Hallmark says that today is Father’s Day. The Harvard Gazette takes a different view with “Why living in a two-parent home isn’t a cure-all for Black students” (June 3, 2021):
New research suggests financial and other resources are also key to success for youth
So a plaintiff who pops a Clomid and has sex with a married dentist and harvests the resulting child support will have cash-yielding children that turn out better than if he/she/ze/they had married a medium-income person and stayed married. (Since a night of sex can pay better than a long-term marriage. Caution: this is true in Massachusetts, California, New York, or Wisconsin, but not in Nevada or Minnesota. See Real World Divorce for a state-by-state analysis.)
At least for Black children, parental income is the only factor correlated with success:
Rather than the two-parent family being the great equalizer that most Americans imagine it to be, Black children from low-income, two-parent families find themselves in the same position as Black children growing up with a single parent. This is what I found in my forthcoming study in the journal Social Problems. In it, I explore the differential returns to living in a two-parent family for Black youth’s academic success. Drawing on a nationally representative sample, I found that there were no differences in the earned grades, likelihood of grade level repetition, and rates of suspension between Black youth from low-income, two-parent households and their peers raised in low-income, single-parent households.
The government can save us:
What we need are policies that alleviate financial hardship and facilitate good, consistent parenting. President Biden’s proposed American Families Plan is an example of such a policy.
The Harvard folks don’t highlight that the Biden family is leading by example on the plan that is financially optimum for the typical American capable of incubating a baby (see “Hunter Biden’s child support is finalized with his stripper baby mama” (Daily Mail) and when does this grandchild get to visit the White House to see Grandpa Joe?).
Let’s see who is funding the soon-to-be-professor who informs us that #Science proves that low-income Black men are useless and the mom who rids her home of one of them in favor of pursuing full-time Tinderhood is doing the kids a favor:
The National Science Foundation paid for this scientific result with your tax dollars.
Sadly, wherever there is science there are science deniers. “Sorry, Harvard, fathers still matter — including Black fathers” (USA Today):
A new report from the Institute for Family Studies co-authored by us with sociologist Wendy Wang finds large differences between Black kids raised by their own two parents, compared to their peers raised by single parents (primarily single mothers). Black children raised by single parents are three times more likely to be poor, compared to Black children raised by their own married parents. Black boys are almost half as likely to end up incarcerated (14% for intact; 23% for single parent) and twice as likely to go on and graduate from college (21% for intact; 12% for single parent) if they are raised in a home with their two parents, compared to boys raised by just one parent. Parallel patterns obtain for girls. Equally striking, we also find that Black children from stable two-parent homes do better than white children from single-parent homes when it comes to their risk of poverty or prison, and their odds of graduating from college. Young white men from single-parent families, for instance, are more likely to end up in prison than young Black men from intact, two-parent homes.
Whether you’re white, Black, or don’t see color, if there are humans on this planet who refer to you as “Dad” … I’d like to wish you a Happy Irrelevant Person’s Day!
Sociology has never been taken seriously so why start now? It has no clear contours or methodology and was sort of a precursor of today’s ethnic studies with sociology dealing with a mishmash of topics in western societies and cultural anthropology the same mishmash in nonwestern cultures. A branch of sociology is criminology, which is totally inane — like why do people commit crimes and what can we do to stop them, as if anyone’s guess is better than anyone else’s.
It’s interesting because at least one NPR station today was lamenting how Father’s Day for so many single moms and children means terrible memories of “missing or absent fathers” suggesting that they *are* relevant – but mostly for the money, not for anything else. So we’re getting some mixed messages here, but the cure is the same.
@Philg: Are we even sure today is Father’s Day? Google is less clear than ever, and as we know, Google is God.
Item 1: At least where I am, the Google Doodle for today is an animation that has “Father’s Day” in the alt text, but this year they’ve dispensed with anything resembling even the androgynous ducklike “indistinguishable-from-Mother’s Day” family. Now it’s just letterforms with little emoticon “faces” – not even recognizable as creatures!
https://i.ibb.co/dt7NvjX/GOOGDOOD-FATHERS-2021.jpg
Item 2: Google says Father’s Day was June 17th and if you look at their page, it says their Doodle reaches NOWHERE! It’s a blank map. Perhaps they did so as conflict or confuse anyone from celebrating Juneteenth this weekend. NPR was celebrating Juneteenth while I listened today. I didn’t listen long enough to hear if they mentioned Father’s Day, even in passing, but Juneteenth was big.
https://www.google.com/doodles/fathers-day-2021-june-17
We wouldn’t want anyone to miss Juneteenth! It’s the new holiday!
Yes I realize my two posts conflict. I listened to NPR at different times today. The message was either “Juneteenth” or “absent fathers.”
If you were two gay dads, you could have been on Sesame Street!
https://wtop.com/national/2021/06/sesame-street-introduces-family-with-two-gay-dads-during-pride-month/
Dads don’t matter: “no differences in the earned grades, likelihood of grade level repetition, and rates of suspension”.
Dad’s do matter: “children raised by single parents are three times more likely to be poor, … boys [raised by two parents] are almost half as likely to end up incarcerated (14% for intact; 23% for single parent) and twice as likely to go on and graduate from college”
“children from stable two-parent homes do better than white children from single-parent homes when it comes to their risk of poverty or prison, and their odds of graduating from college. ”
so if you only care about grades, suspension and grade repetition, dads don’t matter.
if you choose more important metrics like poverty, prison, college graduation, then dads in the black household are more important than the kids being white.
got it.
Consistency is the hobgoblin of small rational minds. When you you free yourself from the confines of Reason your world can be as schizophrenically caleidoscopic as you dare to imagine. Meanwhile, government makes sure other people are forced to subsidize your feelings-driven insanity, so the reality in the form of empty stomach won’t ever distract you from navel gazing. /s
Dad’s don’t matter, mom’s tinder date can fix the car and mow the lawn.
My understanding is that fathers in the neighborhood matter, i.e. children of 2-parent families in a predominantly fatherless neighborhood still suffer about as much as the other single-parent kids.
This could be explained considering the accepted ‘science’ that shows socialized ‘good’ boys are negatively affected by exposure to antisocial ‘bad’ boys.
If this were true then charter schools in tough neighborhoods would not work. But they do, it is about the only place when they have better results. Gathering children together with the goal of providing certain financial future for teachers union members while instilling top-down self-enforced order and maybe as a side effect teach some kids read and wright has consequences.
Didn’t you just post that kids with 2 dads are the happiest of all? (Although maybe just in the short term, without anyone to tiger-mom them into success)