One of the world’s leading experts on marriage and family life says the negative effects of cohabitation on children are too great to ignore.
In an article appearing on Aleteia, Dr. Rick Fitzgibbons reports that in spite of the fact that cohabitating unions are highly unstable, more than 2.5 million children are now living in cohabiting households – a twelve-fold increase from the 1970s.
Some of the harmful effects of cohabitation on children include a much higher likelihood of suffering from a range of emotional and social problems such as drug use, depression, and dropping out of high school – compared to children in intact, married families.
Teens are twice as likely to use drugs than teens living in intact married families.
Children living in cohabiting households are eight times more likely to be abused than children living with their married biological parents. Children living in cohabiting households are 50 times more likely to die of inflicted injuries and evidence now confirms that the most unsafe family environment for a child is one in which the mother lives with a boyfriend.
Because of the high rate of breakups in cohabiting relationships, children are exposed much more often to the many personal and social difficulties that accompany the breakup of a family. In fact, three-quarters of children born to cohabiting couples will see their parents break up before they reach the age of 16. Compare this to only one-third of children born to married parents.
Dr. Fitzgibbons quotes the disturbing conclusions of a 2005 Princeton-Brookings Policy Brief about the phenomenon of cohabitation:
“Although it was once possible to believe that the nation’s high rates of divorce, cohabitation, and nonmarital childbearing represented little more than lifestyle alternatives brought about by the freedom to pursue individual fulfillment, many analysts now believe that these individual choices can be damaging to the children who have no say in them and to the society that enables them.”
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