Every Child Deserves The Facts

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matterleague

From ‘Children of the Recession: Children of the Recession: The impact of the economic crisis on child well-being in rich countries’ (Unicef, 2014).

Do Mothers and fathers matter?

Dr Carmal Hannan writes:

Most of you will have received a fancy brochure in your letter box telling you “7 Great Reasons to Keep Marriage as is”. The well-funded group “Mothers and Fathers Matter” are advocating a no vote in the upcoming referendum quoting evidence that two married parents, a male and a female, provide the optimal family for raising children.

Kate Bopp, of this group, announced that “studies have shown that teens who have grown up without a father are more prone to crime, they have greater presentations of emotional distress: volatile anger in young men and boys, and young women tend to gravitate towards abusive relationships”.

This is not the case. This is the classic misinterpretation of research which continues to be presented as fact; where association is interpreted as causation. Yes, family type matters, but they do not “cause” children to grow up unhappy, under-educated or prone to crime.

Growing up in Ireland, the national longitudinal study of children in Ireland provides a rich source of data on contemporary families in Ireland.

Brendan Halpin and I investigated the effects of growing up in a one parent family, examining data from over 8,000 nine year old children from this study. We concluded that marriage does not have a major direct influence on child development.

Across 14 measures collected from parents, teachers and the children themselves, differences across family types were indeed evident. In other words, growing up in a one parent family is associated with lower educational scores, lower levels of school attendance, and negative self-concept among 9 year olds.

However, these children are more likely, on average, to live with a mother who has low levels of education, to live in poverty and to attend a DEIS school – just to name a few important factors that differ across families and which should be taken in consideration.

Once you take account of the wide array of ways in which resources differ across family types, children whose parents were not married look remarkably similar to those whose parents were married on all these measures.

The reason for differences in child development is therefore not the marital status of parents, but rather child development is strongly related the background characteristics of the parents, particularly the mother’s education.

In a separate study, Prof Tony Fahey confirmed these findings and advocated a reform to the social welfare system so that income supports would be directed at families on the basis of their low incomes rather than the residential status of parents.

If we want to focus the debate on marriage equality on child development, the largest issue we need to address in this regard is the growing rates of child poverty.

The child poverty rate as measured by Eurostat rose from 18% to 28.6%, between 2008 and 2012, an increase of 10.6%. This corresponds to a net increase of more than 130,000 poor children in Ireland (UNICEF 2014).

The resources available to parents – be they black or white, old or young, gay or lesbian – is what really matters.

Parental access to education, access to childcare, employment opportunities that fit with the realities of every day family life are just some of the issues that need to be addressed. Irrespective of family structure, we want parents to be able to give children the best possible start to life.

Reason 7 to keep marriage as is states that “Every Child Deserves a Mother’s Love” rather every child deserves a roof over their head, food in their belly and access to a school of choice.

Dr Carmel Hannan is a Lecturer at the Department of Sociology, University of Limerick and a contributing author to a new book on “The ‘Irish’ Family” (Routledge 2014). Follow her on Twitter @CarmelHannan

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48 thoughts on “Every Child Deserves The Facts”

  2. Ms Piggy

    Look at her, with her fancy book-learning and evidence. That’ll cut no ice with the No campaign.

    1. Jane

      Yep, they don’t need no uppity so-called doctors telling them what the facts are. And a woman, no less. Why isn’t she at home keeping her mind beautiful, simple, pure and ignorant as best suits her god given duties?

  3. gallantman

    The same case they used to make for taking children from single parents and having them adopted/sold off. Plus ca change(said in French).

    1. Drogg

      Seriously, some creative needs to join the no camp because this is just embarrassingly bad.

      1. Nially

        Yes, it is shocking alright that so few young, talented people working in the media industry are backing a “No” vote. It’s almost like they’re old, reactionary and out of touch…

          1. Nially

            You’d be surprised how much money it takes for someone to make a jaunty little animation aimed at denying their mates and colleagues equal rights.

          3. Drogg

            I have made videos for some unscrupulous companies but i would draw the line at making a video for these.

        2. Martin

          I actually reckon someone young did make this. It’s atrocious (maybe intentionally so?).

          If you can charge the Iona Institute €10,000 to make a shoddy video, let them release it and have no impact at all you get twice the bang for your buck. They lose money, you gain money, with zero impact.

          1. delta V

            ChaChing! Well done. Like the “we’ll mind your pets after The Rapture – no refunds” suckers a couple of years ago…

    2. JimmytheHead

      “i want to make up my own mind, thats why im constantly bringing up pro NO points and defending obvious bigotry”

      interesting to note that the creator(s) of this animation has declined putting their name in the credits…

          3. rotide

            I have no idea where designers make most of their profits but wouldn’t they more than likely be from women, not gays?

        2. Nially

          People are describing me as “bigoted” just because I think one group of people are less deserving of rights than another! Freedom of speech means that I should be allowed to say whatever I want, about whoever I want, with nobody being allowed to say anything back to me!

      2. newsjustin

        Why would they put their names to it? They would be destroyed by the gentle lovers of liberty and equality on the Yes side.

    3. St. John Smythe

      She lost me at, “this will represent a big societal change”.

      It won’t.

      This is being fought over vehemently as the latest proxy war in the conservatives vs. liberals tug-of-war which represents Ireland’s slow emergence from the dark ages post-1970.

      Outside of its symbolic value, it in itself it will not represent a big societal change…
      … except perhaps for the people it directly effects (i.e.: for gay and lesbian people, in particular those people who want to get married), a relatively small proportion of the population (who, no matter how small a percentage, none-the-less deserve the same rights to be afforded to them as the majority).

      1. Gav D

        Not taking a pop at you, but the fox-news-ization of debate in this country is wrecking my head. When exactly did people start categorising Irish politics things in terms of “liberal” vs “conservative”.

        Its dumbed down, Americanised, over-simplification and not at all reflective of how politics in this country actually works.

        1. St. John Smythe

          I’ll take you’re word for it as I don’t watch Fox news, I actually don’t have a telly. And I live In Deutschland over seven years, (though of course I keep abreast of things in Ireland, and read English news and blogs etc.) so not as much up on Americanized language use in Ireland.
          In my opinion, ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ (small letters) have long been totally valid words to broadly describe societal and political inclinations, since about the late 1700’s, no?
          And I’m thinking of British and Continental political history here, as a comparison to Ireland, not contemporary US politics.

          My basic point is that there has been slow burning conflict of liberalisation drives vs. conservative/paternalist/status quo drives since the 1970’s, with the heightened conflict over this issue (above and beyond the amount of people it directly affects) is the latest manifestation of that reality.

          1. Gav D

            Heres a good one for you..

            How do you know someone doesn’t have a TV?
            They can’t wait to tell you.

  7. Barry the Hatchet

    Listen to yer wan with her facts! G’way with that. Facts have no place in this debate. It’s more baseless hysteria we need.

    (Seriously though, thanks for the lovely facts. I look forward to the book.)

  8. pedeyw

    It might be worth printing some leaflets debunking the no campaign arguments. I don’t have any money though.

    1. ReproBertie

      I can understand why you’d want to do that but frankly it depresses me to think that there are people out there who’s decision on whether everyone in society deserves to be treated the same would hinge on exposing the bull of one side or the other. In the words of Brian Griffin “Undecided voters are the biggest idiots on the planet.”

      1. rotide

        You should re-read that.

        To use an extreme example, if granting everyone equal rights meant that 50% of the population died instantly, thats a vote that would not pass.

        The no side are using very emotive issues that you see as BS but some people are not aware they are BS. Which is why the figures contained in this article are good and your attidude is pretty stupid.

        1. ReproBertie

          What are you on about? What has your extreme example got to do with anything?

          We live in a republic. The very foundation of a republic is that all citizens are treated the same. This referendum aims to close a loophole which meant that some citizens were not treated the same. That people could be undecided on whether that’s a good thing or not depresses me. I could care less what you think of my attitude just as I’m sure you could care less that I think your pointless extreme example is infantile gibberish.

  9. Lan

    Bit off topic I know but its the first time I’ve seen those figures

    Doesn’t the graphic above fly in the face of all those who talk about how great Iceland is and how it dealt with its recession?

    As awful and unforgivable Ireland’s figure is, Iceland is double it. Maybe not the best place to be using a model of how we should have dealt with our banking debt and how much the EU screwed us? Oh and look whose nearly as bad but still worse than us, the other example used of how great it is to stick it up to the banksters: Greece…

    2. Kieran NYC

      +1

      And Iceland’s Bertie, who they put on trial? They let him off most charges, convicted him on a minor one and he’s now the Ambassador to the US.

  11. Tomboktu

    Keith Young at the University of Limerick was in touch with UNICEF about claims that MaFM made about UNICEF’s research, and blogged about it last week.

    I like UNICEF’s comprehensive, two-letter answer to his second question: “No.”

    http://keithjy.wix.com/mots#!#39Mothers-and-Fathers-Matter#39-The-Truth-Doesn#39t/c218b/5538ff430cf23d01644653ec

    Keitj Young at the University of Limerick was in touch with UNICEF about the claims about their report on MaFM’s website.

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