“And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers.” Malachi 4:6
The best environment for a child to grow up in is a married family. Social sciences research demonstrates the many ways married families benefit children:
• Married parents are more encouraging to their children than a single-parent or stepparents are.
• Married adults are more likely than remarried, divorced, separated, or single adults to value the importance of having children.
• Young adults are more likely to maintain a good relationship with their parents if young adults are married, rather than cohabiting.
• Adults who were raised in a married home are more likely to be married.
• Families with both parents present (whether biological or adoptive) have the highest quality parent-child relationships. Your marriage gives your children the best possible foundation for life. What next step can you take to help make your marriage last forever? How are you guiding your children towards marriage?
This graph demonstrates how children from intact families are less likely to have behavioral problems than are children from non-intact families. Also, children from families that worship is less likely to have behavioral problems than are children from families that never worship. Society has much to gain by parents’ investing – in emotion and time – in their children.
For links to the research behind these statements, please visit www.marri.us/one-pagers/
*It bears emphasizing that these patterns hold for the groups involved, not for all the individuals who make up each group. There is naturally a wide variation among individuals.
http://marri.us/wp-content/uploads/Intact-Marriage-and-Childrens-Well-Being.pdf