It's extraordinarily well-documented how much of a disadvantage children from single-mother households have over children whose parents remain together, but less well-documented is how much of a disadvantage they have over single-father households.
For example, studies have found that children that from single-mother households are 5 times more likely to commit suicide than children from both unbroken households and single-father households, 9 times more likely to drop out of high school, 10 times more likely to abuse chemical substances, 14 times more likely to commit rape, 20 times more likely to end up in prison and 32 times more likely to run away from home.
The list does not stop there, single-mother households also account for 70% of all teen pregnancies, 70% of all child murders, and they account for the majority of filicide cases, which means yes, a child living in a single-mother household is the most likely to be murdered by their parent.
Most at this point will probably think that the stepfather is the main killer and reason; however, studies have found this to be false and that stepparents are no more likely to kill children than their biological counterparts.
This means inevitably, that single mothers are on average the biggest killers of children, some studies even show that mothers are the biggest killers of children overall. Though, it should be noted that others show it to be fathers, while others show that men and women are equally as likely to kill their children.
Regardless of the dynamics of this complex point, all of this seems crazy considering the consensus is mothers make better parents on average than fathers, yet the data seemingly says otherwise.
In fact, the only disadvantage to living with just your father rather than both of your parents appears to be that you are more likely to be promiscuous in adulthood, which isn't even a problem.
I mean it's crazy, and as a mother, it makes no sense to me, mainly because it all seems to imply that men don't need women to raise children well, but women need men.
The question is, what gives, have we all got it wrong and fathers are actually the better parents?
Many argue economics must be the difference — they are wrong
It's popular to say that because single mothers are more likely to be in poverty that it must be economic differences that explain the data; however, studies have found that economics does not explain it, it's the same story even if the single mother is not in poverty.
I was actually surprised by this and so went to my kids' school — they are at a rather expensive private school — and I asked the teachers, and they told me that more often than not the children that caused the most problems and have the most problems tend to come from single mother households.
I asked specifically if they ever noticed the same problem from single father households. They highlighted how single-father households were much rarer, but that they did not notice the same problems.
My partner works at a university and he tells me the same story, when it comes to the students, the ones he normally has the most trouble with, and the ones most likely to drop out and skip lectures, come from, you guessed it, single-mother households.
However, even though single-father households are rarer, he has not ever noticed the same problem from such households.
But if it's not economics, what is it, are men on average just better at single parenthood?
The devil is in the detail, and to understand what is going on we must look at the details i.e. we must break down the data
It would be easy to conclude resoundingly that fathers are just on average better at single parenthood, it would even be easy to argue that men are perhaps the more important parent.
I've heard arguments to this tune before, with the idea being that because this is more a man's world i.e. full of direct conflict and ruthless competition, men are better at preparing children to handle such environments which makes them more important as parents — at least on average.
However, it is just not as simple as that.
This is because despite economics not being the factor, the data comparing single-father households to single-mother is heavily distorted by several other factors, factors which explain why the data shows what it does, and which shows that it's not because men make better single parents or are the more important influence.
What's really going on
Firstly, it is much easier on average for a single father to fill his children's lives with strong and positive female influences than it is for a single mother to fill her children's with strong and positive male influences.
Whether it be the father's mother getting stuck in, whether it be the father's sister stepping in, whether it be a teacher — of which there are many options mainly because female teachers greatly outnumber male teachers — whether it be all of the latter and more, the options available to men are just more prevalent, willing and accessible.
This matters because there is simply no escaping it, children benefit greatly from having an equal number of positive male and female influences in their lives, yet women struggle more to create this world for their children after a breakup than men — many struggle to create this world even when they are still with their men.
This puts single mothers at a disadvantage compared to single fathers, and this disadvantage is further exacerbated due to the romantic front.
Here is why, not only do single mothers struggle to find positive male influences in the wider world, they struggle to find them in the romantic world as well.
This is because women are far happier to take on a man with children than men are to take on a woman with children.
I would even go as far as saying that women often find men with children more attractive than their childless counterparts (I know I always have), whereas men typically find women with children less attractive i.e. they don't want to take on the responsibility of those children.
Not just that, biology also plays a part, mothers through their actions tend to teach their sons to aspire for unconditional love from a partner, but it is hard to get that if that partner already has a child. Fathers on the other hand tend to through their actions teach their daughters to aspire for a partner who takes on responsibility, a man with a child tends to prove he is such a man.
Yup, biology screws single mothers in love but gives single fathers a boost.
To make matters worse, the single-mother romantic disadvantage doesn't stop there, I spoke to a friend of mine who works in child psychology, and he told me that in his experience children tend to find it much easier to countenance a father entering a romantic relationship than a mother simply because we tend to want our mothers all to ourselves.
Yup, children's need for nurture from their mother, and want of unconditional love and of being the centre of their mother's attention, can give mothers a real problem when looking for a new partner.
Fathers though have less of a problem on this front — at least in comparison.
All of this combines to make it on average harder for a mother to find a worthy replacement father figure for her children than it is for a father to find a worthy replacement mother figure, and this really matters when it comes to raising children because children do much better if they have both a mother and father figure in their life — positive ones at that.
So, because single fathers on average find it easier to bring positive female influences into the lives of their children on every level, inevitably their children gain on average an advantage over the children of single mothers, who struggle to replace the loss of the father.
And the advantages that single fathers have over single mothers don't stop there, there are more.
Women are more prone to mental health problems than men — this matters
It's well documented that women are far more likely on average to succumb to stress and mental health problems than men are, with women being near twice as likely to suffer depression and other stress-related mental health problems than men.
Inevitably, this means a single mother is more likely to suffer from mental health problems than a single father.
If a parent suffers mental health problems, it typically causes trouble for the children. Because women are more prone to mental health problems, you guessed it, single-mother households inevitably succumb to these problems more than single-father households.
This inevitably again gives single-father households an advantage over single-mother i.e. they are more likely to be healthy places.
So, just to round up, single fathers on average find it easier to find positive female influences than single mothers do positive male, and single fathers are on average less likely to succumb to mental health problems, and these factors give single fathers a substantial advantage over single mothers.
At least in these areas. That matters. Single mothers have advantages in other areas, which is the point, sometimes the mother will be the better option in a split, sometimes the father will be.
The problem is, when the father is the better option, he rarely gets custody, and the terrible life outcomes data from single-motherhood statistics is capturing the repercussions of this inequality.
The best parent does not always get custody — especially if he is male
When it comes to who would be the better custodian in the case of a breakup, on average the mother will more often be the smarter option, she just will, sorry guys, but by nowhere near as wide a margin as people think.
That means there should be a lot more, and I mean a lot more single-father households.
But there isn't, and this is because, for right or wrong, the mother typically is favoured by judges to be the primary carer in a split.
This is one of the leading reasons why so many fathers end up going missing, the judge has given the mother primary care, and this leads the father to eventually just slowly disappear for one reason or another.
Many argue that the fathers are at fault, but considering that the vast majority of fathers report wanting to be more involved with their children's lives, the true story is inevitably more complex and more due to the fact that unless joint custody is given, and properly enforced by the courts, it is simply more difficult for the secondary carer to remain an active part of a child's life — even on a financial level.
This matters because the mother by default is not always the best option, not even close. For example, many women are terrible mothers, they just are, but the courts will favour them over the father in most cases anyway, even if the father clearly would have been the better option, and was willing.
A work colleague of my partner is in this situation, he is an amazing father, but his ex-wife is an awful mother, yet she got primary custody and he struggles to even be allowed to see his children — despite the fact he should be the primary custodian.
Even if the mother is a good parent, sometimes the father is still for an array of reasons the better option, perhaps the mother is prone to mental health problems but the father is not, who knows, what we do know is that when the father is the better option, in most cases he struggles to even get joint custody — let alone the primary he should get.
Because of this, inevitably the data comparing single-mother households to single-father households is massively distorted.
To put it more bluntly, due to the system we have created, when a single father becomes a single father, it is normally either because the mother has abandoned him and their children, is completely unfit to be the mother and so the court has awarded full custody to the father, or it is because the mother has passed away.
So, a single mother who is a poor parent or even who is just not the best option, in the vast majority of cases still gets primary custody, or at worst joint which in many cases is tantamount to primary, whereas the same is not true for single fathers, in most cases a single father becomes a single father because he is the absolute best option — and only then.
This is what the single mother versus single father data is showing, not that single fathers are better than single mothers, but that single fathers only ever get custody if they are absolutely beyond any question of doubt, the best and only option, single mothers on the other hand frequently get custody even when they are by far and away resoundingly the worst option.
That means what this data actually shows is not who makes the better single parent, but the price of inequality i.e. because the courts practice inequality against fathers by always favouring the mother, children pay the price.
Final words
The reason the data shows that children raised in single-mother households are so disadvantaged on average is that women get custody even when they are resoundingly not the best option, until we change that we will continue to have a single-mother problem.
To put it more bluntly, when the father is the best option, we need the courts to identify this and award custody accordingly, and until we start doing that, endless children are going to pay a price they should not be paying.
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