How Important Is The Nuclear Family?

Thursday, January 21, 2010 - 11:57 in Psychology & Sociology

The presumption that children need both a mother and a father may be readily accepted by many people today, but there is little evidence to support the idea, say sociologists from USC and NYU. In a new Journal of Marriage and Family study, the team argues that "fatherless" children are not necessarily at a disadvantage and that men do not provide a different set of parenting skills than women. Extending their prior work on gender and family, Timothy Biblarz and Judith Stacey analyzed relevant studies about parenting, including available research on single-mother and single-father households, gay male parents and lesbian parents. read more

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