Author: Super User

January 14, 2020 by Robert Franklin, JD, Member, National Board of Directors

Shared parenting is once again under fire, this time from here (Quillette, 1/2/20).  It’s a curious piece, part inexcusable ignorance and part pithy questions about the uneasy interface between the state and the family.

Danish historian Mikael Jalving has read Malin Bergström’s book, Divorcing with Children: Parents in Two Homes.  The problem seems to be that, as to shared parenting, that’s all he’s read.

Bergström of course is one of the most important researchers into family structure and child well-being.  Her massive studies of Swedish families indicate that equal parenting is the second-best arrangement for kids, the first being intact biological families.  The good news is that, as other researchers have shown, Swedes are taking to equal parenting like no other parents in the world.

“In Sweden, [Joint-Parent Custody] has become as common as living mostly with the mother after parents separate. The proportion of Swedish children in JPC was about 1 percent of children with separated parents in the mid-1980s, but is now between 35 percent and 40 percent. Of all children between 12 and 15 years of age, 1 in 10 are in JPC…Indeed, for 3-year-old children, JPC is nearly twice as common as SPC [Single-Parent Custody], at least among Swedish-born and well-educated parents…”

I call that the good news because clearly Swedish parents, partly in the spirit of gender equality and partly for the good of the kids, have embraced equal parenting.  But it’s not good news to Jalving.  Why?  He’s suspicious of equal parenting arrangements because, according to him, they encourage divorce or what he calls “guilt-free” divorce.  He of course offers no support for his claim.  Has the divorce rate gone up after the inauguration of shared parenting legislation in Sweden?  If it has, he doesn’t mention it.

Memo to Jalving: Parents sometimes divorce.  And there’s nothing we can do about that if we want to live in a free society.

Given that fact, surely the best thing we can do is to find out what the best post-divorce arrangement is for the children and try to convince people to adopt it.  We’ve done the former.  Shared parenting is the best familial arrangement for kids.  And to their credit, Swedes are establishing shared care arrangements at rates unknown in the rest of the world.  For Jalving, that’s cause for despair.  Strange.

Worse, Jalving seems not to have a very firm grasp on what shared parenting is.

But what if there were a way around these negative outcomes [for the children of divorce]? Imagine some new, postmodern “parental team” that can take the place of a married couple when it comes to raising children.

That is the new concept emerging from Sweden…

No, no and no.  Shared parenting does not involve a “parental team” that takes the place of a married couple.  It’s parents caring for their children in separate households.  And it’s not a “new concept,” not just “emerging” and not “from Sweden.”

Actually, the idea of equal parenting has been around for decades, roughly as long as that of no-fault divorce.  Since no-fault divorce laws sent the divorce rate skyrocketing back in the 70s, people have been asking what is the best arrangement for children when their parents split up.  Goldstein, Solnit and Freud tried to convince us that sole maternal custody was sufficient, but, lacking the slightest empirical support for that theory, it soon was called into question.  That led to research like Bergström’s and that of countless others that’s found equal parenting to be far and away the preferable arrangement for children.

And it’s that huge body of research that, with the exception of Bergström’s, seems to have gone unnoticed by Jalving.  He never mentions it.  And that astonishing absence is what allows him to conclude that Bergstrom’s findings must be faulty.

[M]y larger critique is that while Bergström is concerned with the effects of state-mandated and -enabled JPC arrangements, the positive outcomes we are observing may simply be an artefact of the growing wealth and privilege of divorcing Swedish parents—especially since many poor households can’t afford to split up, one home being cheaper than two. 

In passing, allow me to point out that there is no “state-mandated” joint custody in Sweden or anywhere else.  No law requires JPC as the data cited by Jalving make clear.  After all, how can the government be requiring JPC arrangements when only 35% – 40% of kids of divorce have them?

But more importantly, Jalving can only make the claim that positive outcomes for kids in shared care are simply a matter of selection bias if he knows nothing about the wealth of research on shared care beyond that conducted by Bergström.  Far too much research has been done in various countries on shared vs. sole custody to pretend that the findings are simply a matter of who’s being studied.  If Jalving had read that work, he’d know that.  Apparently he hasn’t, but didn’t let the fact keep him from rendering his opinions.  

I’ll have more to say on Jalving’s piece next time.

January 13, 2020 by Robert Franklin, Member, National Board of Directors

An Idaho court has ordered a woman, Kaytlyn Ann Graefe, 21, to pay child support for two children who aren’t hers (Idaho Mountain Express, 12/27/19).  The reason?  She killed their mother.

It seems that Idaho has a statute requiring anyone who commits vehicular manslaughter of an adult with minor children to pay child support for those children until age 18.  And that’s what Graefe did.  Her story is particularly disgusting because she had a lengthy record of driving while intoxicated, together with lenient, non-custodial sentences by courts.  She’d been placed on probation several times conditioned on her not driving while intoxicated.  She did so anyway until finally she killed Georgina Ubence, 37.

During an emotional sentencing hearing in Blaine County Magistrate Court, Javier Ubence—the husband of Georgina Ubence, 37, who was killed in the accident—told the court during his victim’s impact statement that the judicial system had failed him and his dead wife by repeatedly giving Graefe suspended jail sentences and continuing to put her on supervised probation, which she regularly violated, for previous misdemeanor drug and driving offenses.

This time Graefe spent 348 days in jail awaiting trial, unable to afford bail.  But, as an aside, I can’t help but mention this:

Graefe, of Shoshone, pleaded guilty to the two misdemeanors on June 24 and was sentenced on July 10…

Upon her release, she will be on probation for a minimum of two years and will have a suspended driver’s license for one year.

So, for manslaughter and possession of a controlled substance, a multiple offender was charged with two misdemeanors and sentence to time served plus probation.  And this after the judge in her case called her actions “repulsive” and pointed out that Graefe had had no intention of remaining sober despite multiple criminal cases against her.  Amazing, but true.

But I digress.  Apart from the continued leniency demonstrated by the courts, the remarkable thing is that Graefe will have to pay to support Ubence’s children until they’re 18.  Now, the skeptical among us ask whether a woman who routinely ignores court orders and has a long and lengthening criminal record has any more intention of paying child support for a stranger’s children than she had of staying sober.

But the mere fact of the law is of interest.  In the first place, it officially decouples from the obligation of support any biological or psychological relationship between the payor and the child.  This is not a case of paternity fraud or mistaken identity.  We all know that Graefe is a stranger to these kids and they to her.  What other mischief might be invoked to require the support of children?  What if Mom and her boyfriend rob a liquor store, are caught and go to prison.  Should he become liable to Dad for support?  After all, his conspiracy deprived the children of their mother for the duration of their incarceration.

Second, tort law gives Mr. Ubence a cause of action against Graefe for his wife’s death and any damages caused thereby, including the loss of her future earnings.  If Graefe also has to pay child support, she’s clearly being made to pay twice.  Needless to say, beyond any liability insurance benefits, Graefe looks very much like the type of person who’ll never pay a dime of either child support or other damages.  She likely doesn’t have the money and never will.

By the same token, enforcement mechanisms available against child support debtors aren’t there for those seeking to enforce a tort judgment.  No civil court ever ordered a tort debtor to surrender his/her driver’s license or professional or other occupational licenses, but, to enforce an order of child support, another court can.

Whatever the case with Kaytlyn Graefe, this expansion of the obligation to pay child support is worth watching.  It looks like the beginning of a very slippery slope whose end is nowhere in sight.

January 10, 2020 by Robert Franklin, JD, Member, National Board of Directors

This is that rarest of birds, an editorial that doesn’t take a stand (Japan Times, 12/21/19).  Generally speaking, editorials are supposed to argue in favor or against a particular issue.  That’s what sets them apart from news articles that, supposedly, present “both” sides of every story.  So it’s strange to see an editorial that reads like a news piece.  It’s even stranger that the editorial in question so carefully takes a “this, but also that” approach as to be close to meaningless.

Still, we can glean certain facts from it.

Japan is about to embark on a journey to decide whether to abandon sole custody of children in favor of shared custody.  Whether that means legal custody, physical custody or both, the article doesn’t say.  But what’s clear is that Japanese parents are not happy with the current status quo.  A group of them have sued the government for negligence in the way it handles child custody cases.  Such a suit would be legally impossible in this country, so it’ll be interesting to learn how this one turns out.

What the article also carefully ignores is the fact that, in Japan, an overwhelming percentage of custody cases result in sole maternal care of children.

Understandably, the sole-custody status quo has consequences that likely weren’t intended when the law mandating sole custody went into effect.

In a 2016 survey by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry on single-parent households, only 24.3 percent of mothers living with their children and 3.2 percent of such fathers polled said they continue to receive child support payments from their divorced spouses.

Some 22 years ago in this country, Braver, et al found that fathers who get to see their children frequently and have meaningful input into parenting decisions are far more likely than others to pay child support.  That of course makes perfect sense and seems to hold true in Japan.  We often read articles bemoaning the low level of child support being paid in this country, but, by comparison to Japanese parents, ours look like saints.  I strongly suspect that the reason that Japanese parents are such laggards about child support is that (a) the non-custodial parent has no say in the child’s upbringing and (b) he rarely gets to see his child.

The plaintiffs say that as a result of their divorce arrangements, they are allowed to see their child at most twice a month, each time for a mere two hours.

Unsurprisingly, few non-custodial parents in Japan see their kids at all.  After all, what’s the point of two hours per day twice per month?

Only 29.8 percent of the single mothers and 45.5 percent of the single fathers said their divorced spouses continue to regularly see their children.

Again, what’s the point?

Given all that, the Japanese government has appointed a commission to look into the matter of shared custody.  They should give us a call here at NPO.  If the linked-to article is any indication of the level of awareness of the value to kids of shared parenting, the commission needs an education.

Joint custody is based on the rationale that it is in the interest of the children for both parents to be responsible for raising them even after divorce. 

No, it’s not about parental responsibility, it’s about child well-being.  It’s about the fact that children attach to both of their parents early in life and the disruption of that bond via divorce can be devastating to them.  Children of divorce experience a range of emotional, behavioral and educational deficits far more often than kids in intact families.  That’s largely due to the loss of one of the most important people in their lives.  That loss has for decades been Japanese law and public policy.  It should be changed as soon as possible.

And what article on shared parenting that doesn’t give readers basic information about its importance would be complete without some misinformation about domestic violence?

There are also concerns, however, that … a requirement [of a parenting plan] would make it difficult for mothers suffering from domestic violence to escape from their abusive husbands.

Yes, it’s our old friend “only women are victims of DV and only men are perpetrators.”  We’ve known that to be false for about 45 years and suspected it to be so for 49, but still, supposedly reputable news outlets continue to mislead the public.  By now, it’s impossible to believe that the misinformation isn’t in fact disinformation, that the writers know the truth but intentionally publish a lie.  Far, far too much information exists that women are at least as likely as men to commit DV for anyone commenting on the matter to claim ignorance.

Whatever the case, it’s nice to see that Japan seems to be intent on dragging itself into, if not the 21^st century, then at least the 20^th.

January 2, 2020 by Robert Franklin, JD, Member, National Board of Directors

Is the Texas state agency charged with protecting children – the Department of Family and Protective Services, that oversees CPS – in line for a shakeup?  This article strongly suggests that it may be (The Hill, 12/24/19).

Writer Andrew Brown of the Center for Families and Children at the Texas Public Policy Foundation argues for three initiatives to make the DFPS more accountable to parents, children and the law.

First, lawmakers must clarify statutory procedures and strengthen the evidentiary standards DFPS and the courts rely upon when making the decision to remove children [from their parents]. Under current law in Texas and several other states, all it takes to remove a child is evidence sufficient to believe that a child is in danger. This is an incredibly low standard.

That’s putting it mildly.  For the most part, children, like the rest of us, are in danger frequently.  Crossing a street can be dangerous as can sitting in a school classroom.  But parents allowing children to cross a street or attend school aren’t placing them in danger of imminent harm,which is more like what the standard should be.

But more importantly, the Texas Supreme Court has held that any action by state officials that interferes with the parent-child relationship “can never be justified without the most solid and substantial reasons.”  Needless to say, CPS caseworkers ignore that requirement as a matter of course.

Brown gives as an example of their doing so the case of Drake Pardo, age four.  Drake had difficulty getting enough nourishment, so his parents, Daniel and Ashley Pardo, took him to a doctor who said that a feeding tube inserted into his stomach might be required.  CPS caseworkers managed to distort the Pardo’s interest in such a feeding tube into a charge of medical abuse by them of their son.  Not content with that, they represented to a judge that the matter was an emergency that required Drake to be taken immediately from his parents.

We’ve seen the misuse by CPS of “emergency” hearings and orders before.  Several years ago, Houston District Judge Michael Schneider slammed CPS caseworkers for fraudulently claiming a case to be an emergency when it wasn’t.  Emergency cases of course allow CPS to appear in court and obtain orders without either the presence of the knowledge of the parents.  Doubtless they’re sometimes necessary, but when only CPS knows the situation and only CPS is in court, the encouragement to fudge the facts is great.

The Pardo case was no more an emergency than the man in the moon, but that didn’t stop caseworkers from telling the judge it was.

Brown also wants to see the role of so-called “child abuse pediatricians” sharply diminished.  Over the past few years, there’s been a significant increase in the use of those specialists by CPS to buttress their claims of abuse.  It hasn’t turned out well. 

In the first place, the very fact those doctors exist tends to increase the chances of their finding a child to have been abused.  After all, when your rather tenuous “specialization” depends on the presence of child abuse, you’re more inclined to find child abuse.  This is not to say that those doctors intentionally misdiagnose children, but only that they’re human and have a natural tendency to protect their own bailiwick.

Worse, child abuse doctors often don’t inform parents of exactly what their role is in an investigation of alleged maltreatment.  Parents understandably believe that a doctor is someone who wants to help their child, but unknown to them, he/she may be working, not for them, not for their child, but for the state.  As in the Pardo case, they may be simply working to build a case against the parents.  That’s an enormous ethical problem and one that doctors seldom disclose.

And sure enough, in the Pardo case, CPS based its claim of abuse solely on the say-so of one of those child abuse specialists.

Here’s Brown’s last recommendation:

A final recommendation, and perhaps the most important one, is to enact reforms to court processes that will provide real accountability for DFPS and better protect the fundamental rights of families.

That of course would include the greatly reduced use of emergency hearings.  It would also include reducing or eliminating the use of “voluntary” parenting plans.  That’s a pernicious process under which CPS caseworkers essentially browbeat parents into acceding to having their child taken from them and signing on to plan whereby they can get the child back after completing certain requirements outlined in the plan.

Caseworkers essentially threaten parents with lengthy court proceedings and the high probability of their losing their child for longer periods if they reject the “voluntary” plan and go before a judge.  Impecunious parents opt for the “voluntary” plan even though they may not pose a danger to the child.  Meanwhile, the existence of a plan agreed to by the parents obviates the need for CPS to go to court and undercuts any later claim by parents that CPS had no right to take their child.

Drake Pardo is back home with his parents after an almost six-month hiatus with CPS.  His case is much in the news just as the Texas Legislature is about to reconvene.  Legislators need to act to reform the behavior of CPS and its employees.

December 30, 2019 by Robert Franklin, JD, Member, National Board of Directors

Back in October, the Australian Institute of Family Studies published its study of some 6,000 families who’d divorced.  Its focus was on the choices made by the parents during that process and the outcomes they achieved, mostly in custody and parenting time.  Nothing in the report is earth-shattering, but still it’s instructive.  One of the many problems with family laws and family courts is paucity of hard data we have on just what those outcomes are.  It takes money and time to go to courts and read, analyze and tabulate the information in the files.  Unsurprisingly, few people do it.

So those studies that do are to be valued, however limited they may be.  And make no mistake, the AIFS study is quite limited, but it still has a lot of interest and value.

Perhaps the most significant datum from the study is that 97% of divorcing couples avoid family courts altogether.  They decide between themselves what arrangement they want and either get a court to rubberstamp their agreement or simply proceed with no court order at all.

I’d love to have heard the reasons parents gave for detouring around courts and the family law process, but alas, the AIFS study didn’t ask.  My guess is that people have a variety of reasons for avoiding court.  One surely is that lawyers cost too much, so why involve them when the couple can sort things out for themselves free of charge?  Plus, at least some lawyers thrive by exacerbating the inter-parental conflict that already exists during divorce.  That makes feelings more conflicted and costs higher.

And that very chance of making a bad situation worse is likely another primary reason for parents not going to court.  There are far too many horror stories in the news about divorce and child custody to not frighten a large percentage of divorcing parents away from the court system.

Then there’s the time involved.  Many, many experts on the subject of family law in Australia have complained about the astonishing amounts of time required for courts to adjudicate even uncomplicated divorces.  By contrast, a man and a woman can sit down at the kitchen table and have a reasonably serviceable and amicable agreement in a matter of a couple of hours, or even less.  They can then take it to a lawyer to type up and present to a judge as an order that, unless it’s flagrantly defective in some way, the judge will probably be happy to sign off on.  Judges are overworked, so any agreement between parties just makes their lives easier.

One metaphor with which to understand the fact that 97% of divorcing couples choose to avoid the courts is that of electoral politics.  Put simply, family courts lost in a landslide.  Close to every divorcing couple opted for “not court” over “court.”  That’s not exactly a rousing endorsement of the family court process.  If I’m right, that time, money and the exacerbation of conflict are primary reasons for their vote, Australian family courts might want to think hard about that.

So, what are the results of those 6,000 cases?  Most importantly, 21% of all divorces end with shared parental care.  That means that one parent has at least 35% of the parenting time and the other the rest.  Only 9% of divorces result in equal parenting time, i.e. between 48% and 52% for each parent.

That compares with 27% in which kids end up in sole maternal care and 2% in the sole care of their father.

How do cases decided by a judge stack up against those in which the parents agree?  When judges decide,

Most children (64%) subject to orders were living mainly with their mother and spending less than 35% of nights with their father. Orders for shared care time were made for 17% of children.

In the adjudicated sample, 19% of children were to live with their father and spend less than 35% of nights with their mother.

When parents agree,

In cases where parents agreed without litigation, orders for children to spend most of their time with their mother applied to 64% of children. Orders for shared care time were more common in this group than in the other two, applying to 33% of children. Orders for children to live mainly with their father and spend less than 35% of their nights with their mother applied to 4% of children.

In short, parents are significantly more likely to agree to shared care arrangements than judges are to order them.  The percentage of sole maternal care was the same for judge-made orders as for those agreed to by the parents, but predominantly paternal care occurred much less in the consent group than in the adjudicated one.

Now, the cases heard by judges were probably different than those in which parents hammered out an agreement.

Among the 3% of parents who went to court for parenting arrangements, most reported in the Survey of Separated Parents that they experienced family violence (physical violence 54%, emotional abuse 85%). Nearly 50% reported concerns for safety (their own, their children’s or both; Kaspiew et al., 2015b).

Other problems reported by parents who used the courts included mental health issues (59%) and substance misuse (42%).

My guess is that those allegations are substantially different from those in the set of cases in which parents agree.  But I suspect we’ll never know.  That’s because the AIFS study reports nothing on the incidence of claims of DV in the agreed-to cases.  And I further suspect it doesn’t because, when parents agree, there’s no need to allege abuse whether it’s occurred or not.

The takeaway?  First, parents overwhelmingly are doing their divorce and custody cases on their own.  They’re avoiding courts and lawyers if at all possible.  In the process, they are reasonably likely to agree on a shared parenting arrangement.  But overall, mothers still end up with the lion’s share of custody and parenting time, leaving children with sharply diminished time with their fathers.

Thanks to George for the heads-up.

December 27, 2019 by Robert Franklin, JD, Member, National Board of Directors

My last two pieces have taken to task, first the New York Times and then National Public Radio for soft-peddling the ill effects of single-parenting on kids.  Those two articles are far from the first times those two media giants have done so and I’m sure they won’t be the last.

So it’s with considerable interest that Pew Research has published this piece on the children of single parents worldwide (Pew Research, 12/12/19).  Perhaps the most important fact is that, among all the countries in the world, the U.S. ranks No. 1 in the percentage of its kids who live with a single parent.  An astonishing 23% of our children under the age of 18 do.  The rest of the countries combined have only 7% – less than one-third the U.S. rate – of children living with a single parent.  Just four percent of China’s children, 5% of India’s and 7% of Japan’s live with a single parent.

Now, it must be said that many countries have low rates of single-parenthood in large part because the kids are living with extended families.  So Mom may not live with Dad for whatever reason, but she doesn’t live alone with the kids.  Instead, she lives with her mother and father, and/or her sister, her brother, their husbands, wives and children, etc.  Whatever the exact makeup of those families though, extended families are better for kids than are single-parent ones.  They tend to be better off financially and provide more social capital than a single adult can.  Plus of course, the children are familiar with their relatives, so making a home with them isn’t quite the strange and alienating experience living with a single parent can be.

The Pew data also give the lie to the claim, so often taken for granted in this country, that Dad’s absence is due to his callous disregard for his children’s welfare, a.k.a. his status as a “deadbeat.”  After all, how can it be that fathers in, say, India, are almost five times as “responsible” as are those in the U.S.?  It doesn’t make sense.

What does make sense is harder to determine.  Why should the U.S. have the highest percentage of single-parent kids in the world?  Certainly, the U.S. has “led the way” in making divorce simple and cheap.  We’ve pioneered the notion that fathers are just excess baggage in the lives of mothers and children.  We’ve bent over backwards to offer financial incentives in the form of half or more of the marital estate, child support and alimony to mothers who choose to leave the children’s father.  And we surely lead the world in extolling the virtues of single mothers despite a wealth of information demonstrating the harm to children occasioned by a single-parent upbringing.

But my reading of family courts and public discourse in other countries tells me that the U.S. is, if anything, less hostile to fathers than are other countries like Australia, Canada, Israel, New Zealand, etc.  Certainly the laws and cultures of all those countries play roles in separating children from their fathers.

Exactly why the U.S. is No. 1 in fatherless children, I can’t pin down.  What I can do is shout from the rooftops that it’s dangerous for us or any other society to have such a massive scale of fatherlessness.  (The term “single parent” is a stand-in for “single mother” almost invariably.) Children need both parents and we’re doing a terrible job of ensuring that each child grows up with a father and a mother present and active in his/her life.  We should consider that the most urgent task before us and set about doing it in countless different ways, from legal reform to educating teachers, judges and journalists.

But we don’t, in part because media powerhouses like the Times and NPR are too busy deflecting attention from the problem and dissembling about it.  They do so to their everlasting disgrace.  Their doing so promotes a dysfunctional status quo they ironically complain about.

December 27, 2019 by Robert Franklin, JD, Member, National Board of Directors

In my last piece, I quoted sociologist Dr. Brad Wilcox thus:

For those who doubt that family structure denialism is a thing on the Left, one need only open the pages of The New York Times this week for yet another effort “to minimize or deny the importance of marriage and family structure.”

The NYT article he referred to was published on December 9.  Well, here it is December 18 and NPR’s “Morning Edition” offers more of the same (NPR, 12/18/19).

The gist of the piece is that a child’s chance at a good life is strongly influenced by the neighborhood in which he/she grows up.  Although NPR reporter Pam Fessler never mentions his name, her piece relies almost exclusively on economist Raj Chetty’s work on neighborhoods with high levels of opportunity and those with low.  Here’s my piece on his interesting but oddly flawed research (Men’s ENews, 7/31/19).

My point was that, whatever the effect on a child of his/her neighborhood, I couldn’t see how Chetty’s information could inform public policy.  After all, if a child lives in an area of low opportunity, what’s anyone going to do about it?  If his/her parents could move into a better neighborhood, wouldn’t they have done so?  Chetty’s is interesting information but of limited utility.

Surprisingly, the NPR piece answers that question and in the strangest possible way.  Put simply, since Muhammed can’t come to the mountain, NPR wants the mountain to come to him. 

NPR reporter Pam Fessler traveled to Albany, NY to look at a couple of neighborhoods, one poor and almost completely black and Hispanic, the other more affluent and mostly white.  In short, she’s illustrating Chetty’s work with actual everyday examples.  Sure enough, the poor neighborhood has little opportunity for kids and the better-off one is the opposite.

And it seems that the City of Albany has decided to try to make the poor neighborhood of Arbor Hill better.  The mayor, Cathy Sheehan has moved there and various programs are described that seek to improve living standards there.  So, instead of moving the poor into better areas, Albany has decided to bring better conditions to the poor.  Hmm.

The NPR piece is just seven minutes long, so there’s a lot it doesn’t address.  For example, if more affluent residents move into Arbor Hill, what will their presence do to property values, prices and taxes?  Surely, they’ll all rise.  And won’t that tend to move the poor out of those neighborhoods?  I can’t predict the future, but I do know a bit about the past and every time wealthier people move into poor neighborhoods, costs go up and the poor are forced out.  It’s called gentrification and it appears to be Albany policy.  That NPR should be quite so enthusiastic about a process that the poor have always hated says a lot.

But the NPR piece ignores something far more important – family structure.  It mentions it at all only in passing.  In Arbor Hill, it tells us, 86% of households have a single parent, whereas in the more affluent, predominantly white neighborhood, 20% do.  That those facts may have something to do with the level of opportunity in the respective neighborhoods goes entirely unmentioned by NPR.

But not by Brad Wilcox.

Indeed, one structural factor that looms large in discussions of racial inequality are “neighborhood effects”—referring to everything from racial segregation to concentrated poverty—that spill over into the lives of black children and their families. But here again, it turns out that family structure is a big part of the neighborhood story on outcomes ranging from economic mobility to incarceration. 

In fact, according to new research by Harvard economist Raj Chetty and his colleagues, one of the strongest predictors of a big racial gap in adult income between black and white men traces back to the absence of black fathers in the neighborhood where they grew up.

By contrast, black boys who grew up in neighborhoods with lots of black fathers (and, the study finds, married adults) are much more likely to earn about as much money as white men when they grow up. This study suggests, then, that family structure matters not just for individual households but for whole neighborhoods. 

“That is a pathbreaking finding,” William Julius Wilson, a Harvard sociologist, told The Times. “They’re talking about the presence of fathers in a given census tract.” In other words, more black fathers in the village translates into less racial economic inequality for black men.

In other words, the whole point of the NPR piece – that it’s neighborhoods that make the difference in outcomes for white and black kids – turns out to be mostly a proxy for fathers and fatherlessness.  If kids live with their own biological father, they do better than those who don’t.  And neighborhoods with plenty of fathers provide a still better environment.

But NPR, like the New York Times before it, isn’t interested.  It isn’t interested in what could go a long, long way toward equalizing blacks and whites in this country.  It isn’t interested in making life better for black kids, poor kids.  And it isn’t interested in black adults dealing with their and their kids’ problems themselves via the simple expedient of marriage and a commitment to raising children in two-parent families.  Like the Times, it’s only interested in promoting an ideology that calls for massive taxpayer-funded strategies that have little or no chance of solving the very problems they claim to care about.

For NPR, the status quo looks just fine.

Thanks to Ron for the heads-up.

December 20, 2019 by Robert Franklin, JD, Member, National Board of Directors

Dr. Brad Wilcox is not happy (IFStudies, 12/12/19).  And I’m with him all the way.

On December 9, the New York Times ran an op-ed by Dr. Cristina Cross entitled “The Myth of the Two-Parent Home,” that sought to convince readers that growing up without a father isn’t as important a detriment for black kids as for whites.  Of course the idea that fatherlessness is a problem for kids is far from a “myth.”  Indeed, it’s one of the most persistent findings in all of the literature of social science.

Even Cross admitted that fatherlessness is an important problem to all fatherless children, but still tried to downplay its importance in educational attainment.  I wrote about her piece here.  Now it’s Wilcox’s turn.  He doesn’t mince words.

For those who doubt that family structure denialism is a thing on the Left, one need only open the pages of The New York Times this week for yet another effort “to minimize or deny the importance of marriage and family structure.”…

[O]ne need only look at the literature to see that the article amounts to a particularly egregious exercise in cherry-picking, drawing on only two studies to make the argument about family structure and black children. In fact, Cross completely passes over a finding from her own study that showed the link between family structure and college enrollment was not lower for African-Americans.

Was that what it took to get the Times to publish her piece?

Wilcox doesn’t just destroy Cross’ claims, though.  He makes sure that his readers get accurate information that he packages into three categories.

First, for black children, particularly boys, family structure is vital to their well-being.

[MIT economist David Autor, et al] find that disadvantaged boys today are more likely to struggle behaviorally in school (in terms of absences and suspensions) than girls, in part, because boys are more likely to grow up in an unmarried home, which ends up having a disparately negative impact. What’s more: they show that this story applies just as much to black boys as other boys. Autor summed up the work this way: “Boys particularly seem to benefit more from being in a married household or committed household—with the time, attention and income that brings.” 

Second, family structure and wealth have a lot to do with each other, exactly as I pointed out.  When Penn State sociologist John Iceland studied gaps between the races in income and affluence, lo and behold, family structure turned out to be the major factor.

“[T]he effect of family structure grew in importance and became the most significant factor among blacks—not only for poverty, but also for affluence, explaining about a third of the disparity in poverty and affluence in 2015” between blacks and whites. It turns out, then, that the “resources” that are supposed to matter more in accounting for racial inequality among children than family structure per se are themselves often linked to the stability and structure of family life.   

Finally, it turns out that having fathers present in the home not only improves the lives of their own kids, but other kids in the neighborhood.

[A]ccording to new research by Harvard economist Raj Chetty and his colleagues, one of the strongest predictors of a big racial gap in adult income between black and white men traces back to the absence of black fathers in the neighborhood where they grew up.

By contrast, black boys who grew up in neighborhoods with lots of black fathers (and, the study finds, married adults) are much more likely to earn about as much money as white men when they grow up. This study suggests, then, that family structure matters not just for individual households but for whole neighborhoods. 

“That is a pathbreaking finding,” William Julius Wilson, a Harvard sociologist, told The Times. “They’re talking about the presence of fathers in a given census tract.” In other words, more black fathers in the village translates into less racial economic inequality for black men.

It simply boggles the mind.  From the Left, including the Times, we hear a pretty steady stream of invective against income and wealth inequality.  Those are certainly issues that need addressing by the country with the largest per capita and overall GDP in the world.  But wouldn’t you think that, if income and wealth inequality were truly important to the NYT editorial board, they’d be harping on perhaps the most important aspect of those inequalities – fatherless homes?  Wouldn’t they be doing everything they could to reform laws, policies and attitudes that militate against children’s well-being by marginalizing fathers in their lives?  Wouldn’t they notice that a whopping 33% of single-mother households live below the federal poverty line?

And yet, at every turn, they do the opposite.  Cross’ piece is less egregious than many published by the Times, but it’s certainly cut from the same cloth.  It’s as if they’d rather carp about a problem than solve it.  It’s as if they don’t care nearly as much about black children as they do about their own talking points about racism and sexism.  It’s as if they don’t want people to take the well-being of their kids into their own hands by marrying and staying married rather than relying on public spending to take on a problem it has no ability to solve.

But that couldn’t possibly be right.  Could it?

This three-part series is written by Ashley-Nicole Russell, an author, speaker, and attorney, who is a child of divorce and a divorcee. She is an expert in divorce culture and shared parenting techniques. Through this series, she will explain what divorcing parents need to keep in mind during the holiday season as they work through separation, divorce, and/or life after divorce.

Part 3: Supporting Family Structures

The holiday season is often filled with family traditions. For your family, things are probably different than in years past. Your family structure has changed, however as we discussed in Part 1 and Part 2, your child’s holiday season doesn’t have to be impacted negatively because of separation or divorce. Just as your family structure changed, new family structures may be formed. Oftentimes, new people are introduced to children during the holiday season. This could be your co-parent’s new boyfriend or girlfriend, your new boyfriend or girlfriend, and/or the families of those new significant others. I don’t have to explain to you how difficult this might be for your children. It may also be difficult for you as an ex-spouse.

If you are a parent who is introducing your children to a special someone and/or that special someone’s family, I want you to be mindful of the entire situation. It may be beneficial to have a private conversation with your co-parent before you even tell your children that you are dating someone. To maintain a strong shared parenting relationship, you need to show your co-parent respect in this process. Understand that it may not be the news they want to hear. Speaking of, just because you’re excited about your new relationship, it doesn’t mean your children are just as excited. Your children are still learning how to form their own relationships and they don’t have an adult perspective of what your new relationship means. As you enter back into the dating world, be aware of how your children will model this behavior in the future. Don’t be the type of parent who jumps from relationship to relationship. If your children observe that, it will make an impact on how they date, maintain relationships, and process feelings in the future. I know that sounds raw, but it’s an important topic that should be considered.

If you are a parent who does not have a significant other and/or has concerns about your co-parent’s significant other, I want you to also be mindful of the entire situation. Don’t stress yourself out about this and don’t brace yourself for conflict. Instead of building yourself up to have a horrible holiday, think through all the things that you’re going to do to make sure the holiday runs smoothly for you and your children. You can only be in charge of your decisions, your feelings and how you react. Let your co-parent handle the introduction of a new significant other and/or that person’s family. Keep in mind that while your children may be exposed to your co-parent’s new relationship, you are not part of it. I’m sure your children will tell you things about their mom or dad’s new significant other. If, or when, they do, don’t let your opinions or judgements shape how your children feel about this person. 

As your holiday is spent with extended family, consider having a conversation with your parents, siblings, cousins, etc. about your current family dynamic and situation. Encourage your family members to avoid talking poorly or negatively about your co-parent in front of your children. Make the focus of your holiday clear to others. If you don’t want to talk about your divorce, don’t. If you don’t want to talk about your co-parent, don’t. If you don’t want to talk about your new significant other, don’t. Set yourself up for success and own your own holiday. If you’re able to maintain happiness during the season, those around you will be happy. 

At the end of the day, the measure is this: Be the parent that you want your children to grow up to be. It’s just that simple. Happy Holidays, everyone. I believe in you.

Ashley-Nicole Russell, Esq

@anrlaw

www.anrlaw.com

Media@anrlaw.com