By Christine M. Williams
Anchor Correspondent
FALL RIVER, Mass. — A government study released this year found a “significantly” lower risk of abuse and neglect for children living with their married biological parents. This conclusion has been reached time and time again in similar studies, defenders of the family told The Anchor.
Glenn T. Stanton, Director of Family Formation Studies for Focus on the Family, said the study “simply confirms what a lot of other data has shown during the past 30 years.”
The statistics hammer home the truth that the family cannot be defined as merely a relationship between people who love each other. Defending marriage between father and mother is not only a moral effort; it is also “a deeply pragmatic effort to look out for and protect the well being of children,” he said.
“When it comes to the care and safety of children, we can’t be family relativists,” he added.
The study, released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in January this year, looked at data from 2005 and 2006. Entitled Fourth National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect (NIS–4), the study found a 19 percent decrease in maltreatment of children since the last study, which covered data from 1993.
According to the 2010 study’s data, one in 58 children in the United States were maltreated. Maltreatment was broken down into two categories — abuse and neglect. The study included statistics on emotional, physical and sexual abuse as well as emotional, physical and educational neglect. Among other characteristics, it examined the data in light of race, socioeconomic status and family structure. The results of the latter supported the conclusion that a child is better off being raised by his or her mom and dad.
“Children living with their married biological parents had the lowest rate of abuse and neglect in all categories,” the report said. “The rate differs significantly from the rates for all other family structure and living arrangement circumstances.”
On the other end of the spectrum, children living with a parent and the parent’s live-in partner were eight times more likely to suffer maltreatment.
The statistics for maltreatment overall found that children living with their married biological parents had less than a one percent chance of abuse and neglect. That number rose to a more than two percent chance for children living with non-biological married parents and those living with two unmarried parents. It increased to about three percent for children living with a single parent or no parent. And nearly six percent of children living with a parent and that parent’s partner were at risk.
The study also compared the change between the most recent data and the statistics from 1993. Two-parent homes saw a 40 percent decrease while single parent homes saw a 30 percent increase in maltreatment incidents.
Stanton said, “This data shows that the divide between these family types, the gap there — abuse and neglect-wise — is widening.”
He added that the number of abuse cases “tragically” seems to be on the rise in the homes of non-married parents, which should be an alarm bell for communities.
In an email to supporters on January 29, executive director of the National Organization for Marriage Brian Brown said the statistics show that a mother and father are special and that married parents are the ideal.
“All children are gifts from God and deserve our respect. All parents working hard to raise good kids also deserve our respect and help,” he wrote.
Modern attempts to redefine marriage fail to recognize the benefit of protecting an institution that best protects children. The idea that same-sex unions are the same as marriage is a “man-made fantasy,” he added.
Dr. Angela Franks — a mother of four who with her husband David serves as coordinator for The Future Depends on Love, the marriage initiative launched by the four bishops of Massachusetts in 2007 — said the Supreme Judicial Court in Massachusetts had to define marriage as simply a publicly recognized relationship in order to legalize same-sex marriage.
The court wrote in the 2003 Goodridge decision, “It is the exclusive and permanent commitment of the marriage partners to one another, not the begetting of children, that is the sine qua non of civil marriage.”
The ruling dismissed the idea that “confining marriage to opposite-sex couples” ensures that children are raised in the “optimal setting.”
“Protecting the welfare of children is a paramount State policy. Restricting marriage to opposite-sex couples, however, cannot plausibly further this policy,” the court stated. “The ‘best interests of the child’ standard does not turn on a parent’s sexual orientation or marital status.”
Franks countered, “All the major studies indicate that marriage benefits husbands, wives and the children.”
Many societal problems are prevented by stable marriages. Married parents are better off financially. In flourishing families, children are less likely to abuse drugs and alcohol, enter into negative relationships and drop out of school, she added.
She noted that Pope Benedict XVI on the World Day of Peace in 2008 said that the family, the foundation of society, is “the first and indispensable teacher of peace” and that the human community cannot do without the service provided by the family.
“Everything that serves to weaken the family based on the marriage of a man and a woman, everything that directly or indirectly stands in the way of its openness to the responsible acceptance of a new life, everything that obstructs its right to be primarily responsible for the education of its children, constitutes an objective obstacle on the road to peace,” he said.
A family lives in peace when its members come together with a common goal that prevents selfishness, he added.
Franks said marriage changes the people who are in the relationship and makes them give of themselves. Marriage is not merely a personal matter because it affects the larger community.
“Marriage impels the people in the relationship to become more mature,” she said. “The self-gift that marriage demands is good for us and for society.”