This Week In Irritating Moralism
By I’d been meaning to write about Emily Yoffe’s hectoring of single mothers, but was delayed by a massive pile of Real Work and a bad flu. Fortunately for all of you, Lauren beat me to it. To add a couple quick points:
- Comparisons of how children fare in existing two-parent and single-parent households have an obvious selection bias problem. Even if in the average case a stable, two-parent household is preferable, to study relationships among couples that stay together is obviously to bias the study toward people who want long-term relationships and are compatible. It doesn’t follow from this that staying in a crappy relationship or being married although it isn’t what you want would provide an equally good environment for children.
- I’m reminded of Laura Kipnis‘s point that in the U.S. “sentimentality about children’s welfare comes and goes apparently: highest when there’s a chance to moralize about adult behavior, lowest when it comes to resource allocation.” There’s nothing inevitable about the dire financial circumstances and tough choices that many single parents face.
…UPDATE: Good stuff from Amanda as well.