Reviewing Research

I was reading an article published in the Regent University Law Review in favor of traditional marriage type families. One of the arguments was that a father was clearly an important figure for a stable family and a successful child. The articles cited were these:

Econ: Greg J. Duncan et al., Economic Deprivation and Early Childhood Development, 65 Child Dev. 296 (1994); Abbie K. Frost & Bilge Pakiz, The Effects of Marital Disruption on Adolescents: Time as a Dynamic, 60 Am. J. Orthopsychiatry 544 (1990); M. Eileen Matlack et al., Family Correlates of Social Skill Deficits in Incarcerated and Non-incarcerated Adolescents, 29 Adolescence 117 (1994).

Psychology: John Beer, Relation of Divorce to Self-Concepts and Grade Point Averages of Fifth Grade School Children, 65 Psychol. Rep. 104 (1989); Virginia Smith Harvey, Characteristics of Children Referred to School Psychologists: A Discriminant Analysis, 28 Psychol. in Schools 209 (1991); Beverly Raphael et al., The Impact of Parental Loss on Adolescents' Psychological Characteristics, 25 Adolescence.

Education: Paul R. Amato & Bruce Keith, Parental Divorce and Adult Well-being: A Meta Analysis, 53 J. Marriage & The Family 43 (1991); Donna Goldberg et al., Which Newborns in New York City Are at Risk for Special Education Placement?

Emotion: Darin R. Featherstone et al., Differences in School Behavior and Achievement Between Children From Intact, Reconstituted and Single-Parent Families, 27 Adolescence 1 (1992).

Another article I came across was this one, which cited the following:

(Kristin Anderson Moore, et al., “Marriage From a Child’s Perspective: How Does Family Structure Affect Children, and What Can We Do about It?” Child Trends Research Brief (June 2002): 1.)

(Mary Parke, “Are Married Parents Really Better for Children?” Center for Law and Social Policy, Policy Brief (May 2003): 1)

(Ronald P. Rohner and Robert A. Veneziano, “The Importance of Father Love: History and Contemporary Evidence,” Review of General Psychology 5.4 (2001): 382-405)

(Deborah A. Dawson, "Family Structure and Children's Health and Well-being: Data from the National Health Interview Survey on Child Health," Journal of Marriage and the Family, 53 (1991): 573 -584)

(Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen, My Brother’s Keeper: What the Social Sciences Do (and Don’t) Tell Us About Masculinity, (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2002), p. 121)

(David Popenoe, Life Without Father: Compelling New Evidence That Fatherhood and Marriage are Indispensable of the Good of Children and Society, (New York: The Free Press, 1996), p. 197)

(Sara McLanahan and Gary Sandefur, Growing Up with a Single Parent: What Hurts, What Helps, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994), p. 38)

These were the sources cited. Assuming that the studies were entirely accurate and had no experimental errors, what can we extrapolate from the titles?

Two parents and marital stability are clearly important for a child.

But at this point, one might ask whether a father is clearly important for a child as well.

The answer is that the studies (at least, judging from their names) don't control for that. They don't control for same-sex male parents or same-sex female parents. They control for a "father-like" figure, but why can't a female (who has been married to the wife before the child was born/adopted) become the "father-like" figure?

Granted, I haven't read these studies, but to use these studies to immediately endorse traditional marriages is a practice in gross ignorance.

That's not to say that, were these studies conducted with the proper controls for parents married before the child was born, they would still lack value. That's to say that one should refrain from jumping to heinous conclusions.