Marriage rates in the United States recently reached an all-time low. On top of that, it is currently estimated that only half of America’s children are raised by married parents. An increasing number of people are beginning to ask, “Are we seeing the death of the nuclear family?” What is particularly striking is that many of the people asking this question do not see the death of the family as a bad thing. As lockdowns were put in place this spring due to COVID-19, several voices suggested that this ought to be the end of traditional family structures. Even well before COVID-19, the nuclear family was being challenged as sexist, oppressive, and even racist.
These critiques generally assume that the nuclear family is an invented concept. However, at the core of the nuclear family is marriage, which does not have a human inventor. Rather, it was created and ordained by God in the beginning. Because marriage is part of God’s good design, the benefits of stable, two-parent families are not a surprise, nor is it surprising that there are serious, tragic effects when God’s design is ignored. These effects do not come about because the nuclear family is an oppressive construct, but because the nuclear family is good.
The effects of family breakdown are felt by children and parents alike. Cohabitating couples are more likely to experience poverty than married couples, and unmarried men typically earn less and are less successful in their careers than married men. A recent congressional report noted that,
Researchers have well established that children raised by married parents do better on a wide array of outcomes. They have stronger relationships with their parents, particularly with their fathers. They are also much less likely to experience physical, emotional or sexual abuse. They have better health, exhibit less aggression, are less likely to engage in delinquent behavior, have greater educational achievement, and earn more as adults. They are also far less likely to live in poverty.
Even when children who do not face poverty while growing up in a single parent home, they frequently struggle in ways that their peers do not.
The breakdown of the family causes real harm, not because the nuclear family is an oppressive system, but because it is a good thing. Taking apart something that was designed for good has negative effects, and the fact that children raised in single-parent homes face significant hurdles is not a partisan issue, but has been agreed upon by the left and right alike. It is also important to acknowledge that this is not an issue that is limited to any one racial demographic. Recent years have seen staggeringly high non-marital birthrates among black, white, and Hispanic Americans, and although the black community has the highest rate or non-marital births, the percentage of non-marital births has grown most rapidly among white women. Commenting on this trend, Ian Rowe of the American Enterprise Institute wrote, “…the decline in family structure is an existential challenge facing communities of all backgrounds and one that all should tackle together.”
Strong, happy marriages benefit men and women, as well as their children. Children thrive when they have a mother and father, and while we can and should reach out and care for children who are facing fatherlessness, communities cannot replace fathers. As Brad Wilcox pointed out, “The relationship between nuclear families and larger communities is more symbiotic than substitutionary, more interdependent than interchangeable.”
The fact that children without two parents do not fare as well with those who have two parents is not a reason to abolish the nuclear family; it is a reason to invest in strengthening the nuclear family. We should celebrate marriage because it is a good thing, and we should speak and act in a way that communicates the goodness of marriage. We should also recognize factors that can lead to a marriage collapsing and do what we can to alleviate those strains. In addition to seeking to build strong marriages, be the hands and feet of Christ by investing in the lives of parents and children who are affected by family brokenness. Because we know that the effects of an absent parent are real, we should make it a priority to befriend, support, and care for single parents and their children, as well as children in the foster care system who have temporarily or permanently been separated from their families.
Marriage and family as God designed them are good things that should be celebrated, not abolished. The negative effects of family breakdown exist, not because two-parent family structures are oppressive, but because families built around marriage between a man and a woman follow God’s design, and breaking with that design causes harm.
(Image: Flickr, Perpetual Fostering)
