A bibliography of orphanhood

Has ever happened to you that during a discussion on joint custody, suddenly appears a wise guy accusing that your ideas are your personal opinion, or even worst, asking you for the specific study from which you took your ideas? (Yes, it is true, there are people that, lacking common sense, other people’s common sense seems to them as an anomaly.)

So that next time you meet with someone who needs evidence that the sky is blue and that the Mediterranean exists (and that is not good for children to be orphans, be it physically or legally), next I will give a list of references required in any discussion on the subject, an annotated bibliography of solitude:

Benett, Bill. The Index of Leading Cultural Indicators: American Society at the End of the Twentieth Century, New York, Broadway Books, 1994. State that 63% of all teenagers committing suicide, 70% of all pregnant teenagers, and 71% of all teenagers abusing chemical substances, come from single- parent households, as well as 80% of all prison inmates and 90% of all homeless and runaway children.

Colson, Chuck. How Shall We Live, Tyndale House Publishers, 2004, p. 323. State that 72% of juvenile murderers and 60% of rapist come from single-mother homes.

DeParle, Jason. “Raising Kevion,” New York Times, August 22, 2004. Calls single-parent families a “double dose of disadvantage” for the children.

Eddy, Chuck. “The Daddy Shady Show,” Village Voice, December 31, 2002. Indicates that children that were raised by single-mothers are 5 times more likely to commit suicide, 9 times more likely to drop out of high school, 10 times more likely to abuse chemical substances, 14 times more likely to commit rape, 20 times more likely to end up in prison, and 32 times more likely to run away from home.

Harper, C. C. & S. S. McLanahan. “Father Absence and Your Incarceration,” paper presented at the annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association, San Francisco, August 1998. States that “the strongest predictor of whether a person will end up in prison is that he was raised by a single parent.”

Horn, Wade. “Why there is no substitute for Parents,” Imprimis 26, no. 6 (June 1997) p. 2. States that by 1996, 70% of minors that dropout from school, commit suicides, and were inmates in state juvenile detention centers serving long term sentences were raised by single mothers. States also that girls raised without fathers are more sexually promiscuous and are more likely to end up in divorce.

Lyken, David T. “Parental Licensure,” American Psychologist, 56: 885, 887 (2001) Another study that states that the strongest predictor of whether a person will end up in prison is that he was raised by a single parent.

Lyken, David T. “Reconstructing Fathers”, American Psychologist, 55: 681,681 (2000) States that 70% de teenage pregnancies happen to girls who were raised by single-mothers.

McLanahan, Sara & Gary Sandefur. Growing Up With a Single Parent. What Hurts, What Helps. The definitive text on the subject of father’s absence. Includes statements as strong as this one: “In our opinion, the evidence is quite clear: Children who grow up in a household with only one biological parent are worse off, on average, than children who grow up in a household with both of their biological parents, regardless of the parent’s race or educational background.”

Newland, Martin. “Why England is Rotting,” Maclean’s, June 11, 2007. States that Britain leads Europe in the proportion single-mothers household, and also leads Europe in crime, alcohol and drug abuse, obesity and sexually transmitted diseases.

Redding, Richard E. “It’s Really About Sex: Same Sex Marriage, Lesbigay Parenting, and the Psychology of Disgust”, Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy, January 1, 2008. States that 70% de runaways, juvenile delinquents, and child murderers were raised by single-mothers.

Some of these references will take you to others, so this bibliography will only be the tip of the golden thread that will bring you to other research papers and other studies.

Jesus said “You will know truth and truth will set you free”. Let us study and spread the truth so that truth and justice be spread too. Let us do it now. Our children are waiting.