so these men and women are simply acting on the reality around them.
But I think the lesson for anyone (including the readers of this blog) is that there can be serious repercussions for remaining in a relationship with the wrong man.
DFL 20
You’re conflating the stable two-person household with marriage.
As a 50% divorce rate indicates, getting married is not a good predictor of a stable relationship.
(The MaRRI study conveniently lumps failed marriages together with co-habiting unmarried and single parents, so they can pick only the stable marriages by looking backwards in time. If predictions were that easy. )
You haven’t addresses Snowdrop’s argument that stable marriage and successful childrearing may be merely correlated. In fact, the NYT article (page 2) hints that both stable marriages and successful childrearing are caused by the same root factors.
I’ll be interested in a study that controls for scioeconomic status and all the other things that influence stability of relationships when they try to figure out if marriage is in fact a good predictor for successful childrearing.
It is not surprising that couples who are in a relationship and planning their future and are also planning to get children (as opposed to “oops, my birthcontrol failed while I was in an on-off relationship” sob stories of the NYT article’s page 1) often also get married to reap the societal and financial incentives that marriage offers.
But neither the MaRRI study nor the NYT article present convincing proof that, all else being equal, marriage makes a relationship more suited for childrearing than any other stable household.
DFL 21
TL;DR version:
“And if everyone waited 3 years for the excitement, passion, and chemistry to wear off and THEN made decisions about character, commitment, [...] and kids, ”
things would be just as great with or without marriage.
helene 22
I was with my first husband for 3 years before I married him. I was with my second husband 7 years before I married him. I ended up divorcing both of them, even though I’d hardly say I rushed into either of those marriages. I didn’t have kids with either of them so hey! guess what??! I am now 47 and have ended up with no husband….AND no kids! All very responsible as far as not ending up a single parent is concerned, but would people consider this a good outcome??! Those of us who don’t have children are constantly questioned as to “why?” as if we are freaks, and are vilified by society just as much as the single moms are…. you can’t win.
Evan Marc Katz 23
DFL – I don’t think there’s an effective controlled study for what you’re talking about.
The fact remains – whether YOU agree with marriage or not – that the VAST majority of people who stay together for 30 years and raise kids ARE married.
So to worry about the small percentage of stable nuclear families who are NOT married is to largely miss the point.
In other words: do you need a ring on your finger to be committed for 30 years and be a good, committed partner and father? No.
Do most men who choose to be committed partners and fathers get married? Yes.
Robyn 24
The one thing that people tend to forget is that – in different parts of the world – there are significant legal advantages for the father of a child to be married to its mother. And for the child to have its parents married at the time of its birth.
In many countries, if a child is born outside the country of the father’s citizenship, it is a lot more difficult (and sometimes impossible) for the child to be granted the citizenship of their father unless the father & mother were legally married at the time of the child’s birth. Or the father adopted the child after birth. Same thing applies when it comes to visa’s & emigrating to foreign countries.
Also: a father may struggle for the right to be a part of his child’s life when he was not married to the mother of his child at the time of the child’s birth. A single mother is not obliged to include the father’s name when she registers the birth of the child. The father then has to prove paternity via DNA tests etc. – which can prohibitively expensive / unavailable, depending on where you live, and how wealthy you may be.
I know several men (personal friends of mine) who realized the above (and other pluses) and therefore chose to make their committed partnership a marriage, so that their children would have the benefits of married parents.
Another friend of mine lost out on being a hands-on Dad to his daughter because he dragged his heels re: getting married. By the time he came to his senses & was about to propose, his girlfriend had given up on him & she broke off the relationship.
You don’t have to be married to be a good parent. But there are a lot of fringe benefits that are good for both the parents and the child if the parents are married.
Nadia 25
Wow! Who would’ve thought that a study that shows children thrive within a marriage would be so controversial? Michelle (#3), I would argue that having children, whether you’re a single parent or a married one, is self centered. Usually, people who have kids do so to satisfy their own desires; it’s a selfish pursuit initially, don’t you think?
Theodore Whitfield 26
It’s remarkable that Evan feels the need to defend his qualifications as a liberal in good standing because of his stand on marriage. If you read the NYT article, one of the points that they make is that most college-educated people wait until they are married before they have kids, while the high levels of out-of-wedlock children are found among people who haven’t graduated from college. As a result, the dynamic tends to *increase* inequality: since college education is associated with higher socioeconomic status, kids with college-educated parents will tend to enjoy all the benefits of having married parents, while kids with parents whose parents don’t have a college degree will tend to suffer all the disadvantages of unmarried parents, thus hurting the very people who are already less advantaged. Liberal or conservative, GOP or Democrat or Independent, if you’re concerned about the plight of the poor and want to help improve the conditions of the people at the bottom of society, you should absolutely be strongly pro-marriage.
Speed 27
As far as I understand this blog, it’s for people interested in love, long –term relationships, marriage, and kids. I simply cannot understand why there are so many commenters using all sorts of models, statistics and arguments to argue implicitly or directly against these things.
I’m not a big car racing fan. However, I don’t go to car racing Web sites to use all sorts of models and statistics to show why car racing is useless or harmful.
I guess in the spirit of open debate EMK allows these “haters” to post, but I just wish they’d move on. There are so many other sites for them to visit. Then, those who are pro-marriage/long-term relationship/family could learn more from EMK and other “positive” posters.
Lara 28
Speed 27: That’s because this blog keeps trying to “prove” as better some things that fundamentally cannot be proven as better. And no surprise, these very things happen to be the choices the EMK has made. So we suspect a bit of dishonesty in the approach to important issues in our lives.
Evan Marc Katz 29
Hey Lara:
This blog isn’t “proving” anything. If I cite a study that illustrates that, say, only 5% of all marriages have age gaps of over 10 years, does that mean I’m trying to “prove” that fact?
No. That fact has already been proven. All I’m doing is citing it, to illustrate to 45-year-old guys that, while there’s nothing wrong with being attracted to much younger women, very few of those relationships turn into marriage. Do I have an agenda? I suppose. It’s called “the truth”.
If I point out that men who write 100 emails to women to the order of “Hey, your hot. Give me your phone number!” get a 1% return rate on their initial emails, am I trying to prove anything for my own purposes? Of course not. I’m simply calling out what’s true: treat a woman as if she’s an interchangeable sex object and she’s probably not going to respond to you. Should the men who write these emails get ANGRY at me? Should they get INSULTED because I’m calling them out on their scientifically ineffective behavior? I guess they could, but it would be a waste of time.
All the things that you call my “opinions” are rarely my opinions. Because, as someone who tries to responsibly give dating and relationship advice, my only concern is not what I believe, but what WORKS for the MOST people. Just because two people stayed together for 50 years after having sex on Date 1 doesn’t make it a great strategy. Just because a woman wants to know if she’s wasting her time on a man doesn’t mean it’s a great strategy to press him for his views on marriage on Date 1.
So while you can – and generally do – see fit to disagree with me – I will always stand on the facts and let you argue from your emotions.
Single moms can get pissed at me because I point out that raising kids as a single mom isn’t as effective as raising kids in the construct of a marriage.
Older men can get pissed at me because I point out that most younger women are creeped out by them.
People who have been burned by men can get pissed at me because I point out that if you treat new men like criminals, they’re unlikely to respond to you.
Short men can get angry because I point out that women prefer taller men.
40 year old women can get incensed because I point out that men who want biological children will prefer younger women.
None of these express my opinion or bias. But if you’re short or you’re 40 or you’re angry and you feel personally indicted by something I say – as if you aren’t the PERFECT person, then you’re going to take it out on me. But your anger doesn’t mean that I’m wrong. Which is why I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing. And if you don’t like it, you can find another blog to frequent; presumably one that tells you that you’re perfect and that every man in the world should swoon for you because you’re a goddess.
In that world, NO one makes mistakes! Women who stop having sex with their boyfriends are entitled to it because they want to get closer to God. Men who text 15 times a day are just attentive, not overbearing. Women who work 10 hours a day, have all married friends and refuse to date online have rich, full, busy single lives, filled with lots of opportunities for meeting men. No matter what poor, irrational, ineffective decisions you make, you’re always right, and anyone who points out that you’re wrong clearly hates you and has a personal agenda to advance.
Sorry, but that’s bullshit.
2 plus 2 is always going to equal 4, even if you want it to be 5.
If you don’t like it, Lara, go somewhere else.
I’m not going to be called dishonest on my own blog from someone who doesn’t recognize that I am nothing if not honest.
Joe 30
@ Theodore Whitfield: Wrong conclusion. You should not be pro-marriage. You should be pro-education.
Ruby 31
Joe #30
<<You should not be pro-marriage. You should be pro-education.>>
How about being both?
Joe 32
Sure, feel free.
The point is that being married isn’t any more likely to lead to a better education for your kids, but education is likely to lead to a better standard of living for them.
Helen 33
Joe 32: there is some truth to what you say. The first Freakonomics book by Steve Levitt and Steve Dubner had a chapter on what makes children succeed in school and life in general. It turns out that what parents DO matters surprisingly little (e.g., taking children to museums or to libraries was not correlated with good outcomes later, surprisingly). Rather, in the authors’ terms, it’s what parents ARE that matters. It matters how well-educated the parents are themselves, how much THEY like to read (not how much they try to push the children to read).
So much of this is about correlations and not causations, though, which makes cause-and-effect difficult to establish. For example, well-educated individuals in the United States tend to stay married for longer (and in turn, these well-educated individuals who are married have children with better outcomes). But is that because the well-educated tend to marry later in life, thus making wiser choices, or is it that a certain personality type both stays in marriages and values education? It is all very tricky to tease out.
Paul 34
Fantastic post Evan!!:) completely agree on everything. I really appreciate all your posts and the TONS of free advice you give. It really has helped me out alot!
Zaq 35
@Evan #29
Sorry Evan, I dont agree.
There is always bias, subconscious or not.
Whether you are correct in your assessment of the “facts” is questionable.
It is clear from the responses on this blog, that many women over the age of 40, and especially 50 find it difficult to find men of their age that will consider them. fact
There is a dating adviser on the internet counselling women to seek out older men, because “the men aren’t buying what we have to sell” fact.
The best indicator of success in finding a match is compromise, so those willing to date older will be more likely to succeed in marriage than those who do not.
So the average age gap between those getting married over the age of 40 must be increasing.
I noticed another study recently that showed that there was several times more divorced men than women marrying per annum for those in the age range 45 to 65. Who would these extra men be marrying then ?
On top of that another two surveys showing increasing age gaps with age.
But Evan chooses to quote a figure of 5% of ALL marriages with an age gap of more than 10 years, irrespective of the fact that this figure will be swamped by the majority of people who will have married in their 20s marrying their high school sweetheart.
Frankly I’m surprised that it is as much as 5%
I thought that wealthier men may be more likely to be successful in large age gap dating, but apparently it applies to the population in general.
I am influenced to a great extent by the people I know who either married late, or married after divorce and the figure is much higher than 5%. My father was 10 years older than my mother. She divorced him to marry someone 10 years older than my father. My fathers brother was 20 years older than my aunt. I realise I am sticking my neck out here, and am perfectly prepared to be shot down in flames, but where is the evidence ?
@Helen #33
Excellent points. The truth is indeed difficult to tease from the statistics !
Evan Marc Katz 36
Zac,
I was thinking: you’re right. There is a bias. I post articles that reinforce concepts that I believe in: the irrationality of human decision making, the flaws of making lifelong decisions based on attraction, the value of smart online dating, etc. I don’t post articles about how men can “bang more chicks”, or the virtues of marrying your high-school boyfriend.
So there is a selection bias in there. That said, I tend to provide evidence for my positions – either evidence drawn from talking to thousands of women as a dating coach or evidence that I’ve read from a study cited in a major news outlet. Clearly, not all studies are created equal, but it seems to me that you’ll only argue with the source of the study if you don’t want to believe it’s conclusion. This is a major theme in “How We Decide” and “Thinking, Fast and Slow”. People will willfully dig into a position even though they’ve been proven to be incorrect. Facts don’t matter. Feelings do.
So if you have evidence in the form of a controlled study cited in a scientific journal or a major media outlet that disproves one of my theses, then, by all means, share it with me and I’ll revise my thoughts publicly. My bias is simply towards the truth and if you have a more accurate portrayal of things based on science rather than feelings, I would be remiss to not adapt new information into my worldview. I look forward to study that shows that there are a ton of marriages between men and women over 10 years apart.
Zaq 37
@Evan
Confirmation bias – interpreting ambiguous evidence as supporting existing position.
We are all susceptible to it. But at least knowing we are likely to fall victim may help reduce the likelihood of it.
News outlets take on scientific evidence is already coming to us through the filter of confirmation bias.
I certainly know if it was just down to my own anecdotal evidence it would be a slam dunk, but the population size may not be large enough to be representative.
Most of the published figures deal with the population as a whole and not age sub sets which is annoying, but we do have some.
An AARP study called Lifestyles,Dating and Romance a study of midlife singles. This is a very in depth analysis of dating habits of those over 40 and shows that about 90% of the men wish to date younger women (Duh!), but more to the point near 60% succeeded in dating above 5 years younger, and a THIRD had a current partner more than 10 years younger.The second study is by Stanford University quote “In first marriages, men are typically a couple years older than women, but the older men are when they marry, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s a first or a second marriage, the more years they marry down. Men in their 40s tend to marry women who average seven years younger, and men in their 50s are marrying brides who AVERAGE 11 years younger” (so many are of course far higher)
So we have studies showing that for the target demographic there is significant age difference and NO study that I can see that shows small age difference at marriage for the target demographic.
Additionally we know that men actively target women far younger (OK Cupid data) and women over 40 finding it difficult to get dates (huge number of sources !) Very few female divorcees remarry compared to men. I think we can assume that a reasonable number of men are successful with those they target.
Now it may be that for older men to commit at all, then the woman has got to be something special (younger, healthier, beautiful), and those men that fail to attract the target market, do not settle and either keep trying or give up. Pure conjecture, but it may explain the figures.
Evan Marc Katz 38
Zac,
I just read every word of that AARP study. I’ll concede its validity, even though it’s dated (pre-online dating boom) and not a really good representative sample of my readers’ demographics (a lot more low income/uneducated). Still, it’s remarkable how we read the same thing and see different things. My highlights:
Most midlife and older men want to date younger women. Many midlife and older women, by choice or need, also want to date younger men, ironically making men and women’s age preference in dates incompatible.
Attractive Qualities in a Partner
Men: Personality/Sense of Humor – 60%, Common Interests – 46%, Intelligence – 34%, Religious Values – 22%, Attractiveness – 31%, Younger – 7%.
Preferred Age of Dating Partner by Gender:
Women: 33% – 1-4 years older, 7% – 5-9 years older, 2% – 10-14 years older, 0% – 15 years older.
The portion you’re citing does indicate that 29% of men found women 10 years younger to date. I’m not going to argue with that fact. I will simply point out that a) this doesn’t indicate whether the relationship got off the ground, b) 71% of men didn’t choose to date women 10 years younger, because they value personality, common interests, and intelligence more than an age difference, c) this is an AARP poll. How many respondents do you really think are 40 year olds dating 25 year olds, vs. 65 year olds dating 55 year olds?
So, while I will concede that there may be more older guys pulling off the age gap than I previously anticipated, it’s still a drop in the bucket compared to the number of relationships where people are within 5 years of each other. And, as you pointed out, since there can’t be a 10 year age gap at age 25, chances are that it’s more likely to happen over the age of 50.
But this also might indicate that men are lying, the same way that women lie about how many men they’ve slept with. Because the numbers don’t square: if only 2% of women are open to men 10-14 years older, yet 29% of men say they’re dating women 10-14 years younger, someone is clearly not telling the truth. Right?
Zaq 39
@Evan
Quite agree, can’t place too much weight on what people “say” in isolation.
However the Stanford research is by two women studying marriage records.
Its been a while since I researched this, and I have come across another couple of recent surveys that I was not previously aware of.
Let me state here that I support completely Evan’s view on what should matter in relationships, and if you look at anything I have said on this blog, it mainly centres on my view that we are compelled by biological forces to do that wish is NOT in our overall best interest. My wish here is to shed light on what is actually happening in the dating marketplace.
Based on personal observation, it is my contention that the age difference of people marrying later in life is much higher than for the population as whole. I previously gave details of two surveys by AARP and Stanford University that supports this.
To these I also now include the UK National Statistics report “Age differences at marriage and divorce” and the Statistics Norway report Age “differences at marriage – the times they are a changing ?”
I will summarize the findings – please do go look at the research.
Note the figures are for the whole population, no account of education or income levels.
The Norway report states that average age differences are concealingmajor changes in the direction of a greater variation – more older men are marrying younger women – and vice versa, women are marrying younger men. Between 1966 and 2002 the percentage of “typical” or traditional age differences in the man’s favor (where the man is 2-5 years older) has dramatically declined.The proportion of marriages entered into where the man is 10 years or more older than the woman is the group that has increased the most; by almost double.
One of the factors, is that Norwegian men are increasingly marrying mail order brides (and I always thought that this was an urban myth !), who are much younger.
The UK report shows (as you may imagine) a more conservative attitude. It too shows that although the age differences at first marriage are falling to close to zero, between 1963 and 2003 the age variation for 90% of marriages has increased with up to 10 years difference being replaced by up to 13 years difference. In 2003, it looks like about a third of men over 40 were marrying women more than 10 years younger (it doesn’t show figures for more men more than 20 years older , but clearly over 50s are marrying women younger than that)
As with the Norway stats, more women are marrying younger men
The UKs main report finding is that age difference is NOT affecting likelihood of divorce
Conclusion
Results for the whole population are masking wide age variances for older marriages
Men over 40, and especially over 50 have a significant chance of marrying women more than 10 years younger (very not drop in the bucket!)
This is irrespective of the income of the man.
Women too have an increased chance of marrying younger
Trend is to even wider variation
Lara 40
EMK, stamp your feet all you want about some absolute measures of “truth.” I believe that greater minds than yours have already tackled this one.
Evan Marc Katz 41
Thanks for the insult, Lara. Now please refrain from posting here. I prefer readers who enjoy my posts as opposed to telling me I’m dishonest.
Michelle 42
What most people’s contention here is that the children born with a mother and father who are married (and there are no perfect marriages and believe me, each child grows up with some ‘dysfunction’ in someone else’s judgement, parents do the best they can) is NOT the best situation as there are other arrangements that are equivalent?
And that most men who are older are marrying women who are 10+ more years younger than them?
Soul 43
“Good marriage is good for children”. FACT
“Bad marriage is bad for children. FACT
“marriage is good for children”. NOT A FACT
Marriage obviously isn’t the key variable in this (a statistician would say) fallacious relationship. Pretending the contrary does not make sense and is simply not accurate.
Evan Marc Katz 44
I think if you set it up like that, Soul, you can say that marriage isn’t the key variable. Except, according to the studies, it IS. What we call “marriage” is two parents in a relationship, co-parenting their kids in the same household. That model works BETTER than single parents, grandparents, foster parents, remarried parents and everything else, overall. So while no one is making the argument that BAD marriage is GOOD for kids, and no one is making the argument that GOOD kids can’t be raised by single parents, and no one is making the argument that BAD couples should stay together for the kids…the fact remains that kids who come from married households fare BETTER than kids from alternative households. So what you wrote above is what’s misleading; not the 20 studies that were cited.
P 45
You know, I don’t think anyone has taken into account the fact that its been shown by numerous studies that the MORE people actively involved in a child’s upbringing in constructive ways, the better off the child is in the long term. Rationally, this makes sense and I find it amazing that people are arguing against this point. If my life is enriched with FIVE people actively raising me as a child, I’ll have more input, more experiences, more breadth of emotional contact. If my life only has ONE person in it, my experiences, emotional breadth, and even opportunities are therefore lower on average. It would simply logically follow that TWO people with the child’s best interest in mind are going to be better than one.
This only makes logical, rational sense and in the past, children were often raised in extended family environments…with MORE than two people involved in their upbringing.
I’m afraid my biggest problem with the child/parenting issue has been the reasoning people use to HAVE children. I’ve talked to single women who have decided to have a child on their own because “I don’t want to miss out on the greatest experience a woman can have” or any number of reasons that are very self-centered. Raising a child is a commitment to the CHILD, not to YOUR EXPERIENCES. When you have a child, the child comes first, not your desires for certain experiences. Those are ancillary. This isn’t a pet, and its not a toy for your personal enjoyment or experience fulfillment alone. This is another human being that you are now resonsible for raising in a way that will be most beneficial to he or she in life BEYOND you. My personal thought is that a good portion of people having children today are having them for the wrong reasons to begin with.
P 46
@Lara
Why are you here? I went back and looked through a variety of the comment sections for Evan’s posts and…well, you don’t really seem to contribute anything meaningful to the discussions. All I see is you basically saying “Evan is wrong” or “Evan is trying to prove something”…or making smartass replies towards letters Evan puts in his blog entry (if its the same Lara, and from the writing style I suspect it is).
Are you against rational discourse using facts and evidence to back yourself up in a meaningful way? It seems you simply say “Nope, you’re wrong” without anything to back it up, even if its just a logical and rational opinion (instead of simply “you’re wrong”).
Barnett 47
As humans its apart of our creation to grow up and become married…Sadly those with unhealed bad experiences from marriage believe otherwise.
Observer 48
Poor Mr. Katz; he is trying to make a business through this website and blog, and this subject seems to have opened a hornet’s nest of (strictly my subjective opinion) “disappointed harridans’” invectives towards men (in general) because their lives did not evolve as they expected in accordance with the images burned in their psyches according to the propaganda from the infotainment industry! And, as well, other commentators here make supposedly mathematically valid claims concerning changes in dating patterns, quantity and quality of households (other than the so-called traditional two-parent heterosexual household) that raise/nuture/develop children who mature into responsible, productive members of society and make such assertions without considering the statistical validity of their assertions!!!!
Simple example: If I made a study, 5 years ago, stating that 50% of men older than 50 were dating women who are at least 10 years younger than the men, based upon a “sampling” of 12 couple; and I make the same study now and find that 75% of men over 50 etc, etc; what is the statistical validity of the two studies? My study, then and now, still has an approximate 30% error bar. And, therefore, it could be mathematically valid for me to claim that there has been no change in the five year period that men over 50 etc., etc.
Although I would like to use the word “st_p_d” to describe a large majority of Americans, on this blog I will be more polite and use the word “innumerate” to describe some of the commentators here who claim that they “disprove” Mr. Katz’s contentions regarding the (my words) advantages that accrue to children born into, and raised in a two parent household, vast majority legally married — according to the precepts of the society in which they live — compared to children raised in “alternative” types of households. I would agree that “correlation is, not always, causation”; but this phrase does not invalidate all of the direct/indirect evidence that, in statistically valid studies, children develop into responsible members of their society much more often when raised in an “enduring” (or long term) two-parent household.
Serena27 49
I definitely think my child lost a lot of benefits when I left my ex. I live near him and we share parenting time 50-50, and we both have great jobs, and we are civil with each other. I personally don’t agree with his parenting style and he doesn’t agree with mine, but there is respect and co-operation there, and I know he absolutely loves our child. As far as being a child of divorce, she’s very ‘lucky’. But she’s still worse off than children whose parents are together in a stable marriage. I don’t ever regret having her, but I have felt I owe her an apology for bringing her into this situation. Oh and for the record we dated almost four years before we married and we were married over four years before she was born. This wasn’t a mistake of passion. This was ignoring red flags, being too young, making a bad decision etc.
But I still want to remarry. I want to provide her with a complete family even if it’s only half the time. I have a wonderful boyfriend who is a part of our lives and the family dynamic the three of us create is amazing. It is warm, and loving and gentle. I make supper while she ‘reads’ her favourite stories to him in between play-fights (that she loves, but I just don’t do. It’s more of a guy-thing, I guess). Meal-times are much richer in conversation with three people. Then he cleans the kitchen while I have quality time with her and get her ready for bed. A clean kitchen AND quality time? What luxury! And oh the joy of demonstrating a loving, respectful relationship to her! -that is pure bliss.
It’s nothing like the family my ex and I were creating: cold and contentious, and unstable. It’s also nothing like the family I was creating with just myself and my daughter: a constant struggle to be everything; surviving, not thriving; more peaceful but still incomplete.
I haven’t had a lot of good role models for cohesive family life. Actually none. I am very glad I spent the last two years growing as a person and learning about healthy interpersonal communication so that I would be able to create this amazing relationship with this wonderful man. Most importantly, my daughter has really benefitted from this relationship. I had no idea how much she craved a family unit until we all started spending time together. She beams with pride when we are out in public. She gives him hugs and holds his hand. She thinks it’s silly that he doesn’t sleep over (she’s four -she knows not what she speaks of) and she has ‘generously’ offered him my bed, telling him it’s big enough for two adults, or even two adults and a kid; that way we could have breakfast together. she’s been less anxious in general and much better-behaved at school. I’m really amazed at the difference.
I’d rather live alone for the rest of my life than go back to my ex. I was prepared for that when I left him. But I would marry my new boyfriend in a heart beat if the relationship continues to be this amazing. (And yes, we’ve had dissagreements, but we sorted them out respectfully and moved on without lingering resentment)
David T 50
@Serena27 49 (hut, hut HIKE!)
That really spoke to me. When I first split from my ex, one of the things I wanted most for my son was to see his Dad in a happy loving relationship, so he would see what that looked like, and also to have a livelier family dynamic, maybe with a sibling or two. He was 8 then and is 15 now, and I feel like that sibling window has closed for him, but that is not the end of the world.
I also would rather solo parent my son than to continue to raise him in the dysfunctional household he had been a part of. Instead of potentially being a f-ed up young man , he is turning out to be a wonderful human being. He might have been OK anyway, his resilience always impressed me, but I heard from multiple teachers in his elementary school that I was very important to him. One once told me out of the blue that I had “saved [my son's] life.”
A solid two parent family is better than a one parent-at-a-time situation for a child, and one parent is far better than two parents and major stress.