Latest / The Lila Rose Show / E114: Why Our Future Depends On Parents w/ Melissa Kearney

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E114: Why Our Future Depends On Parents w/ Melissa Kearney · The Lila Rose Show

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The first thing we have to do is be willing to acknowledge that
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families matter, that what's happened to families in the US
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has not been good for kids. There's a lot of resistance to
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just acknowledging that fundamentally how kids do in
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this world going to come down a lot to parents.
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If you just look at the federal budget, there is typically
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little dedicated to programs that are aimed at strengthening
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and supporting stable and healthy families.
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We haven't made strengthening families a priority.
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Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Lila Rose
0:32
podcast. Today we're going to be talking
0:34
with Melissa Carney, who is a professor of economics at the
0:37
University of Maryland and the author of the two Parent
0:40
Privilege. Now we have a very interesting
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conversation because Melissa lays out her research about why.
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Yes, surprise, surprise, it is best for children to be raised
0:50
by married parents in a two parent household.
0:52
We talk about the challenges for single parents and some of the
0:55
things that we need to do to support single parents.
0:57
We talk about the best public policy and the kind of cultural
1:00
view that we should have as a of a society.
1:03
Towards the end of the conversation, we get into a
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little bit of maybe a disagreement, which is
1:07
interesting, where we talk about if there are differences between
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mothers raising children versus fathers and Melissa's research
1:15
or opinion on that. So you're going to hear that
1:17
towards the end. As always, I hope that you
1:19
enjoyed this episode. I hope it gives you some food
1:21
for thought and also some interesting research that you
1:23
can use in your own conversations and your own work.
1:26
Don't forget to subscribe to the Lila Rose Podcast wherever you
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listen to your podcast and also subscribe on YouTube and ring
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that notification bell so you never miss another episode.
1:35
Melissa Carney, thanks so much for joining the podcast.
1:38
Thanks so much for having me here.
1:40
So your book To Parent Privilege has sparked a fair amount of
1:44
controversy. You'd think that that wouldn't
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be a controversial thing to stand by, that children are best
1:50
off with having two parents and an intact family.
1:52
But there's a lot to get into here.
1:53
So first of all, why did you write to Parent Privilege?
1:58
I wrote the book because I've been studying child well-being
2:02
from an economics perspective and income inequality and
2:05
poverty in the US for over 2 decades.
2:08
And it's just abundantly clear from all of the data and all of
2:12
the evidence and all of the studies that family structure is
2:15
really important to how kids do in this country and to overall
2:19
trends and inequality and child well-being.
2:21
And so I felt like it was long past time that our economic and
2:25
policy conversation around those topics dealt head on with the
2:29
issue of family structure. So that was really what I was
2:32
hoping to accomplish with this book, is putting forward an
2:35
economic case for two parent families and for paying
2:39
attention to what's happened and to try and get strengthening
2:42
families on the policy agenda. Now, you're a professor of
2:45
economics at the University of Maryland, so this is your
2:48
wheelhouse. What was it, though,
2:50
specifically? I mean, there's all kinds of
2:51
things you can study in the field of economics.
2:53
Why was it family structures that personally you came to care
2:58
about personally and obviously focused so much of your research
3:01
on? Yeah, that's a that's an
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interesting question. And I'm trying to, I'm trying to
3:05
think about what brought me to the topic.
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I didn't necessarily set out to study families per SE, but early
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on in my career, actually as an undergraduate, I spent a summer
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working at a welfare to work center.
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I was, you know, I was summer before my senior in college.
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So what was I like 21 years old and I was working at a welfare
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to work center in Bridgeport, CT with a bunch of women about my
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age or younger who were moms. And I was studying economics and
3:30
sociology and policy in college. And it really just got me
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wondering what is it about the economic environment and our
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opportunities that we people to make such different, you know,
3:42
to land in such different places in life?
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So actually the 1st paper I wrote as an undergraduate was
3:47
the economic determinants of when a woman initiates
3:50
childbearing. And so I really came to it
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really with an interest in women more than family structure per
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SE. And what made women more, you
3:59
know, gave us more economic opportunities, etcetera.
4:03
So I think that's initially how I came to the topic of studying
4:06
what's called the economics of fertility or the economics of
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families. And then my, you know, like I,
4:11
it was almost like a, a parallel research agenda that I was
4:14
pursuing on causes and consequences of income
4:16
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4:19
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at. Goodranchers.com All right, so
5:27
there's a lot to unpack here. And you know, the listeners for
5:30
this show, we talk a lot about the importance of family and
5:34
motherhood and fatherhood. So most people listening are
5:36
already on board that yes, of course it's important to have
5:40
moms and dads and marriage is great.
5:42
But I want to start with the kind of high level facts as you,
5:45
you have a ton of research in your book that breaks down the
5:48
real world, real world impact of not getting married, the impact
5:52
of that on kids when there's a single parent raising a child
5:55
versus two. Walk us through some of that
5:58
research high level about what are the concrete outcomes and
6:01
the differences in outcomes for children in the two parent
6:04
family unit versus single parents.
6:08
Okay, so a lot, there are dozens if not hundreds of studies from
6:13
across social science. So economists, sociologists,
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psychologists, lots of folks have looked at the determinants
6:20
of measurable kids outcomes. So to be clear, this isn't
6:24
about, you know, whether our kids are good people or happy or
6:27
well adjusted adults, but the kinds of markers we have in our
6:30
nationally representative data sets that we track as social
6:33
scientists, performance in school, whether kids graduate
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high school, etcetera. And what study after study shows
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is that kids who have the benefit of growing up in a
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married parent home as compared to typically the research has
6:47
focused on single Mother Mother homes because they've been the
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majority of one parent households shows.
6:53
All of these studies show over and over that kids from two
6:56
parent homes are less likely to grow up in poverty and then
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consequently they're less likely to get in trouble in school.
7:04
They're more likely to have higher test scores, graduate
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from high school, be less likely to wind up engaged in crime, be
7:09
less likely to become teen unmarried parents themselves.
7:13
Studies that look at longer term outcomes show that kids who grow
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up again in two parent homes, largely because they're more
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likely to have experienced homes with higher levels of resources,
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more income, have other benefits that two parent homes bring.
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They are ultimately more likely to obtain higher levels of
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education, college graduation, achieve higher levels of
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earnings, and more likely to be married themselves as adults.
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And this is really important because this starts pointing to
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what we're going to see, which is like the intergenerational
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persistence of advantage and disadvantage through kids based
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on whether they grew up in a single parent or a married
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parent home. So lots of studies show that.
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One of the key major facts that I'm trying to highlight in my
7:55
book is just the sort of class disparities in which kids now
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have access to this beneficial two parent home structure.
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I think it's underappreciated just how much things have
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diverged in US society in the past four years such that now
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kids who are born to college educated parents are
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substantially more likely to be raised in two parent homes.
8:20
And again, that's just perpetuating the advantage of
8:23
that group and the disadvantage of the groups who don't have
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access to two parent home. Now you've mentioned at least
8:30
two other factors in addition to them being two parent households
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and that is college education and then income, the level of
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income that the family has and how those are additional
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benefits to or correlated to benefits for the child.
8:45
So I'd love to kind of break this down, starting with the
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income issue, because you know, you could have a very, you know,
8:52
low income two parent household and then you know, you could and
8:55
we there are high income single parent households.
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How does that then impact the children in terms of, you know,
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what's most important? Is it having two children or two
9:05
parents, excuse me, or is it having, you know, a certain
9:07
level of income according to? Your research, yeah.
9:09
So this is this is important. So I'm I'm going to give to sort
9:14
of a two-part answer to this. The 1st is, let me acknowledge
9:18
the fact that parents who have college degrees are much more
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likely to be raising their kids in a married or two parent home.
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So what sort of people who are skeptical that family structure
9:31
matters will say is like, oh, well, they were already
9:33
advantage parents, right? But I but I actually think we we
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can't just dismiss that. So if you know, let me let me
9:41
just put some numbers on this. A child whose mom has a four
9:44
year college degree, 12% of those kids will grow up with
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just their mom. 30% of kids whose moms don't have a college
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degree will grow up with just their mom in the house, like an
9:54
unpartnered mother, not just not a husband, but not an
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unpartnered, you know, an unmarried partner either.
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So that's a really big disparity.
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So you take this group that's already more likely to be
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economically less secure because they don't have a college
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degree. And we know that a college
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degree means someone's more likely to have greater economic
10:12
security, lower unemployment rates, higher income.
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You take an economically less secure group and amplify the
10:19
economic insecurity by having this much higher rate of only
10:22
having one parent in the house. So it's not that family
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structure doesn't matter, it's family structure matters on top
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of these other differences across adults with and without a
10:34
college degree. OK.
10:35
Second, in terms of income as a mechanism, so it's not just this
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selection that people with higher education, higher income
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are actually more likely to have two parents.
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Even when you look across that, you know, across parents of
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similar education levels. So I look at the kids of, you
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know, whose moms have less than a high school degree or a high
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school degree or some college or a college degree.
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Even within those education groups, you see that the kids
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whose moms are married, again, that's what we have in the data,
11:06
right? We see the kids whose moms are
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married, those kids are more likely to graduate high school.
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The differences are actually largest in the middle of the
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education group where the decline in marriage has been the
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greatest. Intuitively, that makes some
11:22
sense. So if you're let, let me just be
11:24
very precise about this. So if your mom has less than a
11:27
high school degree, right, she probably will struggle to create
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a resource rich home environment.
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But even moms with less than a high school degree who are
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married, given a sort of meeting their partner, the dad is
11:40
probably also of limited education, maybe a lot of
11:43
economic instability, right? There's not that much of A
11:47
boost. There's not as large of a boost
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to, let's say, high school graduation rates or college
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attendance rates as in the middle.
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When you take two parents who both have a high school degree,
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there's actually a much larger increase in the difference
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between how their kids do in terms of whether they graduate
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high school. And you could think of that as
12:06
if I take a mom with, you know, high school degrees from
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colleges maybe making like $45,000 versus a mom and a dad
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living together both making about that much.
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That could make the difference in terms of what kind of
12:20
neighborhood they're living in, what kind of schools their kids
12:22
attend, etcetera. When it comes to does a child
12:26
complete college, actually the gaps and outcomes between kids
12:30
whose parents are married or not, it just continues up the
12:34
education distribution, which is really interesting.
12:37
It's basically with an education group whether the child
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graduates college by the age of 25, by the age of 25.
12:43
It's twice as high for kids who have married parents, and so
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even among even. If the parents are college
12:49
educated and even if. They're college educated.
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So even if you take the kids whose moms are college educated,
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those whose moms are single, no unmarried when the child is 14
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versus married. So the more likely to be living
13:02
in a one parent versus two parent house, they are, you
13:05
know, the chance that they graduate college goes from like
13:07
25% to over 50%. So so that advantage of having a
13:12
second parent, we see that in the data regardless of of
13:17
parents education level or mother's education level.
13:20
You know, if I can, I said I was going to answer it in two ways,
13:23
I'm going to answer it in a third way.
13:25
So it turns out that income is a big part of what's driving these
13:29
differences, but it's not all of it.
13:32
So, so income's also a mechanism through which the married parent
13:36
or two parent household is delivering these benefits to
13:40
kids. But there's also lots of
13:42
evidence that parents are doing more than just providing
13:45
additional income, and we can see that in the data.
13:48
OK, so it sounds like if I, if I'm understanding you correctly,
13:51
there's a number of different, you call them privileges that a
13:54
child can have. Obviously the education, love
13:56
the level of education that their parents or parent has
14:00
matters a lot. The income that they're able to
14:02
bring in, how many resources are available in the household.
14:06
But then in addition to those two is a significant one of
14:09
family structure, you know, married parents raising the
14:12
child together. So even if the married parents
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are only high school educated and they're not particularly
14:17
well off, you know, maybe they have sort of a low income
14:20
status, those kids are still are still going to be doing better
14:24
than if they're raised in a single parent household that is
14:27
wealthier. I mean, how does that compare?
14:31
So it turns, you know, we, any of us who have kids know that
14:34
parents do more than just provide income to the household
14:37
and spend money on their kids. They, you know, spend time with
14:40
their kids. They try to be nurturing.
14:42
We try and read to our kids, we try and patiently talk to our
14:45
kids, all sorts of things. And in the book, I refer in
14:49
particular to two types of resources beyond financial
14:52
resources. One is parental time and two is
14:55
emotional bandwidth. OK, so let me focus on time
14:59
taking. You know, raising kids requires
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a lot of time. And it's, you know, it's not to
15:06
to denigrate or chastise all of the single parents who are doing
15:09
everything they can to provide everything for they can for
15:12
their kids. But two parents in the household
15:14
means there's just more combined time to invest in their kids.
15:18
And actually, what we see in time use data, which is
15:22
collected by the federal government, we've got nationally
15:25
representative survey of households on their time use.
15:28
We see that married parents, both mothers and fathers
15:31
individually actually spend more time with their kids than
15:34
unmarried parents. Why?
15:36
How do we think about that? Well, if there's another parent
15:39
in the house who can help, you know, pick bringing money so
15:43
they're working outside the house, they can help drive the
15:46
kids around. They can help with household
15:47
chores. Individually, married parents
15:49
have more time to give to their kids.
15:52
But when you combine them, then the kids are, you know, sort of
15:56
doubly benefiting from extraparental time investment.
16:00
And then there's suggestive evidence that time that parents
16:03
spends with kids, helping them with their homework, reading to
16:06
them, taking them to their enrichment activities, those all
16:09
help the kids do better in life On these metrics that we can
16:13
track again, in data as social scientists, how they do in
16:16
school, whether they get in trouble with the law, etcetera.
16:20
This, this, you know, the additional bucket of resource,
16:23
let's call it emotional bandwidth.
16:24
Different scholars and different fields refer to this
16:27
differently. So some behavioral economists
16:29
will refer to this as cognitive bandwidth.
16:31
Can you make good decisions? And it turns out that if you're
16:34
stressed and resources are tight, it's harder to make, it's
16:39
harder to make good decisions, right?
16:41
This is this. Again, this is feels intuitive,
16:43
but researchers have done a lot of work to document this.
16:47
And development psychologists, among others, have documented
16:50
that single mother households are more likely to have what
16:53
they'll refer to as toxic stress.
16:55
Again, none of this is to say anything negative about single
17:00
parents. It's, it's more of a reflection
17:02
of the reality. If you're the only parent in the
17:04
household, it was to pay all the bills and take care of the house
17:07
and take care of all the kids, you're more likely to be
17:08
stressed. And when you're stressed, it's
17:11
harder to be able to sit down and patiently talk to your child
17:14
or help them with their homework, etcetera.
17:16
And so again, we just see that in the data.
17:19
And that's why I do talk about the two parent household as
17:22
being a privilege, frankly, to both the children and the
17:26
parents to have someone else who can give them a break or lend a
17:29
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Does the actual and I want to get to the single parent
18:35
experience because so many people have that experience
18:37
people listening. I know they're single parents
18:39
who are listening was like, OK, shoot, what do I do?
18:41
You know, how do I, it's already hard enough.
18:43
So I want to, you know, explore that deeply because I think it's
18:45
so important and I, I have so much respect for those that are
18:50
pioneering the way and doing having to do it solo for
18:53
whatever number of reasons and are still so deeply committed to
18:57
loving and raising their children.
18:59
I think it requires a tremendous amount of sacrifice and it's
19:01
beautiful to see. But you know, you mentioned
19:04
several times these two parent households in marriage.
19:06
How important is the marriage part because there are a number
19:09
of cohabitating households and you know, you mentioned single
19:13
moms and single dads too. But certainly with single moms,
19:15
often there is another partner present in the household.
19:19
Sometimes that changes. There's not a marriage
19:21
commitment to that partner. So there's, you know, a live in
19:23
boyfriend. So what is the impact of a
19:26
cohabitating a subsequent parent who's acting not as a biological
19:33
parent but in the role of a parent and then in addition the
19:36
biological parent? They're both the biological
19:38
parents. Then they are cohabitated but
19:40
not married. Yeah.
19:42
So as a practical matter, what we know from US Census data is
19:47
that now only 63% of kids in the US live with married parents.
19:51
That's pretty low, 63%. That's down from 77% just 40
19:55
years ago. It's a really big drop, 77% to
19:58
63% in 40 years. Most of that decline occurred in
20:02
the 80s, nineties, early 2000s, sort of stabilized in the low,
20:06
you know, 60%. Only 8% of kids in the US Census
20:11
are living with what I categorize as cohabiting
20:15
parents, and that means one parent.
20:18
And the parents unmarried partner.
20:21
And in about 1/4 to 40% of those cases, that unmarried partner is
20:25
not the child's second biological parent.
20:28
So even that 8% sort of overstates the share of kids
20:32
living with their cohabiting parents.
20:34
OK, then the more likely scenario after married parents
20:39
is an unpartnered mother. So 21% of kids are growing up
20:43
with a mother who has neither or are living at a point in time, I
20:47
should say, who's living with a mother who has, you know,
20:50
neither a spouse or an unmarried partner in the household.
20:53
But 6067% of those households don't have another adult, right?
20:58
So it's in, it's not, it's a minority of the cases where
21:01
let's say there's an aunt or a grandma living there who might
21:04
be helping out, playing the role a second parent might play to
21:07
some extent. About four and a half percent of
21:10
kids are living with an unpartnered father.
21:12
So I, I, I think it's really important to be clear on those
21:15
numbers because I often get the sense that people are too
21:19
sanguine about the idea. Oh, now parents are just being
21:23
more progressive and living together in a stable cohabiting
21:26
arrangement, but they're not married.
21:28
It's actually just not true in the data.
21:32
The other thing I will say is like, as compared to Europe, we
21:35
have far fewer parents living together in an unmarried
21:38
cohabiting situation. But also as compared to with
21:41
cohabitation in Europe, cohabitation in the US, for a
21:45
variety of reasons we could speculate about, winds up being
21:47
a pretty unstable institution. So a lot of those cohabiting
21:51
couples with children will not stay together during the course
21:55
of their child's childhood. Now, of course, some married
21:58
parents break up, too. But the rate of dissolution
22:02
among cohabiting couples is much larger than the rate of
22:05
dissolution among married parents.
22:07
And one of the things that researchers have documented is
22:10
that children whose parents are unmarried, they just experience
22:13
a lot more family transitions over their childhood, which is
22:17
not great for kids. So.
22:19
So Andrew Cherylin, a sociologist from Johns Hopkins,
22:22
has documented that, you know, kids in the US are, are far more
22:26
likely than kids in other countries have multiple father
22:31
figures or really maternal boyfriends in their house before
22:34
the age of 15 than anywhere else.
22:36
And, and those situations are often pretty, you know, damaging
22:41
for kids, though I, I don't think we should be too sanguine
22:44
about it. Having said all that, what the
22:46
data descriptively shows is that kids clearly perform best or are
22:51
most likely to hit these sort of success metrics.
22:54
Again, that we can see in the data.
22:55
If they're growing up with their to biological parents through
22:59
their childhood. The kids whose outcomes are
23:02
worse in terms of having the highest, the likelihood of
23:04
dropping out of high school or becoming teen parents or not
23:08
going to college, they tend to be the children whose parents
23:11
were never married. Right now, some of that, of
23:13
course, is just selection representing who's never married
23:15
versus married kids who's like live with their mom who's
23:20
remarried. They fall somewhere in the
23:22
middle because a lot of a lot of what remarriage does is replace
23:25
a lot of the income loss, which is very beneficial because then
23:30
people can stay in their homes or or, you know, live in better
23:32
neighborhoods with better schools and lower crime rates.
23:35
But I don't study step parents. But my read of that literature
23:40
is step parents can be a bit complicated, right?
23:43
I mean, like, like anything else, there's a lot of variety
23:46
there. Sure.
23:48
So it sounds like the bottom line though is there's sort of a
23:50
path of success that is very highly documented and in that
23:55
it's real, which is complete your high school education and,
23:59
you know, before you have a baby, get married and, you know,
24:04
have that basic level of stability locked in and then,
24:08
you know, children. So basically education,
24:10
marriage, children and the education, obviously college
24:13
education it sounds like is the best according to the research
24:16
in terms of the long term stability.
24:18
But high school education is pretty good too, you know, to at
24:21
least complete that. And so, you know, when you look
24:24
at that trajectory, what's your opinion on how we have changed
24:29
as a side? You mentioned that marriage
24:31
rates have declined. You talked about how now there's
24:35
used to be 77% of children growing up in a two parent
24:38
household, married parents, and now that has dropped to the low
24:42
60s. How has this how how long has
24:46
this trend been taking place and what are your theories for why
24:49
these negative trends are taking place?
24:52
Yeah, I, I spend a lot of time in the book trying to explain my
24:56
read of all of the data and evidence.
24:58
But I will give you the sort of broad strokes of the, of the
25:01
sort of over, you know, underlying narrative that I,
25:05
that I take away from, from the data and mounds of evidence.
25:08
So let's start with the 60s and 70s.
25:11
There was the social revolution, cultural changes, you know, the
25:15
introduction of the pillow, legalization of abortion, all
25:18
sorts of things that changed the institution around getting
25:20
married and having kids. And we saw a reduction in
25:23
shotgun marriage. But basically what we saw over
25:26
the 60s and 70s was a decline in marriage across the education
25:29
distribution, like college educated adults, high school
25:32
educated adults, adulthood lesson, high school degree, all
25:35
moved away from marriage in roughly equal proportion.
25:39
And then going into the 80s, nineties and 2000s, the trends
25:42
diverged. And this is really where the
25:45
interesting story from my perspective is and story I tell
25:48
in the 80s, nineties and 2000s, marriage stopped falling among
25:51
college educated adults. It's stabilized.
25:54
So even if you look at from from 1980 to now, the share of kids
25:59
growing up in a married parent home among those with college
26:02
educated moms, that only fell from 90% to 84%, only a six
26:07
percentage point drop. That's not that large,
26:09
especially considering how much larger the group of college
26:12
educated moms are. That's 30% of moms now as
26:14
compared to 11%. But outside the college educated
26:18
class, marriage continued falling for all adults, and high
26:21
school is a straight line down. I just a quick interruption here
26:26
because it's such a fascinating point that you're making and I
26:28
want to make sure I'm, I'm tracking here.
26:30
And, and it's so important for the audience to listening, for
26:32
folks listening is that, you know, it's they, they talk about
26:35
the sort of privilege of elites or like, you know, elitist
26:39
morality where it says I, you know, for the lower income
26:41
classes, you know, sex outside of marriage and, you know, the
26:44
sexual revolution, all of these things are fine and it should be
26:48
fine for everyone. But then the upper classes, so
26:50
to speak, are practicing these traditional ethics.
26:53
And it sounds like what what you're saying is despite the
26:56
sexual libertinism and the, you know, the social revolutions of
26:58
the 60s and 70s and all these changes with abortion and birth
27:01
control and sexual ethics, today's, you know, average
27:06
college graduated, had a well off person still understands
27:09
that getting married is important.
27:11
Having children within marriage is important.
27:13
And their abortion rates are actually lower than lower income
27:18
and lower, you could say class groups.
27:21
And but they're still professing, you know, there's
27:23
still this kind of tendency, I would say to profess that these
27:26
things don't matter for anyone. Well, the the kind of upper
27:30
class, if we can call it that is actually practicing the
27:32
traditional morality would do you do you see it that way?
27:35
Yeah, This is why from an equity perspective, I think it's really
27:39
counterproductive and remarkably unhelpful for, you know, college
27:46
educated chattering classes. It's sometimes called to pretend
27:50
this isn't an issue. And you know, I'm also feeling a
27:54
bit defensive because I've had all these feminist writers, you
27:58
know, say that I'm anti feminist.
28:00
And my response to that is no, no, those of us who have really
28:03
benefited from feminism, who have all these career
28:06
opportunities open to us, who are now bringing in good, you
28:09
know, financial income on our own, we are all much more likely
28:13
to be doing the hard job of raising our kids with the
28:15
benefit of the spouse in the house.
28:17
And so it's it's not helpful from an equity perspective to
28:22
not acknowledge that the women who have not benefited as much
28:26
as us, who are finding themselves financially less
28:28
secure, are also much more likely to find themselves in the
28:32
very hard position of having to do this by themselves.
28:36
And so as feminists who would like to see more women thriving,
28:41
we should be deeply concerned with this class disparity and
28:45
how many moms are finding themselves doing this by
28:47
themselves, in particular outside the very economically
28:52
privileged class. So though the way I read sort of
28:56
the situation is that in the 80s, nineties and 2000s, you had
29:00
this looser social norm around childbearing and and the two
29:05
parent necessity and the, you know, combining marriage with
29:09
the practice of having and raising kids.
29:12
You combine that with a whole bunch of economic shocks that
29:15
really disadvantaged non college educated workers, in particular
29:20
men. And they talk about very
29:23
sophisticated studies in the book that work to tease out
29:27
causal channels here between things like, you know, exogenous
29:31
systematic shocks that led to a loss of well paying
29:35
manufacturing jobs or industrial jobs or these jobs that a lot of
29:39
men without a college degree used to hold and be able to
29:42
bring in family sustaining wages.
29:45
In the communities that were hit by those economic shocks, we see
29:48
a reduction in male employment and a corresponding rise in the
29:52
share of kids born outside marriage and growing up in
29:55
single mother homes. And so the story here is one
29:58
where economic vulnerability is both A cause and effect of the
30:02
trends I'm highlighting. And that's why, again, from
30:06
from, you know, a compassionate perspective or an equity
30:08
perspective, we should really care about what's happened to
30:12
families outside the college educated class and how the
30:16
economic changes that have led to inequality in the US that
30:21
have hurt the economic security of non college educated workers.
30:26
They've led to, you know, worst family outcomes, an increase in
30:30
one parent home. And that consequently like,
30:34
reinforces the inequality, making things much worse.
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31:26
So yeah, there's a lot of talk about the collapsing of the
31:28
middle class and there's no longer being a blue collar
31:32
worker and being able to support your family certainly on one
31:34
income, it's nearly impossible across the country.
31:38
And so speaking from sort of the motivational perspective or
31:42
their perspective of sort of motivations and the instinct of,
31:45
let's say a young man who, you know, maybe he is, he, he finds
31:50
out he's the the father of his girlfriend's baby or forget that
31:53
he's just contemplating his future.
31:55
And, you know, marriage is not even something he's
31:58
contemplating actively because he can't even provide for
32:01
himself. And so this idea that he's going
32:03
to go get married and have a family in the current economic
32:06
climate just perhaps seems out of reach for him.
32:10
And I, I like the way you put that because often people put
32:13
this from the perspective of women.
32:15
And so it could be either the woman's decision or the man's
32:19
decision. As we say in economics, it's
32:21
like an equilibrium outcome. We see them both and it's
32:23
probably driven by both. You know, the way you tell the
32:26
story is the man things like I can't even put I can't even
32:29
afford my own place. I'm living in my parents
32:31
basement. I can't take responsibility for
32:34
my girlfriend and the child we've created.
32:36
And by the way, we have social norms now that makes that much
32:39
more acceptable to do right? Or you have or, and I should say
32:44
you have the woman saying, look, you know, I could it's hard, but
32:49
I have my job and I don't really need to have another mouth to
32:52
feed or have a man in my house who's in and out of work and
32:56
maybe bring some other struggles.
32:57
So for both of them, the economic value proposition of
33:02
marriage has been somewhat eroded.
33:04
And so the problem here is that the child is left without the
33:08
benefit of two parents in the household.
33:11
And so it's, you know, it's really what I can't quantify is
33:16
I can't look at the distribution of one parent households and say
33:20
this many of them would clearly benefit if they combined forces
33:24
and did this together, right? And maybe they just don't
33:27
understand that their economic security and their and their
33:31
child's childhood will be better for all of them if they make
33:35
this work. I can't tell you what share that
33:37
is, but it's presumably greater than 0.
33:40
I can't tell you what share is. Look, they want to make it work.
33:44
We see that in a lot of smaller survey and ethnographic work
33:47
that a lot of these low income unmarried parents say they want
33:50
to make it work. They, you know, a majority of
33:52
them in the fragile family survey at the time of their
33:54
child's birth say they want to stay together.
33:57
But then sadly, a majority of those dads are not with the
33:59
child by the time the child turns 5, right?
34:02
So there it's like, OK, they want to be together.
34:05
What can communities or government programs do to help
34:09
them overcome the barriers? Is it a matter of job training?
34:13
Is it a matter of parenting classes?
34:15
Is it a matter of some income support?
34:17
Probably all of the above, right.
34:19
So what are those barriers we can help them address?
34:21
And then let's be clear, there's some set of situations where the
34:26
parents shouldn't be together, where there's where there's
34:28
violence or abuse and it wouldn't be to anyone's benefit
34:31
to have them be together. I can't quantify, but it's a
34:34
really large share, right? More than 30% of kids living
34:37
outside a two parent household, 40% of births now being
34:41
unmarried, being to non married parents.
34:44
It's a big group. And so my best guess is there's
34:47
some of all of this and and then trying to help people where they
34:51
are is really what's important. I mean, it sounds like there's
34:54
three factors that need to be addressed in order to solve this
34:58
problem. And one of them you mentioned
35:00
just a moment ago was, you know, the social norm of saying that
35:03
no marriage is good. You know, keeping sex within
35:07
marriage and having children within marriage is a good thing
35:10
as opposed to just anything goes.
35:12
As long as you use birth control, you'll be fine.
35:14
We know that that doesn't work. In reality, birth control
35:16
doesn't solve the problem of unplanned pregnancy.
35:18
It hasn't. So there's that piece of it, the
35:21
social norm and adjusting the way we think about sexual ethics
35:24
and marriage. And then there's the economic
35:26
piece because even if you have the social norms, it can still
35:28
be really hard for couples. I think about the economic piece
35:32
in terms of public policy and obviously, you know,
35:35
not-for-profit work and you know, churches and communities.
35:37
But in public policy, you know, you know, I think there should
35:39
be cash benefits for parents, especially intact parents,
35:43
parents that are married, who have children, so that that can
35:45
actually help them support their family and be able to have a
35:49
roof over their head and steady, you know, housing and, you know,
35:52
food on the table and have their needs met.
35:55
And we should be prioritizing that for families.
35:58
So instead of just tax benefits, it's actually a cash credit
36:00
where you actually get money for kids.
36:03
This is being tried in some other countries like Hungary.
36:06
And then I think the, you know, the, the final piece there too
36:09
is that, you know, these families, you know, the families
36:12
that are struggling that are broken, There's abuse, there's
36:15
addiction, there's, you know, reasons that they're separated,
36:17
right? Just having better support
36:20
systems for those that are struggling.
36:23
That can be public policy, but also just in our communities,
36:26
you know, focusing on really helping single families because
36:29
we know they struggle more. So I think those three pieces,
36:32
if we can focus on them, I, I think there will be a lot more
36:37
improvements for outcomes for kids and, and happier adults
36:39
too. I'm curious your take on that.
36:41
I'm especially curious your take on the idea of, you know, cash
36:45
benefits for families, especially if they're married
36:48
for children. I know I'm hungry.
36:51
I don't know if you've looked at some of their family policy
36:52
programs, but they, you know, they say no income tax if you
36:56
have 4 kids and you're married. I mean, they, they really have a
36:58
stack of benefits to encourage people to not just have kids,
37:03
but be able to support their kids financially.
37:06
Yeah, so I am 100% with you that we need a more family friendly
37:13
policy agenda and we need much more help to families.
37:17
The first thing we have to do before we can even get there is
37:20
be willing to acknowledge that families matter, that what's
37:23
happened to families in the US has not been good for kids.
37:26
There's a lot of resistance to just acknowledging that.
37:30
So, you know, there's some people.
37:33
What? What do you chalk that up to?
37:35
Why there's so much resistance to that obvious reality?
37:38
I'd. Like to think that it's mostly
37:40
from a well-intentioned instinct, however misguided, but
37:45
to not stigmatize certain groups of families.
37:48
I mean, you see certain groups putting out like, you know, we
37:51
have to. When I, when I looked up to
37:53
parent privilege, has anyone used that term before?
37:56
When I was looking for a title for my book, I found groups
37:59
arguing that we needed to remove the idea that certain families
38:02
were privileged over others. And I was like, but that's just
38:05
not true. We see very, very clearly in the
38:08
data that certain families are privileged and advantage over
38:12
others. So we have to be willing to
38:13
acknowledge that to then say let's make strengthening
38:17
families a policy priority. And my experience with the
38:21
policy conversation over the past 20 years focused on closing
38:26
class or racial gaps in kids outcomes wants to talk about
38:31
everything other than strengthening families.
38:34
And so it's, you know, how much more can we ask schools to do?
38:37
How much more can we ask teachers and school counselors
38:40
to do before we realize what we actually have to do is address
38:44
the deficits and class and racial gaps in home environment.
38:47
So I'm 100% with you. That needs to be a policy
38:49
priority when it comes to a stronger safety net.
38:53
Yes, yes, yes. So a lot of, let's say, you
38:58
know, more politically conservative policy makers will
39:01
not want to expand the safety net because of the worry that if
39:06
we make it easier for single parent families, we will
39:09
undermine marriage. So I think it's really important
39:12
to address that point. What we do know is that in the
39:15
past, a lot of our cash welfare programs, even Medicaid, was
39:20
explicitly conditioned on being a single mom, right?
39:24
So we can't have benefits conditioned on being a single
39:28
parent because then we are explicitly saying you have to
39:31
make this choice. You can have access to these
39:33
benefits or you can be married. So a lot of that's been removed
39:38
very helpfully, but we should go further.
39:41
I am not in favor of just giving benefits to married parent
39:44
families because there are so many lower resource single
39:48
parent families and kids. And I will take the trade
39:52
actually of even sort of a few people on the margin saying, OK,
39:56
I realize this is going to make them off likely to be married,
39:58
but ultimately we just can't let kids languish in under resourced
40:02
homes. But what we should do quite
40:04
explicitly? Is work to remove the
40:07
disincentives inherent in our tax code, in our safety net
40:11
programs, you know, in Medicaid, like that's a very salient one.
40:16
If you get married and your household income goes above the
40:19
threshold, these moms and kids lose Medicaid, that's that's a
40:22
big loss. And so we need to sort of
40:25
approach our design of safety net programs with an eye towards
40:28
family impacts to remove those disincentives.
40:32
I mean, what if that, what if that minimum, I mean, at
40:34
minimum, the there should be no disincentive for marriage and
40:38
they should have the same benefits as a single parent
40:41
household. And then in addition, there are
40:43
additional benefits. So you're not saying there's no
40:46
safety net for a single parent because it is hard.
40:48
And we want to encourage single parents to do the very best they
40:51
can. And you know, when it comes to
40:53
abortion, I think that's a huge reason many people think about
40:56
abortion is that they think I can't do this, I can't do this.
40:59
I don't have the support I need and so I think we need to double
41:01
down on supporting people regardless of their marriage
41:05
status, right? But I'm all for supporting
41:07
people regardless and getting many more benefits to kids and
41:10
families regardless of parents marital status.
41:14
The but the other thing you raise, which I think again is I
41:17
mean, everybody should be in favor of this across the
41:19
political spectrum, is much more programmatic support for
41:24
families and parents in particular who are struggling
41:27
with intimate partner violence, with alcohol and drug abuse,
41:31
with untreated mental health conditions.
41:34
Who wouldn't want to support that, right?
41:37
Meaning and when you say support them, do you mean now we're
41:40
talking? Cuz I think we need to have more
41:41
advantages for married couples so that people want to be
41:45
married and there's economic incentives to stay, get married
41:48
and stay married. Now you're talking about
41:49
obviously these very challenging cases, drug addiction, abuse,
41:53
you know, domestic violence, etcetera.
41:55
In those situations, are you speaking about folks that are
41:58
married and navigating, you know that or just in general people
42:02
struggling with that and the negative incomes on children?
42:05
Yeah, I I mean in general. I mean in general.
42:07
So for example, if you think about, you know, our foster care
42:11
system or Child Protective Services, a lot of the emphasis
42:15
there is removing children from, you know, negligent or or
42:20
potentially dangerous situations, which is super
42:22
important. But then we need to be doing so
42:25
much more to invest in families and parents, whether they're
42:29
married or not, so they can parent the way, you know, they
42:34
want a parent, right? I mean, let's take it as a given
42:37
that most parents want to be good parents for their kids.
42:41
And I think, you know, our we just, if you just look at the
42:45
federal budget, if you just look at the budget of our Department
42:48
of Health and Human Services, there is pitifully little
42:52
dedicated to programs that are aimed at strengthening and
42:56
supporting stable and healthy families.
42:58
Again, why is that? I think because we haven't made
43:02
strengthening families a policy priority.
43:05
And so we just can't keep expanding the safety net or
43:08
hiring school counselors, both things I think we need to do
43:12
without realizing that fundamentally how kids do in
43:16
this world going to come down a lot to parents.
43:19
And so we need to be investing in parents as kids greatest
43:21
asset. I will say that might feel like
43:24
it's not a very big statement for me to make, but in the
43:27
policy world there is some pretty strong negative reactions
43:30
to that. On their.
43:32
Sides right from, from, from both sides from both sides from
43:37
you know, let's say I'll I'll, I'll point fingers even though I
43:40
really don't like doing that. But let's say, you know, social
43:42
conservatives who want people to make different choices, but then
43:45
don't want to spend tax dollars investing in families and then
43:48
from progressives who basically want the state to do more to
43:53
raise kids and sort of separate out kids outcomes from their
43:57
family of origin. And I, and that's just, I think
44:00
that's practically never gonna happen.
44:02
But also that fundamentally gets to how we view society and the
44:05
role of family. Yeah.
44:06
And from a normative perspective, I'm willing to say
44:09
the family is the most important unit in our society.
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and certainly heavily on the left.
45:07
You know, government funded daycare as an example.
45:10
Make sure that there's always childcare available that's
45:12
government funded, basically institutionalized early
45:15
childhood development and have the government run it.
45:18
And so that mothers can be out working and they have that
45:21
freedom quote, UN quote to work. And I just think, why don't you
45:24
just direct that money directly to the mother instead of, you
45:28
know, off to some government worker to raise the child and
45:31
instead of forcing her to go from work, give her the benefit
45:33
directly so she can be with her child.
45:35
I mean, obviously they'll, they'll be, you know, all kinds
45:38
of nuances there. But at the end of the day, she's
45:40
going to be the best person to raise that child.
45:43
I would say give families more resources and let, in the words
45:47
of the way economists say this is let families optimize.
45:49
So there are some families for whom both parents would want to
45:53
work or feel like they need to work and they need more help
45:55
paying for child care. There are some families for whom
45:59
one parent's going to want to stay home or they're both going
46:01
to want to work part time and stay home.
46:03
Give them more support so they can make that choice.
46:06
Families just need much more support in this country and,
46:08
and, and again in a forward what what people really have to
46:11
realize, what policymakers have to realize is that's not just a
46:14
giveaway, that's not just consumption.
46:16
That's how we invest in our nation's future is making sure
46:19
more kids are growing up in resource rich environments so
46:25
they have the best chance of meeting their, you know,
46:30
potential and being positive contributors to society going
46:35
forward. And so it's, you know, to the
46:37
detriment of our entire society that we basically just don't do
46:42
nearly enough to help kids. And I think, again, we're not
46:46
going to be able to really help kids if we don't focus on the
46:48
family. Absolutely.
46:50
But you know, to what you're saying, not all choices are
46:53
equal, including choices that even families may make
46:57
independently if with sort of many options presented them in
47:00
potential public support. And so, you know, that's kind of
47:03
what I'm getting at here is, you know, what is the what is the
47:06
ideal we should strive towards culturally and in our public
47:09
policy as it's appropriate. And you know, you've identified
47:12
obviously marriage and a two parent family as part of that
47:16
end game that we should be striving for an upholding.
47:19
So, you know, back to the question of raising very young
47:22
children especially, and you know the whole issue, you know,
47:25
the whole experience of pregnancy and birth and that
47:28
whole process, it's very formative for children the first
47:30
three years of their life. Should the government just be
47:35
completely, you know, apathetic about how and what the family
47:41
unit is doing in those early years, meaning give them the
47:45
mother a chunk of money to go off and have the corporate job
47:47
so she can stick the child in daycare?
47:49
Versus should the should the government more prioritize or
47:52
encourage that bond between the mother and the child?
47:56
I certainly think maternity leave policies are fantastic.
47:58
Let the child not just bond with the mother, but have that
48:01
crucial time. But usually, you know, we're
48:03
talking six weeks to maybe, you know, Max six months in this
48:07
country. The first three years,
48:09
scientifically speaking, are key for any child's development.
48:13
So do you think that we should prioritize that in both public
48:16
policy and kind of cultural trends that we want mothers to
48:20
be able to mother their children not just as their choice because
48:23
it's their freedom to do what they want to do, but for the
48:25
sake of the child? Yeah, you're not going to get me
48:28
to say that. You know, I lament women or
48:30
mothers working outside the home and I think that would be a
48:33
tough evidence based case to make.
48:36
Well, it's not to be that, it's not to be that drastic because I
48:38
think there's a lot of different versions of working outside the
48:40
home. I work, right, And I have very
48:42
young children, but I am able to work in a way that is highly
48:46
flexible so that I'm, I am the primary caretaker still for my
48:49
kids. I know that's, that's a
48:50
privilege right there. I have that privilege, but
48:53
should we be seeing that as a as an ideal that the that the
48:58
mother can be there again, you know, a significant amount of
49:01
the time for young children. Do you think that's something
49:03
that's worth upholding as a society and and and then shaping
49:07
public policy to support? Look, I think I mean what what
49:11
we know is that kids benefit when they have resource rich
49:15
environments and when they have time invested in them and
49:19
emotional bandwidth invested in them from either parent, from
49:22
both parents. And we also know that a lot of
49:25
families feel like they can't afford to have parents working
49:30
part time or one parent staying home.
49:32
And So what I think needs to happen from a policy matter is
49:36
for more people to be given resources so they can make those
49:40
choices. It's actually, if you look at
49:43
sort of experiments that have gotten more women to go to work,
49:47
it's really hard to see that, oh, it's necessarily bad for
49:50
kids. But part of it is because the
49:52
additional income they bring in is often very helpful.
49:56
And so it's, I don't, I there's not a clear cut case in saying
50:02
this is the way parents should make their work schedules work.
50:07
That would be best. And it also depends crucially
50:11
on, you know, I'm trying to think of how to say it without
50:14
a, without jargon, but what we say is the counterfactual.
50:17
So for example, when there are early childhood education
50:21
programs and three and four year olds go to school, right, we
50:26
actually see that if they're coming from a home that's more
50:29
disadvantaged, that seems to be beneficial for them.
50:32
If they're coming from a higher resource home where the mom has
50:35
a higher level of education, that actually doesn't seem to be
50:38
so beneficial. And So what they're getting at
50:41
home and what kind of engagement they're getting from their
50:45
parents sort of shapes what happens to them if they go to a
50:51
daycare or an early childhood education.
50:53
And then of course, it's about the quality of that place.
50:55
And so it's really hard to make these generalizations about what
51:00
type of parent work slash stay home with the kids slash early
51:05
childhood program is best. On average.
51:09
That one's a lot harder for me to make.
51:11
Whereas I am very, very confident saying that the data
51:16
and evidence make it very clear that kids who grow up with two
51:20
parents in their home are in a better position to succeed than
51:23
whether they have one. Well, I think what you're the
51:26
reason you have that confidence and you kind of indicated this
51:28
earlier is because like you said, most people want the best
51:32
outcomes for their kids. You know, most people are
51:34
striving towards the healthiest situation for their for their
51:38
family. And so their choices will often
51:41
align with what is what is best. You mentioned abuse and, you
51:46
know, drug addiction and things like that earlier.
51:48
And clearly if there's a severely unbalanced home life,
51:53
there's abuse in the home, there's neglect in the home,
51:56
then yes, you can understand why a child being sent to some sort
51:59
of a daycare environment for the majority of their day will be
52:03
healthier for them, you know, functional daycare than being in
52:06
a home with a drug addicted or abusive parents or neglectful
52:09
parents. So that I think is a no brainer.
52:11
I think what I'm getting at here is not so much a generalization
52:14
as again, what is the, you know, what is the ideal that we should
52:17
be aiming at and not being afraid to state the ideal as a
52:20
society? Because I think that's kind of
52:21
your criticism earlier about the way that we see family
52:25
structures is that people are just afraid to say yes to
52:28
parents is better than than not and married parents is best.
52:34
And so similarly, you know, talking about, you know, I care
52:36
a lot about young child development.
52:38
We've talked about on the podcast a lot.
52:40
I have young kids. We have a lot of young moms and
52:42
young families and men who listen, fathers who listen.
52:46
And I think having sort of bright lines about, yes, it is
52:49
best, you know, if it is economically possible, which I
52:52
think if if with enough sort of ingenuity it, it often can be,
52:57
you know, some people, I think especially interestingly, the
53:00
college educated class. I think sometimes we think we
53:02
need to have certain, a certain standard of life in order to be
53:06
OK. And so both parents feel like
53:08
they have to bring in a certain amount of income and we forget
53:11
the economic value, quite frankly, of a woman who is
53:15
working not full time, but maybe part time and able to manage the
53:17
household more, managed able to be a primary caretaker for the
53:21
children more. I just think we need to
53:23
normalize and encourage that more as a society because it's
53:25
become so discouraged. The stay at home mom almost has
53:29
looked down upon as a class in this country.
53:32
The educated and sort of professional career woman who's
53:35
working 40 plus hours a week is more upheld as sort of this
53:38
ideal of being empowered as a woman.
53:40
And my concern is that we're not properly elevating the status of
53:46
being a mother of very young children and being available and
53:50
engaged in the home more than you might be able to if you're
53:53
working the 40 plus hour corporate job.
53:56
What are your thoughts? That's that, yeah.
53:58
That's, I mean, I hear you saying that, you know, that's
54:02
that's an ideal you want to normalize.
54:04
I I based on data and evidence. I'm not prepared to make that
54:08
case. And actually, sometimes I think
54:12
conflating the conversation about the reduction in two
54:18
parent homes with a lament that more moms are working outside
54:24
the home is precisely why more people aren't getting on the
54:29
bandwagon or willing to acknowledge that the decline in
54:32
parental marriage has been tough on kids.
54:35
How do? You mean?
54:37
How do I mean? I mean, you know, I'm very, very
54:42
clear that I am not, that I am not looking with nostalgia for a
54:48
return to the male breadwinner, the mom's.
54:51
Oh, I see. Meaning meaning.
54:52
It's just that your your concern is that there's a distant
54:55
incentive for women who to want to get married if it means to
54:59
them this sort of like 1940s housewife trope that they're
55:02
going to be stuck in now. Yeah, exactly.
55:05
And and so one of the things that I think is, is, you know,
55:08
an intriguing idea which I don't have the answer to is why is it
55:13
that college educated parents where the moms are more likely
55:17
to be working outside the home, working longer hours?
55:20
Why is that where marriage is holding strong?
55:23
And are men in the college educated class more egalitarian
55:29
in their views of marriage? So in my mind, I think there's a
55:32
question is to what extent is part of the divergent because
55:37
men outside the college educated class are less willing to
55:42
support professionally successful women.
55:45
And so, you know, that could be like I, I get a lot of reactions
55:50
from people to my book. Hey, until you break the
55:51
patriarchy, you're not going to get a return to marriage.
55:54
And so if, if we say that the ideal is not just, it's not just
56:00
married parents, it's married parents and the mom being the
56:03
primary home, you know, homemaker and, and childcare
56:07
provider, we might not make progress on this because what we
56:12
see across countries, not just the US is women are working
56:17
essentially across all countries.
56:19
And about eight, you know, 85% of women now work, moms now
56:23
work. And what's also true across high
56:27
income countries is that the birth total fertility rate is,
56:30
is way down. And so my view on that is, you
56:34
know, you might not like it or you might disagree with it, but
56:37
a lot of women are prioritizing having their independent career
56:40
or having kids. And the more we, and the more we
56:44
under score attention there, then the more we're going to see
56:48
parent, you know, people, I think choosing to either not be
56:51
married or not have kids or having kids but not be married.
56:55
And so, you know, again, for me, the 1st order, the 1st order
56:59
thing here is kids do better when there's two parents in the
57:02
household and, and, and everything else is a little bit
57:05
nuanced on that, on that arrangement.
57:08
Do you think that maternity leaves should be longer than
57:12
paternity leaves, provided both are long enough?
57:17
No, I wouldn't be in favor of that.
57:18
OK. So, so it's kind of in your,
57:20
your view in your economic work has been that there is no
57:24
difference meaningfully between a mother versus a father when it
57:28
comes to childbearing and child raising, especially I'm focusing
57:32
on on those first few years of life of a child.
57:35
This is not my area of expertise.
57:38
OK. Yeah, it is something I, I'm
57:41
very interested in exploring because, you know, the two
57:43
parent household. I think you do talk a little bit
57:45
about mothers versus fathers in your book, but it's not like
57:49
you're saying as explored. And I do think that also does
57:52
matter because, you know, the experience of bringing a child
57:55
into the world is unique to women, obviously.
57:59
And not to say fathers don't have a crucial role that they
58:02
they do, but I, I do think that having a gender blind approach
58:07
as a culture saying mothers and fathers are interchangeable.
58:10
They're just two human beings and they don't really do
58:12
anything uniquely different for child raising is biologically
58:16
untrue, you know, because only women carry children.
58:19
We nurse. We, you know, have this unique
58:22
way that we interact with a child, especially when they're
58:25
very young. And I think there's an important
58:27
thing to explore there both economically with our public
58:30
policy recommendations and then of course, culturally and
58:34
encouraging that for women, because otherwise we're saying
58:37
women, you're, you're, you're interchangeable with a man.
58:39
They can do whatever you can do. You can do whatever they can do.
58:42
And I I do think that might send the wrong message to women when
58:46
we're making all these important choices about our careers and
58:48
children and families and everything else.
58:51
Yeah, I don't think I'm saying any of that, but I am noticing
58:54
we're at 1:00, so I actually do have to drive to campus and
58:56
teach my class now. OK.
58:59
Oh, no worries. Well, thank you so much,
59:02
Melissa. Where can people find your work?
59:06
I can find my work on my website, which is, you know,
59:09
it's, it's easy to Google me, Melissa Carney, University of
59:12
Maryland Economics. And my website will come up and
59:14
you'll get links to the book that we've been talking about,
59:18
the two parent privilege. And I have a lot of the work the
59:20
the figures and the tables that are in the book or on my
59:23
website, and also the underlying academic research that that I
59:27
draw on. Excellent.
59:29
Thank you. Thanks so much, Melissa.
59:30
OK, thanks for having me. OK, take care.
59:34
Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Lila Rose
59:36
Podcast. I know we kind of ended a little
59:39
bit abruptly there. I think Melissa has such
59:41
important research to share and her book is very important and a
59:44
great contribution to the conversation happening about
59:47
parent structure. I do think it's fair to note,
59:49
though, that there seems to be this taboo among those in
59:52
academia today, certainly in politics to some degree, and
59:55
just sort of the professional class, to say that there's a
59:58
difference between mothering, especially the mothering of very
1:00:01
young children, and fathering. This is not to say that fathers
1:00:04
can't do a lot of nurture for very young children and mothers
1:00:07
can't bring in significant resources to the family outside
1:00:10
the home when there are young children.
1:00:12
It's not to say mothers should never work, none of that.
1:00:14
But it is to say that I think it is important both for public
1:00:17
policy and for culture to acknowledge that.
1:00:20
Men and women are different when it comes to child rearing and
1:00:23
that women of very young children need and deserve
1:00:26
special support. And we should encourage, quite
1:00:30
frankly, mothers being there for their very young children.
1:00:34
And I don't think we should back away from that reality.
1:00:37
Now, the implications of that reality are another story.
1:00:39
And we can wade through them. We often go through them on this
1:00:41
podcast. But I think it is important to
1:00:44
reassert that no, this is not the 1940s housewife trope, but
1:00:49
that this is a reality about and a beautiful reality about
1:00:53
motherhood and fatherhood. That mothers being there for
1:00:57
their very young children is something we should prize as a
1:00:59
society and arrange whether it's public policy as well as
1:01:03
encourage it culturally. And I don't think that's the
1:01:05
truth that we should shy away from.
1:01:07
As always, don't forget to subscribe to the podcast or
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