BBC Breakfast Woman from charity one plus one "Do you make a better parent if you are married to your partner?"

[WyrdMother]

One Plus One webste

"Do you make a better parent if you are married to your partner?"

Caught this on the way past the tv and it's back on in about 20 minutes.

I think I heard the Rep. stating that statistics show that Married people are better committed to their families than people who co-habitate.

My knee-jerk reaction is what a load of arrogant bollocks and I am married.

I've just bothered to look at the One to One website and from their Key Facts, Key Trends Page

"Pre-marital cohabitation: In 2001, 76% of couples lived together before they married (4) and 73% chose a civil wedding ceremony. (4)"

So, most people co-habit before they marry, doesn't that reduce the significance of the whole 1 in 3 cohabiting parental partnerships break up before the child is 5 statistic? They happen to have a child before before they've decided whether they should marry or form a cilvil partnership so surely that seperates the issues, committment to each other is a seperate issue from committment to the children.

Belle oh so do I.

This is the old argument about correlation and causation. Marriage is associated with better outcomes for children - this does NOT mean that marriage causes those outcomes. If you look at the types of people who get married, similarities emerge in terms of education, employment status and attitudes.

It is more likely that there is a type of person who has the background/ability/economic stability to make a good parent, and that this person type is also more predisposed to getting married - or to staying in a long term and very committed relationship, like bonsoir. Other people's backgrounds make it more difficult for them to live that sort of life - much of the attitudes and behaviours that make people good parents are learned.

Whichever hypothesis you support, it is just that - a hypothesis. There is no compelling evidence either way to support any sweeping statements.

exactly, pointy said it better than I did.

On a literal level the statement is of course bollocks.

My partner and I finally got around to getting married when our kids were at primary school. Whether we are good, bad or indifferent parents is perhaps for others to judge. One thing I feel confident in claiming though is that we definitely didn't suddenly get better on the day we tied the official knot.

It may be that couples who get married are more likely to be those who are already committed to a long term stable relationship to support their children -rather than it being marriage that creates that type of relationship i.e. the causal relationship is more the opposite to that which is being suggested,

On the other hand neighbourhoods where the norm is for couples to split up easily, with the almost inevitable consequence of many fatherless families, do seem to be unsatisfactory and turbulent ones, to an extent that can't be put down simply to poverty or deprivation. Neighbourhoods where there is a recognition that couples who have children are, or should be, in it for the long haul, do seem more stable, with better adjusted children - again to a greater extent than can be attributed just to relative wealth.

I don't know whether humans are unique in this respect in the animal kingdom. We are at least very unusual in that children take a decade or more of upbringing before they can look after themselves. You just can't kick them out of the nest and out onto the street on day 2 (not unless you want a social worker knocking on your door within 5 minutes). So bringing up a family is really a job for two people by and large. This is not to deny that there are many brilliant single parents - but the point is that they have to be to achieve the same level of stability.

I would say that couples who commit to each other and don't just split up as soon as things get a bit rocky do on the whole - not invariably of course - tend to be better parents. Marriage is an indicator rather than a cause of this.

'tis the old thing about correlation and causation

the group co-habiting couples will, of necessity, include a greater proportion of couples whose commitment is not that strong

basically it will be made up of two sub-groups: couples who are strongly committed but eschew marriage for other reasons, and couples who do not feel committed enough for marriage

the marriage group will overwhelmingly be made up of couples who do, at least at the time of fixing the wedding, feel committed to each other

out of these three groups, clearly the subgroup "not so strongly committed" is most likely to split up

the mistake made by commentators is to imagine that this affects the other subgroup of co-habitants any more than it affects the married group or imagine that any one family is likely to fall into subgroup 1 simply because they are co-habiting

and incidentally, commenting on somebloke's post, the sequence splitting up= fatherless families is not a god-given one: it's how it works in this country. In some other countries, splitting up is far more likely to result in 50/50 residency, with both parents remaining committed to the child and accepting that other aspecs of their lives will be inconvenienced by honouring their commitments.

that's interesting, cory, which other countries do you mean?

Possibly married couples don't split up so easily as the just afford to?

Scandinavia, wolves. All the Swedish divorced couples I know (and I know a fair few) have shared residency. It puts a lot of constraints on the parents- you can't for instance move away- but it seems generally accepted that children come first anyway and that's just the way it is. Can be harsh on new couples forming.

Scandinavia seems to have some very good social structures, even though the welfare system is collapsing. Not that I know anything about it, just seems that way.

What I don't understand is why they think making people get married (which is what they'd like to do) will change anything. Marriage is not a kind of magical spell which guarantees a marvellous relationship. The factors why people who are married are more likely to stay together aren't to do with the piece of paper, but with other factors. Getting people who wouldn't have got married, to get married, won't change anything, will it.

i agree, sardine - it's not the fact of being married which makes your family magically more stable. People in stable relationships may be more likely to get married than those who aren't.

(This does not mean that all people in stable relationships get married, obviously).

Pushing people to get married won't change anything (except increase the divorce rate),