Most children in America still live in a traditional family, the U.S. Census Bureau reported Wednesday.
Of the nation's 73 million children, 6 in 10 lived with both their biological parents, most of whom are married. About 7 in 10 children lived with two parents and two-thirds lived with married parents, according to latest report, based on 2004 surveys.
Still, 1 in 4 children under the age of 18 lived with only one parent, with the majority (78.7 percent) residing with their unmarried, biological mother.
The analysis was an encouraging report for pro-family groups, which have been battling to preserve families where children are raised in two-parent homes.
“People realize the value of giving kids a mother and a father,” Glenn Stanton, director of global family formation studies at Focus on the Family, told Citizen Link. “We need to understand that that is the norm, that it’s the overwhelming majority and not the minority.
"That should give great encouragement to the majority of people out there that are trying to make their marriages work and their parenting relationships work.”
Still, nearly 4 percent of children lived with no parents. Half of these children, though, were living with their grandparents.
Percentages of children living in two-parent homes varied among different racial groups.
Only 38 percent of black children lived with both parents, a much lower proportion than white non-Hispanic (78 percent), Asian (87 percent), and Hispanic (68 percent) children.
For Hispanic children, the report infers that immigration among Hispanics may affect what kind of home they grow up in. It is suggested that families who provide housing for their immigrant relatives and friends would affect the data.
The report "Living Arrangements of Children: 2004" also shows that around 3.7 million children are living in cohabiting families, with one biological parent and an unmarried partner.
The percentages of white non-Hispanic children (5 percent) and Hispanic children who lived with a cohabiting parent were not statistically different from the percentage of black children (6 percent) who lived with a cohabiting parent, according to the report.
Jenny Tyree, associate marriage analyst for Focus on the Family Action, told Citizen Link that the number of children living in cohabiting families was disheartening.
“Research continues to show that these children have poorer emotional health and are at higher risk to suffer abuse than their peers in married families,” she said.
“Marriage continues to be one of the greatest gifts a parent can give a child.”
Data was collected from June 2004 through September 2004 in the Survey of Income and Program Participation.
Parents are defined in this report as a mother or father of the child who may be married or unmarried, biological, step, or adoptive.
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Good points Prophet, and you are right
but wiccan does have a point. Families used to take care of the elders themselves. They didn't shove them in a nursing home and forget about them. But the "progress" has most definitely turned us into a "nuclear family". Extended family, though it still exists, is not acknowledge much anymore. And parents are even starting to alienate themselves from their children. So what's next? The millenial family? Where the kids have their own house, but still connected to the main house? It's not far from the truth. I know a number of families where the kids have tvs, fridges, computer, and video game consoles in their room.
Right Wiccan,
here is the thing, traditionaly grandma lived with mom and dad and me right? So grandma was family right? Today, grandma doesn't necessarily live with mom and dad and me, but guess what? She is still grandma! I know, it is amazing, I could hardly believe it myself when I found out! But you know what? Today the family is trying to be redefined as dad and dad, or mom and mom. Throughout all of history Aunts have been aunts, and uncles have been uncles, and it is truly amazing, but grandma and grandpas have always remained...grandmas and grandpas.
"Traditional families," up until after WWII, was a multi-generational one. Kids, parents, grandparents, often aunts/uncles, lived under the same roof. The nuclear family as we know it today is not "traditional," it's a very recent development.
They need a different phrase than "two parent homes". The pro-gay activist will jump all over that like a hungry dog on a T-bone steak, saying that homosexual couples are a "two parent home." I think "traditional families" would be more appropriate.