CLASP on the importance of biological parents staying together

CLASP stands for Center for Lawn and Social Policy, and they've been around since the '60s. I don't know their stand on neutered marriage, but reading through this publication, there is a lot I agree with them.

The following is a series of quotes from that article, and the sources they site for those thoughts, just to whet the whistle with. But you should really read the whole thing. Among the items of note are statements that support the notion that parental irresponsibility (divorce, abandonment, etc...) has more of a negative impact on a child than the death of a parent. And after making the case that divorce is damaging, it shows that researchers believe a same-sex couple is most comparable to a divorced step-family situation. And above all, the best environment for raising a child is when the two bio-parents understand and fully commit to a marriage ideal of responsibility and preparation in raising their children.

McLanahan and Sandefur reported that single-parent families had a much higher poverty rate (26 percent) than either two-parent biological families (5 percent) or step-families (9 percent). They also found that the risk of dropping out of high school for the average white child was substantially lower in a two-parent biological family (11 percent) than in a single-parent family or step-family (28 percent). [McLanahan & Sandefur (1994); and Lerman, R. (2002a). How Do Marriage, Cohabitation, and Single Parenthood Affect the Material Hardships of Families with Children? Washington, DC: Urban Institute. Available at www.urban.org.]

Research shows that, on average, children of divorced parents are disadvantaged compared to children of married-parent families in the area of educational achievement. [Jeynes, W. (2002). Divorce, Family Structure, and the Academic Success of Children. New York: The Haworth Press; and Zill, N., & Schoenborn, C. (1990). Developmental, Learning, and Emotional Problems. Health of Ou Nation’s Children, United States, 1988. Vital and Health Statistics. Advance Data No. 190. Washington, DC: National Center for Health Statistics, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services]

Children of divorce are more than twice as likely to have serious social, emotional, or psychological problems as children of intact families—25 percent versus 10 percent. [Heatherington, E.M. (2002). For Better or For Worse: Divorce Reconsidered. New York: W.W. Norton and Company]

Research suggests that children in cohabiting families are at higher risk of poor outcomes compared to children of married parents partly because cohabiting families have fewer socioeconomic resources and partly because of unstable living situations. [Manning, W. (2002). The implications of cohabitation for children’s well-being. In A. Booth & A. Crouter (Eds.), Just Living Together (pp. 121-152). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc]

The average cohabiting union lasts about two years, with roughly half ending in marriage. Once married, formerly cohabiting parents have a much higher dissolution rate than couples who did not live together prior to marriage. One study found that of children born to cohabiting parents who later marry, 15 percent will have their parents separate by the time they are one year old, half will not be living with both parents by age five, and two-thirds will not live with both parents by age 10. In comparison, 4 percent of children born into marital unions experience the breakup of their parents by age one, 15 percent by age five, and about one-third by age 10. [Manning, W., Smock, P., & Majumdar, D. (2000, November 11). The Relative Stability of Cohabiting and Marital Unions for Children. Presented at the National Council on Family Relations Conference, Minneapolis, Minnesota]

Children living with cohabiting parents—even if the parents later marry—are thus likely to experience considerable
instability in their living situations. However, there is some evidence that cohabiting African American parents who marry may achieve the same level of stability for their children as African American couples who marry prior to having children. [Manning, W. (2002). The implications of cohabitation for children’s well-being. In A. Booth & A. Crouter (Eds.), Just Living Together (pp. 121-152). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc]

In spite of their better economic circumstances on average, children in step-families face many of the same risks as children of never-married or divorced parents. They are more likely to have negative behavioral, health, and educational outcomes, and they tend to leave home earlier than children who live with both married biological parents. However, the effect sizes are small for many of these differences. [Dunn, J., & Booth, A. (1994). The evolution of marriage and the problem of stepfamilies: A biosocial perspective. In A. Booth & J. Dunn. (Eds.), Stepfamilies: Who Benefits? Who Does Not? (pp. 3-27). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates]

Since many children raised by gay or lesbian parents have undergone the divorce of their parents, researchers have considered the most appropriate comparison group to be children of heterosexual divorced parents. [Patterson, C.J. (2000, November). Family relationships of lesbians and gay men. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 62, 1052-1069.]

Children of gay or lesbian parents do not look different from their counterparts raised in heterosexual divorced families regarding school performance, behavior problems, emotional problems, early pregnancy, or difficulties finding employment. [Wald, M. (1999, December). Same-Sex Couples: Marriage, Families, and Children. Stanford, CA: The Stanford Institute for Research on Women and Gender and The Stanford Center on Adolescence. Available online at:www.law.stanford.edu/faculty/wald/] [...] However, as previously indicated, children of divorce are at higher risk for many of these problems than children of married parents. [emphasis mine]

CLASP goes on to conclude in two different sections...

If the negative effects of single parenthood on child well-being were primarily due to a lack or
loss of income, one would expect children living with two adults to do as well as those living
with their married, biological parents. But this is not the case. The research shows that children
living with two adults (i.e., with cohabiting parents or in a step-family) do not do as well as
children living with married, biological parents on a number of variables.

[...] Research indicates that, on average, children who grow up in families with both their biological
parents in a low-conflict marriage are better off in a number of ways than children who grow up
in single-, step- or cohabiting-parent households. Compared to children who are raised by their
married parents, children in other family types are more likely to achieve lower levels of
education, to become teen parents, and to experience health, behavior, and mental health
problems. And children in single- and cohabiting-parent families are more likely to be poor.
This being said, most children not living with married, biological parents grow up without
serious problems.