From: sethb@fid.morgan.com (Seth Breidbart)
Subject: Re: Impact of the absent father
Organization: my opinions only
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 22:33:58 GMT

In article <1992Aug25.034455.24878@cbnewsk.cb.att.com>
noraa@cbnewsk.cb.att.com (aaron.l.hoffmeyer) writes:
>Source: USA Today, August 24, 1992
>
>By Marilyn Elias
:
>Highlights of the study:
>
>      * When moms' education and income were taken into
>	account, there was no difference in math and reading
>	skills between kids living with and without a father.
>
>      *	Low income and poor education predicted trouble
>        adjustment far more than parents' marital status.

>But the findings were challenged by divorce researcher Judith
>Wallerstein of Corte Madera, Calif.
>
>Because Mott didn't do open-ended interviews with the children, and
>didn't contact fathers, he easily could have missed emotional trauma
>inflicted by divorce, she says.

The study was of "math and reading skills", which are usually measured
by results on standardized tests.  If the "emotional trauma" had
affected the children's math and reading skills, it would have been
detected.

>Mothers' behavioral reports are often biased.

What does that have to do with performance on standardized tests?

>And it's not meaningful to separate the influences of income and
>marital status - because divorced women as a whole are so much poorer
>than wives, she says.

I think that's the key point.  You *must* separate those influences in
order to determine which of them  is causing the children to have low
math and reading scores, and which of them is merely correlated with
such scores.

>"In real life, being poor and divorced is usually one and the same."

"usually" is the key word here.

>Mott's study, if anything, seems incredibly short-sighted....
>  Ahhhh.  Mott's no flunky - the
>difference can be solely attributed to the mothers' income and
>educational background.
>
>OK, Mott, your science is absolute and utterly convincing.  Just round
>off the figures and make the lack of money on the part of the mothers the
>real problem - oh, and get these mothers educated while we're at it
>(like it is something we can actively shove down their brains).

Do you have any evidence for your assertion as to his bad science?
You seem to be claiming that he's lying ("round off the figures and
make...); are you really doing that?

>You see, to Mr. Mott, children don't need fathers - they need rich,
>well-educated mothers.  How do we get such things?  Lots and lots of
>child-support to pay for lots of Fisher-Price stuff and alimony to pay
>for moms' getting educations, perhaps?

He didn't say anything about the solution (at least, not in anything
you posted); he only determined the _real_ cause of the problem.

>  She did notice some glaring ommissions in Mott's study
>and some bizarre leaps of logic (a.k.a. "faith") in his conclusions.
>What's that?  He got all his information from MOM!

I didn't notice any such statement in the stuff you posted.  Did I
miss it?

>Well, folks, even though Marilyn Elias tried to jump on the Murphy
>Brown bandwagon, neither she, nor Mr. Mott, did much to convince me to
>go along for the ride.  Many studies that note the educational
>achievement of older children of single mothers show convincingly that
>these kids, in general, will achieve lower than their counterparts from
>two-parent homes.

Are these studies controlled for income level and mother's educational
level?

>  Finally,
>children of one-parent homes are much more likely to be poor.

So maybe it is the poverty that's the problem, and not the lack of a
second parent.

Seth		sethb@fid.morgan.com