Blog #2: The Effects of Divorce on Families with Children

Article 1:

Fields, Suzanne. “Lifestyles of the poor and anonymous”, The Washington Times, 12/4/06.

This article discusses single parents and how single parenting plays a big role in understanding the caste system in America. While the welfare reform was created to try and help eliminate “financial incentives” for poor woman to want to continue to have illegitimate children. The main reason why these single mothers are poor is because they do not have the skills necessary to have the better-paying jobs. Kay Hymowitz writes, “The old-fashioned married-couple-with children model is doing quite well among college-educated women. It is primarily among lower-income women with only a high school education that it is in poor health.” Since the children of these women are aware that their mother only has a high school degree, they often do not know any other way and are likely to also not continue their education after high school. However, what needs to be done is a “counter-revolution, a generational backlash against lost opportunities.” There was no evidence of research findings cited in this article. The beliefs that appeared in this article were that the women who found themselves as single parents who were having a difficult time getting by were not necessarily a lost cause and that a “counter-revolution needed to take place in order to prevent these difficult single parent situations.

Article 2:

“Marriage is tougher when it’s ‘for poorer’”, St. Petersburg Times, 1/28/07.

According to the article, more than half of the women in the U.S. are without a spouse and that the number of marriages since the 1970s has gone way down. The main causes for this are that people are waiting longer to get married, are living together but are not married, and are having divorces. It seems as those families who are better-off financially are the ones who tend to stay together. The article states, “Families with annual incomes over $50,000 have a 31 percent chance of divorce after 15 years, whereas families with incomes below $25,000 have a 65 percent chance of divorce.” This is because families are more likely to live in a stressful environment when money and being able to get by is a problem. The information about divorce in this article comes from the National Marriage Project, and thought the information is useful it does not tell us how recent these findings are. This article discusses the reasons why many families face divorce today, and mainly talks about the issue of money and its role in whether or not families stay together or split up. We learn that those who are financially stable are more likely to have less problems and less divorce, while those who are not as well-off find it harder to get by, which results in more conflict in the home and often leads to divorce.

Article 3:

Su-Yin, Yap. “More saying ‘I do’ and ‘I do…away with you’”, The Straits Times (Singapore), 9/26/06.

While the divorce rate is rising, so is the rate of marriage and remarriage. According to the experts, the rate of divorce is increasing because people are less prepared for marriage and the idea of what a family is is changing. In 2005, there were 6,909 divorces, which was 521 more divorces than in 2004, while in 2003, there were 6,561 divorces. It is also important to know that the number of marriages increased 3.6 percent from 2004 to 2005, which went from 22,189 (in 2004) to 22,992 (in 2005). A sociologist from Singapore, Paulin Straughan, seemed rather optimistic that those who had once had a divorce had decided to try marriage again. Some of the research findings in the article have been credited to the Department of Statistics, while others do not say as to where the information came from. The article realizes that both marriage and divorce are increasing, but also that among those who are divorced, many are not giving up on marriage and are remarrying.

Article 4:

Arndt, Bettina. “Educated guess at folly in sole parenting”, The Courier Mail (Australia), 12/8/06.

The article begins by stating directly: “marriage remains the best cushion against poverty.” In the article the reader reads facts such as that in the 1990s, the ex-nuptial birth rate rose 70 percent, and that by the end of the 90s, “more than one in four children were born out of wedlock.” This caused the number of children who grew up in welfare to rise significantly. In 2001, 3 percent of women aged 25-29 with degrees were single mothers while those who didn’t have degrees, 30 percent were single mothers. Arndt states, “More money means more stability, less stress…” which usually causes more families to stay together and have healthy relationships. While this article does state some research findings, it does not say where the most of this information comes from, which in turn does not allow the reader to follow-up with the information presented or allow the reader to evaluate the quality of the research. The main theme in this article is that better-educated women are more likely to wait to have children until they are married and are able to provide as much stability to their children as possible, while those women who are not as much educated are more inclined to have children before they are married or not as stable.

Article 5:

Lundberg, Pam. “Keeping couples together the goal”, The Post-Standard, 12/25/06.

This article discusses a federally-funded program in Onondaga County that was created to help poor people find healthy relationships that will hopefully better their lives. The article talks about how there are similar programs out there, however very few if any that cater specifically to lower-class people. It is especially important for this group of people to have such a program because they are more likely to face certain kinds of burdens that those who are better-off financially typically do not. In addition, this population of people is also less likely to have the resources to see a professional if certain problems arise and need counseling to help them get through these issues. It seems as though it is the lower-income families that are the ones more susceptible to having a divorce, which generally has a negative impact on those involved. While there are no formal research findings in this article, there were some members of the P.E.A.C.E. Inc. organization interviewed who have a good idea of the current situation regarding low-income families and divorce. It is clear that the purpose of this article and of this program is to promote healthy relationships and marriages so that all who are involved in these relationships can live better, healthier lives.

Conclusion:

One of the main debates that can be found in a few of these articles is that many of them state that the poor, single mother has to somehow turn her life around and make it possible to support herself and her family. However, these articles do not state that this chance cannot occur with some type of outside help because most of these women cannot do it on their own because if they could most would probably have done it already. Since this idea was not stated in some of the articles I do not know the authors’ positions on this matter. Another debate is that marriage is in many cases, the most important factor in why single mothers tend to be worse-off financially. While I am no familiar with the values of these authors, it is possible that some of them may believe strongly in the nuclear family and would prefer that more single mothers were not, which might affect their presentation of the facts and their conclusions. In the articles that I read, most of them seemed to contain important knowledge on the debate; however some of this information did not say where it came from, so someone who reads the article does not know how reliable the source is. I think that some press sources are more objective than others. Since it is the news, we usually only tend to see the extremes in terms of families. We usually only read about the families who are either very worse-off or those who are the exact opposite, but rarely do we see or hear about those who are in between. It is because of this that one might see most families as either very negatively-affected or very positively-affected.

Blog #1: Decline of the American Family

In the reading, American Family Decline, Popenoe argues that between the years of 1960-1990 that the American family as a unit has been declining drastically and continues to do so. Popenoe attributes the decline to several different factors, such as the increasing divorce rate, the decrease in the number of children a family has, the change in marital roles between husband and wife, and so on. Popenoe uses numerous statistics to show how certain aspects of the family have increased and decreased over time, most of which show a negative change from the 1960s until the 1990s.

While Popenoe does raise some interesting arguments about the decline of American families, I do not agree with much that he has to say. It is nearly impossible for people to argue that the American family that we once knew has made a drastic change to what it currently is, which is where I stopped agreeing with Popenoe. I feel as though some of the changes that have been made to today’s families were not only bound to take place but were in fact a good change. For example, in the 1960s there was a higher percentage of women/wives who depended on their husbands for things such as financial support, now with more mothers and wives with full-time jobs, the dependence of women on men has decreased, and being a woman that is something that I am proud of and happy about.

In the article, Good Riddance to “The Family,” Stacey agrees with Popenoe in that there has been a change and decline in American families, but does not agree with the reasons that Popenoe gives as to why there has been a change. Stacey states that she and Popenoe have different definitions of the term family. Stacey states, “It is simply anthropologically incorrect to claim that the family was ‘once the only social institution in existence’ (546). In the latter part of Stacey’s article she writes about how sociologists should do away with the current definition of family, the one Popenoe uses, and create a new one, which would encompass all of the new changes that have been made as of the past decade or so, that includes the most recent “diverse family forms.”

One of the most important points I think Stacey made in her article was what she ascribes as the most harmful to children. Popenoe argued that divorce and the loss of a parent has long-lasting affects on children, and while that may be true, Stacey writes that she feels as though the “hostile emotional environment preceding this loss” that in fact has the most damage on children of divorce. I agree with this argument and also feel as though it is more important to remove oneself and one’s children from such an environment if it would allow for a safer and livable environment for those involved.

Cowan’s article, The Sky Is Falling, But Popenoe’s Analysis Won’t Help Us Do Anything About It, was the article of the three that I agreed most with. In the beginning of the article, Cowan states five other factors which he believes are also strong factors that are related to the decline of the American family. These five issues are violence, drug abuse, mental illness, general emotional dysregulation, and loneliness.

Cowan points out Popenoe’s lack of evidence in his arguments and says that Popenoe assumes that there has been a family decline rather than actually showing proof that a decline has occurred. Cowan goes on to point out that Popenoe used only one actual quote in his article, and even that one quote wasn’t didn’t prove too much. I also agree with Popenoe’s five other factors that also affect American families today. I think by Popenoe not including these issues makes his case even weaker because it is rather hard to argue that these issues are not important and do not have an impact on American family life.

In the end I would have to take the sides of Stacey and Cowan. While I do not disagree with Popenoe in that the American family is changing and by his standards is declining, I do not feel as though it has to be seen so negatively. It is a fact of life that all things evolve and in most cases become better, so why can’t families and how they function change as well? Who is to say that the recent changes in American families are not for the better? I feel as though the arguments made by Stacey and Cowan are stronger and that their reasons as to why a “decline in American families” has taken place are more accurate.