Yes, marriage matters to nurturing of children

There can be no dispute that a society fully committed to the well-being of children would not condone a cultural trend that causes 71 percent of African-American, 50 percent of Hispanic and 28 percent of white babies —- those born out of wedlock —- to enter life disadvantaged.

And yet we do. Such is the society that uses the suffering of abandoned and neglected children as a marketing tool to create and expand social programs, but does nothing to discourage adults from the no-commitments lifestyle choices that bring them misery. We make heroes of those who sue government to build a better foster care system and bestow high esteem on those who advocate “for children.” But almost nobody in a prominent position in public life utters a peep to condemn adults for the irresponsible behaviors that initiate their suffering.

Why? Because fixing government is easy. Fixing us isn’t.

We really aren’t a nation committed to children’s welfare. We’re a nation committed to non-judgmentalism in adult lifestyle choices, even when the evidence is conclusive that some of those choices are ravaging a generation of children.

Robin Fretwell Wilson, a professor specializing in Family Law and Health Law at Washington and Lee University School of Law in Lexington, Va., spoke at the recent Georgia Supreme Court summit on Children, Marriage and Family Law.

Her analysis of research studies should put to rest all questions about what’s best for children. In virtually every study, weighing every variable —- family structure, age, income, race, education —- the evidence is overwhelming that children do better in families where married adults are rearing their biological children.

One exception noted by Wilson goes to the time and the warmth adults invest in children. Adoptive parents “invest more [of themselves] in adoptive children, on average, than biological parents do in their children,” she found, though those findings are preliminary, based on the small number of empirical studies.

Wilson was adopted as a child and that “has impacted my thinking quite a lot,” she said later. “I am one of the luckiest people on the planet. I think it gives me a perspective into the debate about ‘living with two biological parents in a married family is the best arrangement.’ ” Adoption “shows that adults can be bound to children and protective of them,” she said.

“But what distinguishes adoptees from kids in boyfriend households that are fraught with peril for some kids is that both adults are committing to the child, permanently, for good, and with identical connections to the child. And they mean to be connected to the child, not just to one another.”

With that possible one facet exception, “Marriage tends to instill and bring along with it certain rational benefits for the adults, like permanence, commitment and even sexual fidelity, which redound to the benefit of children in the household,” she wrote in the study: “Evaluating Marriage: Does Marriage Matter to the Nurturing of Children.”

A primary problem with other adult relationships involving children is that they’re premised on impermanence. Cohabiting adults intentionally decline to commit. The evidence she cites is that only 10 percent of adults who live together and don’t subsequently marry are still together after five years, while 80 percent of first marriages survive at least that long.

For children of co-habitants, parting is often the beginning of a life of instability as biological parents move in and out of relationships.

Worse, of course, are adults who casually create life without any intention of marrying or living together, giving children “diaper daddies” who think their fatherhood obligations are met if they occasionally drop off a pack of disposable diapers and a drug-store toy with the mother.

Adults can fantasize that alternatives to marriage are satisfactory for children. That is the self-centeredness of the age.

The research is in.

If we really are a nation concerned about protecting children, we’ll change the national conversation. We can try to build the perfect safety net, yes, the foster homes, the loving adoptive parents, the school system that salvages the daddy-deprived. But more urgently, we need to change the culture that has devalued marriage.

jwooten@ajc.com

—- Jim Wooten is associate editorial page editor. His column appears Tuesday, Friday and Sunday.

Blog with Jim Wooten six days a week at ajc.com/opinion