While most people agree that children are better off in families with two parents (as long as both parents are nonabusive), many believe that the adverse impact of single-parent families on children has been exaggerated. According to Sara S. McLanahan, a professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University, children who grow up with one parent are “disadvantaged across a broad array of outcomes”; they are more likely to drop out of school, commit crime, or become pregnant. However, she concludes, “the evidence . . . does not show that family disruption is the principal cause” of these problems. According to McLanahan, “If all children lived in two-parent families, teen motherhood and idleness would be less common, but the bulk of these problems would remain.”
In addition, some social scientists and others argue that the causal connection between single-parent families and social problems is unclear. While most experts concede that children from single-parent families are more likely to experience problems such as poor school performance and poverty,
many believe it is erroneous to automatically ***ume that these difficulties are caused by the absence of one parent. According to Arlene Skolnick, a research psychologist at the University of California at Berkeley, and Stacey Rosencranz, a graduate student at Stanford University, “Single parenthood may be correlated with many problems affecting children, but the causes may lie elsewhere—for example, in economic and emotional problems affecting parents that lead to difficulties raising children and greater chances of divorce.” Other commentators contend that for the large number of single-parent families who live in inner cities, a shortage of educational and employment opportunities is more likely to impact the quality of children’s lives than the number of parents they have.