Family and Society

[John Dibble]

On the whole, traditional families are better than alternative families. 

Is every traditional family better than every alternative family?  No.  But on average, traditional families get better results.

I would agree with this, mainly just because traditional families just tend to have more stable environments. Stability is a very important factor in raising a child, and the reason many non-traditional family units gain their structure is because of some largely destabilizing factor.

[John Dibble]

On the whole, traditional families are better than alternative families. 

Is every traditional family better than every alternative family?  No.  But on average, traditional families get better results.

I would agree with this, mainly just because traditional families just tend to have more stable environments. Stability is a very important factor in raising a child, and the reason many non-traditional family units gain their structure is because of some largely destabilizing factor.

You don't think love is more important than having a "traditional" family, and what makes you think that a traditional family creates a more stable children? There could be no love in a traditional family, and don't tell me traditional families are more loving.

Of course I think love is more important - but as dazzleman said we're talking trends. A single parent/two same-sex parent family that loves and cares for the child is superior to a traditional family structure in which the child is nobody cares about the child. All I'm saying is that in many cases, alternative family structures, particularly single-parent ones, are unstable not because of the structure itself, but the reasons that the family attained that structure - for instance a deadbeat dad running off, or a nasty and emotional divorce, can seriously destabilize the environment for the child, which can cause serious problems.

[John Dibble]

It's utterly impossible for a family without a male parent and a female parent to function normally.

No Jake, you're wrong. After my father died, my single mother was able to raise me just fine, thank you very much.

[John Dibble]

Aspects of the nontraditional family that are essential ingredients for poverty:

1. Head of household is a female, of any age.

I don't want to sound PC, but that doesn't really apply to contribution to poverty. For almost my whole life my mom made more money than my dad - and he was no slouch, he made a fair amount.

[John Dibble]

I thought I had meant sole head of household is a female of any age, but just in case...

I could go on to qualify myself further--an original two-parent household becoming a single-mother household through divorce, widowhood, separation and mutual hatred, etc.--but that seems to me to fall more under the "dysfunctional parents" catagory.

All the same, a woman, teenage or otherwise, who has a child with no intentions of including the father as a responsible parent (i.e., the "baby daddy") is almost condemning her child to poverty

My mother has been the sole head of the household since I was 12 or so; we haven't had any financial problems because of it.  I would agree that it is perhaps detrimental to the child's upbringing not to have a father figure to balance the mother (although it wasn't in my case), but I don't see how there's any correlation between the female being the head of the household and the family having financial troubles.

Mine since my dad died when I was 10. Female head of household, single or otherwise, does not in my experience in of itself cause poverty.

[John Dibble]

It's utterly impossible for a family without a male parent and a female parent to function normally.

No Jake, you're wrong. After my father died, my single mother was able to raise me just fine, thank you very much.

John, you became a libertarian. Something went wrong somewhere

Yes, it's wrong to care about my freedom and the freedom of others.

[John Dibble]

If you don't know many married people, how did you come to such a bizarre conclusion?

Everyone I know has parents, and nearly all hate them, or at best have a love/hate relationship.  I think I know one or two that are mutually indifferent.

That's simply because of the crowd you hang out with - probably a good deal of spoiled rich kids such as yourself. Most people I know love their parents, including myself.