The Power of the 2-Parent Home Is Not a Myth

Among several disturbing elements of Christina Cross’ New York Times op-ed “The Myth of the Two-Parent Home” is the author’s seeming belief that unless growing up with married parents has the same effect on black children as on white youngsters, it is not worthy of endorsement.

Otherwise, asserts the Harvard postdoctoral fellow, “blindly promoting the merits of marriage and the two-parent family is not the answer.”

Her purpose appears to be to show how black families do in comparison to white families, as opposed to what the absolute impact of strengthened family structure would be on black children. Take this excerpt:

"Although in general, youths raised in two-parent families are less likely to live in poverty, black youths raised by both biological parents are still three times more likely to live in poverty than are their white peers. Additionally, black two-parent families have half the wealth of white two-parent families. So, many of the expected economic benefits of marriage and the two-parent family are not equally available to black children."

Yet the research Cross herself cites from the National Center for Education Statistics tells a far more hopeful story about the impact of family structure.

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