13.2 Families and Children

No one doubts that genes affect personality as well as ability, that peers are vital, and that schools and cultures influence what, and how much, children learn. Some go farther, suggesting that genes, peers, and communities have so much influence that parenting has little impact—unless it is grossly abusive (Harris, 1998, 2002; McLeod et al., 2007). This suggestion arose from studies about the impact of the environment on child development.

Shared and Nonshared Environments

Many studies have found that children are much less affected by shared environment (influences that arise from being in the same environment, such as for two siblings living in one home, raised by their parents) than by nonshared environment (e.g., the different experiences of two siblings).

Most personality traits and intellectual characteristics can be traced to genes and nonshared environments, with little left over for the shared influence of being raised by the same parents. Even psychopathology, happiness, and sexual orientation (Burt, 2009; Långström et al., 2010; Bartels et al., 2013) arise primarily from genes and nonshared environment.

Family Unity Thinking about any family—even a happy, wealthy family like this one—makes it apparent that each child’s family experiences differ. For instance, would you expect this 5-year-old boy to be treated the same way as his two older sisters? And how about each child’s feelings toward the parents? Even though the 12-year-olds are twins, one may favor her mother while the other favors her father.

RADIUS IMAGES/MASTERFILE

Since many research studies find that shared environment has little impact, could it be that parents are merely caretakers, necessary for providing basic care (food, shelter) but inconsequential no matter what rules, routines, or responses they provide? If a child becomes a murderer or a hero, don’t blame or credit the parents!

Recent findings, however, reassert parent power. The analysis of shared and nonshared influences was correct, but the conclusion was based on a false assumption. Siblings raised together do not share the same environment.

For example, if relocation, divorce, unemployment, or a new job occurs in a family, the impact depends on each child’s age, genes, resilience, and gender. Moving to another town upsets a school-age child more than an infant, divorce harms boys more than girls, poverty may hurt the preschoolers the most, and so on.

The age and gender variations above do not apply for all siblings: Differential sensitivity means that one child is more affected, for better or worse, than another (Pluess & Belsky, 2010). When siblings are raised together, the mix of genes, age, and gender may lead one child to become antisocial, another to have a personality disorder, and a third to be resilient, capable, and strong (Beauchaine et al., 2009). This applies even to monozygotic twins, as the following explains.

Family Function and Family Structure

Family structure refers to the legal and genetic connections among related people living in the same household. Families are single-parent families, or stepfamilies, or three-generational families, and so on. Family function refers to how a family cares for its members: Some families function well, others are dysfunctional.

Function is more important than structure; everyone always needs family love and encouragement, which can come from parents, grandparents, siblings, or any other family member. Beyond that, people’s needs differ depending on how old they are: Infants need responsive caregiving, teenagers need guidance, young adults need freedom, the aged need respect.

What do school-age children need? Ideally, families provide five things:

1. Physical necessities. Although 6- to 11-year-olds eat, dress, and go to sleep without help, families provide food, clothing, and shelter.
2. Learning. These are prime learning years: Families support, encourage, and guide education.
3. Self-respect. Because children at about age 6 become much more self-critical and socially aware, families provide opportunities for success (in sports, the arts, or other arenas if academic success is difficult).
4. Peer relationships. Families choose schools and neighborhoods with friendly children, and then arrange play dates, group activities, overnights, and so on.
5. Harmony and stability. Families provide protective, predictable routines with a home that is a safe, peaceful haven.

Single Parents Of all the households with children, a rising percentage of them are headed by a single parent. In some countries, many households are headed by two unmarried parents, a structure not shown here.

Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2010.

The final item on the list above is especially crucial in middle childhood: Children cherish safety and stability, not change (Turner et al., 2013). Ironically, many parents move from one neighborhood or school to another during these years. Children who move frequently are significantly harmed, academically and psychologically, but resilience is possible (Cutuli et al., 2013).

The problems arising from instability are evident for U.S. children in military families. Enlisted parents tend to have higher incomes, better health care, and more education than do civilians from the same backgrounds. But they have one major disadvantage. Military children (dubbed “military brats”) have more emotional problems and lower school achievement than do their peers from civilian families for the following reason:

The U.S. military has instituted a special program to help children whose parents are deployed. Caregivers of such children are encouraged to avoid changes in the child’s life: no new homes, new rules, or new schools (Lester et al., 2011).

Worldwide today there are more single-parent households, more divorces and remarriages, and fewer children per family than in the past (see Visualizing Development, p. 377). The specifics vary from decade to decade and nation to nation (see Figure 13.1). Nevertheless, although the proportions differ, the problems are similar worldwide.

Almost two-thirds of all U.S. school-age children live with two married parents (see Table 13.2), most often their biological parents. A nuclear family is a family composed only of children and their biological parents (married or not). Other two-parent structures include adoptive, foster, grandparents without parents, stepfamilies, and same-sex couples.

Rates of single-parenthood vary greatly worldwide (see Visualizing Development); about 31 percent of all U.S. 6-to-11 year olds live in a single-parent family. Some observers think more than 31 percent of U. S. children are in single-parent families since more than half of all contemporary U.S. children will live in a single-parent family before they reach age 18. However, as far as we can deduce, at any given moment most 6- to 11-year-olds are living with two parents.

The distinction between one-parent, two-parent, and extended families is not as simple in practice as it is on paper. Many young parents live near relatives who provide meals, emotional support, money, and child care, functioning as an extended family. The opposite is true as well, especially in developing nations: Some extended families share a household, but create separate living quarters for each set of parents and children, making these units somewhat like two-parent families (Georgas et al., 2006).

In many nations, the polygamous family (one husband with two or more wives) is an acceptable family structure. Generally in polygamous families, income per child is reduced, and education, especially for the girls, is limited (Omariba & Boyle, 2007). Polygamy is rare—and illegal—in the United States. Even in nations where it is allowed, polygamy is less common than it was 30 years ago. In Ghana, for example, men with several wives and a dozen children are now a rarity (Heaton & Darkwah, 2011).

Connecting Family Structure and Function

More important for the children is not the structure of their family but how that family functions. The two are related; structure influences (but does not determine) function. The crucial question is whether the structure makes it more or less likely that the five family functions mentioned earlier (physical necessities, learning, self-respect, friendship, and harmony/stability) will be fulfilled.

Same Situation, Far Apart: Happy Families The boys in both photos are about 4 years old. Roberto (left) lives with his single mother in Chicago. She pays $360 a month for her two children to attend a day-care center. The youngest child in the Balmedina family (right) lives with his nuclear family—no day care needed—in the Philippines. Which boy has the better life? The answer is not known; family function is more crucial than family structure.

AP PHOTO/CHARLES REX ARBOGAST
GREG ELMS/GETTY IMAGES

VISUALIZING DEVELOPMENT

A Wedding, or Not? Family Structures Around the World

Children fare best when both parents actively care for them every day. This is most likely to occur if the parents are married, although there are many exceptions. Many developmentalists now focus on the rate of single parenthood, shown on this map. Some single parents raise children well, but the risk of neglect, poverty, and instability in single-parent households increases the chances of child problems.

RATES OF SINGLE PARENTHOOD

SOURCE: SOCIAL TRENDS INSTITUTE, 2012.

A young couple in love and committed to each other—what next?

COPEN, ET AL (2012); US CENSUS BUREAU (2012);

Cohabitation and marriage rates change from year to year and from culture to culture. These two examples are illustrative and approximate. Family-structure statistics like these often focus on marital status and may make it seem as if Nigerian children are more fortunate than American children. However, actual household functioning is more complex than that, and involves many other factors.

On average, nuclear families function best; children in the nuclear structure tend to achieve better in school with fewer psychological problems. A scholar who summarized dozens of studies concludes: “Children living with two biological married parents experience better educational, social, cognitive, and behavioral outcomes than do other children” (Brown, 2010, p. 1062). Why? Does this mean that parents should all marry and stay married? Not necessarily: Some benefits are correlates, not causes.

Education, earning potential, and emotional maturity all make it more likely that people will marry, have children, stay married, and establish a nuclear family. Thus, brides and grooms tend to have personal assets before they marry, and those assets are brought to their new family. That means that the correlation between child success and married parents occurs partly because of who marries, not because of the wedding.

Income also correlates with family structure. Usually, if everyone can afford it, relatives live independently, apart from the married couple. That means that, at least in the United States, an extended family suggests that someone is financially dependent.

These two factors explain some of the correlation, but not all of it. After marriage, ideally, mutual affection encourages both partners to become wealthier and healthier than either would be alone. This often occurs—the selection effects noted in the previous paragraph are not the entire story (Amato, 2005; Brown, 2010). A parental alliance, whereby mother and father support each other in their mutual commitment to the child, is crucial. [Lifespan Link: The parental alliance and its importance were discussed in Chapter 4.]

Shared parenting decreases the risk of child maltreatment and makes it more likely that children will have someone to read to them, check their homework, invite their friends over, buy them new clothes, and save for their education. Of course, having two married parents does not guarantee an alliance. One of my students wrote:

This student is now a single parent, having twice married, given birth, and divorced. She is one example of a general finding. The effects of a childhood family can echo in adulthood. For college students, this effect may be financial as well as psychological. A survey of college tuition payments found that nuclear families provided the most money for college.

This was not simply because two-parent families are wealthier, on average, than one-parent families. Even remarried parents, whose family income is comparable to that of nuclear parents, contribute less, on average, to children from their first marriage (Turley & Desmond, 2011).

Adoptive and same-sex parents function well for children, as do stepfamilies if a single biological parent chooses a new partner who will be a good parent. Especially when children are under age 2 and the stepparent forms a close and loving relationship with the biological parent, the children may thrive (Ganong et al., 2011). Of course, no structure always functions well, but circumstances (such as biological connections, or adoptive choices) nudge in the right direction.

Middle American Family This photo seems to show a typical breakfast in Brunswick, Ohio—Cheerios for 1-year-old Carson, pancakes that 7-year-old Carter does not finish eating, and family photos crowded on the far table. The one apparent difference—that both parents are women—does not necessarily create or avoid children’s problems.

DAVID MAXWELL/THE NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX

Considerable research has focused on stepparent families. The primary advantage of this family structure is financial, especially when compared with most single-parent families. The primary disadvantage is in meeting the fifth family function listed earlier—providing harmony and stability.

Stability is threatened not only by the inevitable instability of having a new parent. Compared with other two-parent families, stepfamilies move more often, older stepchildren are more likely to leave, babies who are half-brothers or sisters may capture parental attention and affection, and divorce is more common (Teachman, 2008a).

Harmony is difficult to achieve (Martin-Uzzi, & Duval-Tsioles, 2013). Often the child’s loyalty to both biological parents is challenged by ongoing disputes between them. A solid parental alliance is elusive when it includes three adults—two of whom disliked each other enough to divorce, plus another adult who is a newcomer to the child.

Children who are given a stepparent may be angry or sad; they often create problems, and hence disagreements, for their remarried parents. Further, disputes between half-siblings in blended families are common. Remember, however, that structure affects function but does not determine it. Some stepparent families are difficult for children, but others function well for everyone (van Eeden-Moorefield & Pasley, 2013).

Finally, when grandparents provide full-time care without parents present (called a skipped-generation family, the most common form of foster care), the hope is that their experience and maturity will benefit the children. However, on average, grandparent families have lower incomes, more health problems, and less stability than other two-parent families. The children often have ADHD or learning disabilities.

Skipped-generation families are less likely to get services for children with special needs, to find responsive judges, schools, and social workers, or even to find neighbors and friends to share child care (Baker & Mutchler, 2010; Hayslip & Smith, 2013). This is true when both grandparents are caregivers; it is even more true when a grandmother alone is the caregiver, which is the usual case.

On average, the single-parent structure functions less well for children because single parents have less income and stability than two-parent families. Most single parents fill many roles—including wage earner, daughter or son (single parents often depend on their own parents), and lover (many seek a new partner)—which makes it hard for them to provide steady emotional and academic support for their schoolchildren. If they are depressed (and many are), they are less available to meet their children’s needs. Neesha in the following case is an example.

One correlate of support is whether or not the community, ethnic group, or nation helps single parents. More than half of African American 6- to 11-year-olds live with only one parent (Figure 13.2). They might be less isolated and dysfunctional because their experience is so common (Cain & Combs-Orme, 2005; Taylor et al., 2008), and often relatives and friends help.

Diverse Families The fact that family structure is affected partly by ethnicity has implications for everyone in the family. It is easier to be a single parent if there are others of the same background who are also single parents.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2011.

In some European nations, single parents are given many public resources; in other nations, they are shamed as well as unsupported. Children benefit or suffer accordingly.

All these are generalities: Contrary to the averages, thousands of nuclear families are destructive, thousands of stepparents provide excellent care, and thousands of single-parent families are wonderful. Structure may encourage or undercut healthy function, but many parents overcome structural problems to support their children, as explained now.

Family Trouble

Two factors interfere with family function in every structure, ethnic group, and nation: low income and high conflict. Many families experience both because financial stress increases conflict and vice versa (McLanahan, 2009).

A VIEW FROM SCIENCE

Divorce

Scientists try to provide analysis and insight, based on empirical data (of course), but the task goes far beyond reporting facts. Regarding divorce, thousands of studies and several opposing opinions need to be considered, analyzed, and combined—no easy task. One scholar who has attempted this analysis is Andrew Cherlin, who has written 13 books and over 200 articles since 1988.

Among the facts that need analysis are these:

1. The United States leads the world in the rates of marriage, divorce, and remarriage, with almost half of all marriages ending in divorce. Why?
2. Single parents, cohabiting parents, and stepparents sometimes provide good care, but children tend to do best in nuclear families with married parents. Why?
3. Divorce often impairs children’s academic achievement and psychosocial development for years, even decades. Why?

Didn’t Want to Marry This cohabiting couple decided to wed only after they learned that her health insurance would not cover him unless they were legally married. Two years later they had a son, who is now developing happily and well. She is pregnant with their second child, and he is searching for a house to buy. Would this have happened if they were still unmarried?

MASKOT/GETTY IMAGES

The problem, Cherlin (2009) contends, is that U.S. culture is conflicted: Marriage is idolized, but so is personal freedom. As a result, many people assert their independence by marrying without consulting their parents or community. Then, when child care becomes overwhelming and family or public support is lacking, the marriage becomes strained, so they divorce. Because marriage remains the ideal, they blame their former mate or their own poor decision, not the institution.

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Consequently, they seek another marriage, which may lead to another divorce. (Divorced people are more likely to remarry than single people their age are to marry, but second marriages fail more often than first marriages.) All this is in accord with personal freedom, but repeated transitions harm children.

This leads to a related insight. Cherlin suggests that the main reason children are harmed by divorce—as well as by cohabitation, single parenthood, and stepparenthood—is not the legal status of their parents but the lack of stability. For example, divorces typically include numerous disruptions: in residence, in school, in family members, and—this may be crucial—in the relationship between child and parent. Divorced parents may become too strict or too lenient, impose premature responsibility or independence, or trouble the child by sharing confidences that relieve their own loneliness.

Scholars now describe divorce as a process, with transitions and conflicts before and after the formal event (Magnuson & Berger, 2009; Potter, 2010). As you remember, resilience is difficult when the child must contend with repeated changes and ongoing hassles—yet that is what divorce brings. Coping is particularly hard when children are at an age that involves a developmental transition, such as entering first grade or beginning puberty.

Beyond analysis and insight, the other task of developmental science is to provide practical suggestions. Most scholars would agree with the following:

1. Marriage commitments need to be made slowly and carefully, to minimize the risk of divorce. It takes time to develop intimacy and commitment.
2. Once married, couples need to work to keep the relationship strong. Often happiness dips after the birth of the first child. Knowing that, new parents need to do together what they love—dancing, traveling, praying, whatever.
3. Divorcing parents need to minimize transitions and maintain a child’s relationships with both parents. Often a mediator—who advocates for the child, not for either parent—can help. (Mediators are required in some U.S. jurisdictions.)
4. In middle childhood, schools can provide vital support. Routines, friendships, and academic success may be especially crucial when a child’s family is chaotic.

This may sound idealistic. However, another scientist, who has also studied divorced families for decades, writes:

Although divorce leads to an increase in stressful life events, such as poverty, psychological and health problems in parents, and inept parenting, it also may be associated with escape from conflict, the building of new more harmonious fulfilling relationships, and the opportunity for personal growth and individuation.

[Hetherington, 2006, p. 204]

Not every parent should marry, not every marriage should continue, and not every child is devastated by divorce. However, every child benefits from all five family functions. Adults can provide that. Scientists hope they do.

Family income correlates with both function and structure. Marriage rates fall in times of recession, and divorce correlates with unemployment. The effects of poverty are cumulative; low socioeconomic status (SES) may be especially damaging for children if it begins in infancy and continues in middle childhood (Duncan et al., 2010).

Several scholars have developed the family-stress model, which holds that any risk factor (such as low income, divorce, single parenthood, unemployment) damages a family if, and only if, it increases stress. Poverty is less stressful if low income is temporary and the family’s net worth (home ownership, investments, and so on) buffers the strain (Yeung & Conley, 2008). However, if economic hardship is ongoing and parents have little education, the result is increased stress. Adults become tense and hostile toward their partners and children (Conger et al., 2002). Thus, the reaction to poverty is crucial.

Reaction to wealth may also cause problems. Children in high-income families develop more than their share of developmental problems. One reason may be parental pressure on the children to excel, which creates externalizing and internalizing problems in middle childhood that lead to drug use, delinquency, and poor academic performance (Ansary & Luthar, 2009).

Remember the dynamic-systems perspective described in Chapter 1? That perspective applies to income: Multigenerational research finds that poverty is both a cause and a symptom of emotional and learning problems.

Adults whose upbringing included less education and impaired emotional control are more likely to have difficulty finding employment and raising their children, and then low income adds to their difficulties (Schofield et al., 2011). Health problems in infancy may lead to “biologically embedded” stresses that impair adult well-being, and that affects the next generation (Masten, 2013).

If all this is so, more income means better family functioning. For example, children in single-mother households do much better if their father pays child support, even if he is not actively involved in the child’s daily life (Huang, 2009). Nations that subsidize single parents (e.g., Austria and Iceland) also have smaller achievement gaps between low- and middle-SES children on the TIMSS. This finding is suggestive, but controversial and value-laden. Some developmentalists report that raising income does not, by itself, improve parenting (L. M. Berger et al., 2009).

There is no controversy about conflict: Every researcher agrees that family conflict harms children, especially when adults fight about child rearing. Such fights are more common in stepfamilies, divorced families, and extended families, but nuclear families are not immune. In every family, children suffer not only if they are abused, physically or emotionally, but also if they are merely witness to their parents’ fighting. Fights between siblings can be harmful, too (Turner et al., 2013).

Researchers wonder whether one reason that children are emotionally troubled in families with feuding parents is inherited tendencies, instead of directly caused by seeing the parents fight. The idea is that the parents’ genes lead to marital problems, and that those same genes lead to children’s difficulties. If that is the case, then it doesn’t matter if children are aware of their parents’ conflicts.

This idea was tested in a longitudinal study of 867 twin pairs (388 monozygotic pairs and 479 dizygotic pairs), all married with an adolescent child. Each adolescent was compared to his or her cousin, the child of one parent’s twin (Schermerhorn et al., 2011). Thus, this study had data on family conflict from 5,202 individuals—one-third of them adult twins, one-third of them spouses of twins, and one-third of them adolescents.

The researchers found that, although genes had some effect, witnessing conflict itself had a powerful effect on the children, causing externalizing problems in the boys and internalizing problems in the girls. In this study, quiet disagreements did not much harm the child, but open conflict (such as yelling when children could hear) or divorce did (Schermerhorn et al., 2011). That leads to an obvious conclusion: Parents should not fight in front of the children.