Post No.: 0715
Fluffystealthkitten says:
The relationship between family structure and child moral development is unclear, not least because how to measure morality is controversial – different people and cultures can have different values and what counts as a good or bad outcome. For instance, people can get into lots of trouble in life despite having good intentions and values because they’re fighting against an oppressive state for greater democratic rights.
So we cannot objectively measure the morality of a child – if an ‘immoral child’ is even something that can exist in our modern age of understanding. But there are however some potential proxy measures.
Bear in mind that the following are only averages and there’s a lot of variance between individual cases…
Single parents tend to have fewer resources of time, money and extended family assistance compared to pairs of parents. As a result, children of single parents tend to do worse in life.
Parental divorce is less negatively affecting for a child though if the child is, say, 3 years old compared to 7 years old when the divorce happens – perhaps because an older child will become more aware of the parental conflict, the sudden loss and the contrast between the two-parent unit and the new single-parent situation.
Moral development is perhaps linked with emotional development, and so children who constantly suffer from negative emotions like shame, distrust and lower self-esteem – emotions that can strongly arise when parents separate – may be less able to experience feelings like caring, a responsibility towards others and having an idealistic view about life. Ingredients that are arguably important for a healthy moral outlook.
There is obviously no experimental data on comparing married two-parent households with non-married two-parent households, same-sex two-parent households or single-parent households, hence all we have is observational and correlational data and all the caveats that brings. But this correlational data suggests that there are increased risk factors for children (especially boys relative to girls) of single parents, such as a higher risk of psychiatric diseases, suicide, and alcohol or drug addiction; even after adjusting for family income and the parent’s own psychiatric status. And these negative effects appear to grow the longer a child lives with just a single parent. But this could be due to genetic inheritances from one or both parents who was or were highly likely going to divorce in the first place (perhaps because of their lower executive function) rather than because of the child being raised by a single parent per se?
It’s however important to note that the negative effects of parental divorce on children have been decreasing over the decades, possibly because divorce is far more common now and so has less stigma attached to it, hence more people will get divorced more readily and easily nowadays compared to in the past when most couples who got divorced only did so when their marriages became relatively acutely acrimonious and untenable – where a high parental conflict or animosity just before divorce is a strong predictor of how the kids will fare after the separation.
But when comparing children of single parents who were widowed compared to single parents who were divorced – the data shows that the prognosis of children of widowed single parents falls right inbetween children of divorced single parents and children of two-parent households, on average. Thus multiple factors are at play and it’s complex.
The takeaway message appears to be that getting separated may be better for the child than staying together in a high-conflict household, and the negative effects can be reduced if both parents are financially stable and can stay amicable to support each other afterwards despite their differences.
Single parents themselves have it worse when it comes to sleep deprivation – and therefore the greater risk of problems like irritability, appetite problems, fatigue, chronic stress, physical and mental health issues – because of not being able to share some of the duties with another parent. Single parents generally have it tough for having to juggle a lot of things on their own.
Meanwhile, the genders and sexual orientations of parents have no known effects on children. The well-being of children is affected much more by the quality of their relationships with their parents, their parents’ sense of competence and security, and the presence of wider familial social and economic support. If you express moments of unconditional warmth towards your children every single day, such as a compliment, a hug or empathy regarding whatever they’re going through, then any (inevitable) conflicts you’ll have with them will be far more easily forgiven. Meow.
The religious and spiritual beliefs of parents play a role in predicting the moral values of children, but less so than differences in socio-economic status and a child’s developmental age, and only a little more so than one’s country of origin.
These are once more only incredibly broad generalisations but atheist children are less likely to care about what the ‘cool’ kids think and are less likely to express bigoted beliefs. Non-religious children are more likely to share more of their stickers than Christian or Muslim children. Christians and Muslims see similar pushing or bumping actions as being more mean and recommend harsher punishments for committing such actions than non-religious children. And non-religious adults are less likely to be vengeful, less likely to be authoritarian and more likely to be tolerant than religious adults. What might at least partly explain the relatively lower tolerance expressed by religious children and adults is the inherent conservatism instilled by the generally strict tenets and rules taught by religions?
All this data is, I repeat, only correlational and are sample averages, where summary statistics like averages apply to the sample as a whole, not necessarily to every selected individual within that sample. Religious families generally also differ from non-religious families in many other ways too, on average, hence there are many potential confounds (e.g. richer or higher-educated people tend to be less religious) hence it’s hard to say whether less bigotry and greater tolerance are caused by non-belief?
One thing we can say though is that it means that these, contestably positive, moral outcomes are possible to achieve without religion. This sort of conclusion is something we can logically read from the correlational data. Children don’t necessarily need to be raised with a religion to learn morality – although what one ultimately regards as moral or immoral will be shaped by one’s religious beliefs or lack thereof (e.g. attitudes towards different races, homosexuality or abortion).
Religious households do report higher levels of happiness despite on average being less educated and affluent, but this is only true in predominantly religious countries i.e. following the surrounding social norm regarding religiosity/non-religiosity is a greater predictor of happiness. But if we’re not personally religious and live in a country that’s predominantly religious, it’ll be difficult trying to convince ourselves of the existence of a god(s) just because we think it’ll improve our happiness.
A common belief in a god(s) can bring people together to create a more cohesive community – so perhaps, rather than believing in a god(s), it might actually be to do with attending social practices and community events (which religious people regularly do) that more precisely matters and predicts greater happiness? And this can be incorporated into one’s life secularly without a theist wrapper.
So whether you are religious or not – it’s important for you and your child to regularly attend social and community events (rather than just pray or meditate alone), to build and reinforce your physical social networks, community and neighbourhood, and to be active in them in a way that augments strong fluffy connections and social support in your daily or weekly life.
…If an adolescent’s parents prefer to listen to a certain genre of music, are wearing a certain style of clothing, are mostly on a particular social media platform, etc. then adolescents of a particular generation will tend to want to listen to their own genres, wear their own styles, and mostly be on different platforms where possible compared to their parents’ generation because, at this age, it’s not considered ‘cool’ to behave or be seen like the same as one’s parents! (Adolescents are the most rebellious, most radical and least conservative age group overall. So don’t be surprised to find that most activists are students.)
People try harder to like what those they like or admire like. People also try harder to like what’s supposedly ‘cool’ amongst their peers so that they can consider themselves part of the ‘cool’ group too.
But what it means to be ‘cool’ can change as people age, thus if people stick to their perceptions of what’s ‘cool’ as an adolescent and take that into their adult years, they’ll find themselves being viewed as distinctly ‘uncool’ amongst their peers as adults! For example, the predictable rebelliousness, or being able to drink gallons of beer in one night, might have been considered ‘cool’ during one’s adolescent years, but if one continues to think that these behaviours will enhance one’s status as an adult, one will highly likely receive disapproval from one’s peers.
So whilst high likeability and peer acceptance during adolescence is associated with a higher education, higher employment rates, a greater economic status and better health even in late adulthood – having a high status too soon and getting stuck in thinking that those pseudo-mature behaviours, like socially drinking a lot, are actual mature behaviours can lead to problems, at least in early adulthood.
Therefore being likeable is important throughout anyone’s life, but being popular in a ‘cool’ status sense and caring about this kind of popularity is not. As a consequence – how ‘cool’ one was when young won’t reliably predict who will be liked when older.
Because what’s considered ‘cool’ also depends in large part upon what our immediate peers think – being highly popular isn’t always correlated with good outcomes because it can depend on which crowd one ends up hanging around with, and what risky behaviours that crowd encourages. Regarding sexual risk behaviours, a high level of status when young appears to correlate with taking greater risks, and vice-versa (for both girls and boys). Obesity, diabetes, hypertension and other metabolic syndrome-related health problems in adulthood are higher amongst low-popularity adolescents though. Wider cultural and familial influences also play a role in shaping our risky behaviours towards our health. One’s level of likeability gives mixed results in general – with rejected, controversial and popular adolescents all taking risks. For more about risk-taking behaviours during adolescence, you can read Post No.: 0639.
Cultures can change as well too. For instance, smoking cigarettes isn’t regarded as ‘cool’ amongst young people today compared to for generations in the past, although e-cigarettes or vaping have grown in popularity more recently simply because they didn’t exist until relatively recently. These are relatively better for one’s health than regular cigarettes but they’re not risk-free. They’re not better than not smoking anything at all.
Meow. So we’ve just investigated some overall effects of divorce and having single parents, religious upbringings, and additionally influences concerning what’s considered ‘cool’, on children. But they are merely based on correlational data and will not apply to everybody’s individual cases.
Comment on this post by replying to this tweet:
