Tribes and Marriage
It is sad but uncontroversial that liberals and conservatives have for some years seen basic facts of the world through very different lenses. Three 2014 articles on childhood development and family structure exemplify this.
First consider an April 9, 2014, piece by New York Times’ op-ed writer David Leonhardt entitled “A Link Between Fidgety Boys and a Sputtering Economy.” (Leonhardt is one of the Times’ most unapologetic liberals; his output in recent months has largely been about the evils of Donald Trump.) Leonhardt tries to understand why men are falling behind women economically, despite “all the lingering sexism” he assumes women are battling against. The American economy “looks to be doing pretty well when you focus on girls,” since median female earnings have increased by 35% in the past 25 years, while male earnings haven’t risen at all.
Leonhardt notes that men’s lagging outcomes have roots in childhood, where boys do worse than girls on many measures from an early age. By the time of kindergarten, girls are “more attentive, better behaved, more sensitive, more persistent, more flexible and more independent than boys,” which then translates into an academic gulf that widens as the children age into adolescence.
He doesn’t address the evidence that the rise in single-parent families could be causing or exacerbating this, on the grounds that “the trends seem too broad for family structure to be the only cause.” But he does agree the solution lies in early childhood. His preferred cocktail of remedies includes (a) confronting the fact that “traditional gender roles are misguiding boys,” (b) changing stereotypical hiring practices among elementary teachers by hiring more men to teach kindergarten, and (c) spending more on early childhood education.
Contrast that perspective with an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal published eleven days later, entitled “Ignoring an Inequality Culprit: Single-Parent Families.” This piece was written by two University of Arkansas researchers, Robert Maranto and Michael Crouch. They argue that family structure is hugely important, and specifically that having unmarried parents causes a wide variety of damage to children, including emotional, psychological, behavioral, educational and economic harm. They describe several studies to support this, such as the fact that children in single-parent families are ten times (ten times!) more likely to live in poverty than children in married-parent families. The statistical data establishing the relationship between unmarried parents and poor childhood outcomes “are about as clear as those from smoking to cancer” – and you’d be laughed out of the room if you tried to deny that one.
So why do so many well-meaning people (like Leonhardt) ignore this evidence and refuse to talk about the effect of marriage on children? Maranto and Crouch point out several reasons. For one thing, it often seems pointlessly finger-wagging to talk about family structure. These are ultimately personal choices, at the intersection of individuals’ private desires and a huge variety of complex social forces; there’s just no quick legislative fix to campaign for. “The change must come from long-term societal transformation on this subject, led by political, educational and entertainment elites, similar to the decades-long movements against racism, sexism—and smoking.” This will take many years to fix.
Other reasons owe more to our current intellectual climate. For example, family disintegration is racially correlated, and making public pronouncements about anything that has racial correlations is (sadly) too risky for most people. Moreover, in our highly partisan society, hyper-vigilant social media watchdogs are constantly on the prowl, and they never give the benefit of the doubt to a voice from the ‘other tribe.’ As Maranto and Crouch point out, academics and journalists have been minimizing the importance of marriage for decades, so tipping their caps to conservative arguments would amount to ‘betraying the cause.’
A clear example of this tribalism is shown in Charles Blow’s May 18, 2014, New York Times op-ed, “Poverty Is Not a State of Mind.” Blow’s piece is intended to be a defense of the poor, in response to (purported) attacks on their character by conservatives. Of particular interest is his response to Jeb Bush’s comment that “A loving family taking care of their children in a traditional marriage will create the chance to break out of poverty far better than any of the government programs that we can create." This seems like a straightforward summary of millennia of common sense and decades of sociology research, but Blow can’t accept it.
My qualm with the statement is the insistence on a ‘traditional marriage.’ Loving families, of any formation, can suffice. … In some cases, even parents living apart can offer a nurturing environment for children if they prioritize parenting when it comes to their time and money. Not all parents have to reside together to provide together.
So (in Blow’s mind) because some unmarried couples’ children have good outcomes, it is wrong for a politician like Jeb Bush to generalize that most do much worse. This is akin to criticizing the Surgeon General’s warning because some smokers don’t get cancer. The overwhelming evidence is that smoking is likely to be really bad for you long-term, and the overwhelming evidence is that single-parenting is likely to be really bad for your children long-term. But Blow objects. Why would he make such a ludicrous argument? Because he’s defending his tribe. To acknowledge the importance of marriage on children would be to give ground on abortion and homosexual marriage and the welfare state and the designated hitter rule.
Letting the merits of single-parenting get caught up in broader social disputes seems counter-productive. But what is the answer to tribalism? How do we break our social logjam? Suggestions welcome…
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