Ann Bailey
“When it comes to raising children, four hands are better than two – and it doesn’t matter who’s at the end of the hands,” insisted the UN “expert.” It was at a meeting I attended in back in February and I still bristle when I think about it. How dare someone claim to be an expert on the research regarding families, parenting and children’s needs, yet not be aware of the mountain of research regarding the fact that on virtually every measurable outcome children do best when raised with their married mother and father. The research is very clear: just any two individuals raising children will not do. To make matters worse, this “expert” seemed to be the “go-to-guy” for UN social policy.
I thought about him again as I read Brad Wilcox’s article “Suffer the Little Children: Cohabitation and the Abuse of America’s Children.” Professor Wilcox recounts a series of recent incidents of child abuse and brings to our attention a new federal study that reconfirms what we’ve known from prior research:
- Children living with their mother and her boyfriend are about 11 times more likely to be sexually, physically, or emotionally abused than children living with their married biological parents.
- Children living with their mother and her boyfriend are six times more likely to be physically, emotionally, or educationally neglected than children living with their married biological parents.
“In other words,” states Wilcox, “one of the most dangerous places for a child in America to find himself in is a home that includes an unrelated male boyfriend—especially when that boyfriend is left to care for a child by himself.”
Wilcox goes on to point out that children living with unmarried biological parents fair only slightly better– suffering rates of sexual, physical and emotion abuse at four times the rate of their peers living in homes headed by their married parents. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that marriage doesn’t matter!
Here’s the line that jumped off the page at me:
“The science tells us that children are not only more likely to thrive but are also more likely to simply survive when they are raised in an intact home headed by their married parents…” [emphasis added]
We’re not talking about our children “thriving” we’re talking about them “surviving!”
Now think about the statistic that over 40 percent of all U.S. children are born out-of-wedlock (29 percent of non-Hispanic whites, 72 percent of African American, 53 percent of Hispanics). Stop and think about all the variations of “family” and “marriage” that popular culture, the media, and the social engineers promote that do nothing but set up children to suffer high rates of abuse. It is a tragedy and an outrage.
Please go and read the entire article, it will make your heart hurt, but you’ll never again be fooled by the rhetoric of “any four hands will do.”