Do you think that monogamy is a social construct?

Toby Yummy Banner wrote: »

But is single parenthood a causal factor of what's happening, or a symptom? If you have a woman in her thirties with a good income, good qualifications, stable family background, good mental and physical health etc, her becoming a single mother isn't any cause for concern for her child

It is still stressful. I had a lot of support from my ex husband their dad and it was still harder to do than living in a two parent family type situation plus modern parent has become highly focused and takes a lot of mental energy.

Toby Yummy Banner wrote: »

Oh absolutely it's stressful, I've massive respect for any single parent. But if you take two single parents, one in their thirties with a good income, family support, a university education etc., and then a single parent in their late teens, unemployed, no qualifications etc., and look at whose kids are more likely to end up in prison, or with mental health issues, leaving school early, or which child will die younger, those are going to be vastly different, even though both are from single parent households. I'm not saying single parenthood is easy, I'm saying there are far more important determinants of a child's life.

The evasion kid seems to be saying that single parenthood actually causes social ill, and that's why he prefers a nuclear set up. It's kind of like if someone smokes all their life, gets lung cancer and someone looks at them and thinks "well the root problem here is obviously that they're coughing all the time"

I get your point but it still make a difference having children in a two parent situation, education ect can negate some of the difference but not all. I am not getting at you but you post is a classic example of trying to make the evidence fit an ideology

the evasion_kid wrote: »

social construct,call me old fashioned but i think the nuclear family model was/is the best...not the disastrous mess that goes on in society today

Best compared to what though? Just single parents? Homosexual parents? Or what about people in situations like mine with three or more in the relationship? How would the traditional nuclear family be "best" compared to any of those other than as an appeal to tradition and expectation bias?

silverharp wrote: »

Its the best environment to raise kids in. Raising kids without 2 parents statistically will lead to worse outcomes.

Probably - but I would be careful with how statistically relevant we think that is too as quite often the statistics SEEM to suggest single parent familys cause worse outcomes for the children - but it is a mis-reading of statistics.

For example you might look at statistics showing that Single Parents have worse results with children - but that is just a correlation when in fact both being a single parent - and having a worse result with children - both have a third root cause. So the causation lies in a different place to the seeming correlation.

Crime would be one of many examples there. The reason there are poor children and a single parent - is because the other parent was a scum bag criminal who is now in prison. But that is only one of many examples.

And even when a third factor is not present - often the causation is exactly in the opposite direction than the correlation suggests. An example is problem children - especially those with medical issues - that put a strain on the relationship and one parent leaves. The statistics would likely later include them as "Single parents who brought up problem children" - when in fact is was the problem child that caused the single parent situation. An exact reversal of what the correlation suggested.

And what of traumatic reasons that the parent is a single parent? Death for example. How can we say the resulting quality of the children raised there are due to single parenting - or are they due to the post trauma of the emotional ripples of their personal horror? The statistics would be blind to that only seeing "Single parent - child outcome" and little else.

Statistics which normalise for these factors and genuinely compare like with like as best as possible - 1:1 honest comparisons of single parents with the "traditional" nuclear family - are few and far between. And even rarer to get a true picture of the relative merits of the two are statistics that normalise for the factors we know of such as single parents being every time a single income household - whereas couples are very often dual income.

So yes the statistics are helpful and do seem to show single parents struggle a little more often to raise children as well as we might hope - but it is not clear by how much and our society is well punctuated by children of single parent households who turned out just fine.

RDM_83 again wrote: »

Gender maybe a social construct but like all social constructs it happens for a reason

Nor did I suggest otherwise. Clearly it happened for a reason. The question is whether those reasons are good ones - or whether they still hold true in the modern world compared to whenever they first arose.

And given no one seems to be able to come forward with any arguments for having or maintaining those gender roles - (all the threads during the marriage referendum for example were replete with people failing to come up with a single such argument) - the case for this particular social construct looks pretty bad.

So simply saying "It happens for a reason" actually says nothing and tells us nothing. _What_ were those reasons? _When_ did they arise? _Why_ did they arise? _Did_ they actually have any utility when they arose? _Do_ they now? _Were_ they actually constructed and implemented by those with an agenda? And _even if_ they do have utility now - are there better ways to achieve that utility rather than assume the status quo is the only way?

And so on so forth. Suffice it to say - there is a _lot_ more to discuss there than "They must have happened for a reason" would even begin to hint at.

RDM_83 again wrote: »

and AFAIK all societies have genders

And again I would never suggest otherwise. I was not talking about having Genders. I was talking about having Gender Roles. Specifically in parenting such as the ones suggested by terms like "Father Figure".

When one attempts to unpack what "Father Figure" even means one finds it hard to find anything of any actual substance there. Nor do the people who tend to use it - again such as in those long threads on the marriage referendum - appear capable of doing so either.

It appears to be one of those phrases people _think_ has relevance and meaning because it _appears_ to fit in with a social narrative they are used to. So I fear few people ever stop to really think what it is meant to mean or do or say. Try it sometime. Ask what "father figure" even means and what utility that role even holds - and how it is distinguishable from any role a mother performs or is capable of. I see nothing there myself.

RDM_83 again wrote: »

If your raising children don't you see the value of one of the individuals involved having a personal experience, a woman doesn't know what its like to be a 14 year old boy who's system is awash with testosterone or vice versa a man about PMS.

Quite frankly no. I do not see much value in that. For various reasons. Not the least of which is the fact that children just as often draw on peers - media - relatives and more on such subjects and not the parents. But also because I do not believe personal experience of those things actually lends anything of any actual note to how one would guide children through them.

Much like the term "father figure" it probably initially sounds good on paper to trot out things like "Oh a mother will understand PMS better because she herself has likely had it" - but when you sit down to unpack _why_ that might be so there is little or nothing there.

In fact arguably direct experience of those things when guiding a child through it could be as much a _bad_ thing as a good one as people assume. Why? Because PMS and Testosterone is not a thing that once experienced you know all about. People are __massively__ diverse in their experience of those things and in how they manifest in people.

So sometimes experiencing something can hamper your ability to guide others through it because people _very_ often think their own experience is representative of the norm. Take a woman who suffers very little from PMS and other issues around that period. Her daugther comes to her suffering badly with it and the mother thinking she knows what PMS feel like or how it manifests - is actually quite dismissive of the daughter's suffering. Or the exact opposite. The mother suffers horribly and the daughter not at all. Will the mother over compensate or over do the guidance there?

That is just two vague examples of a core point so let us not get caught up in the examples - the point being that not only am I not seeing anything direct experience actually offers in the way of improving guidance - often direct experience can cause the opposite where we parse the experiences of others through how _we_ experienced it - and so we are less empathic to the actual experiences of others.

But even what little value I do see coming from "direct experience" would be categorised under "nice to have" not under anything of any actual core value - let alone actual necessity or relevance or notable benefit.