Reaction Paper on "Comparison of Texts"

Reaction Paper 4 pages (1353 words) Sources: 1+

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Mclanahan et al. see existence of a two-parent home as prerogative for successful and well-adjusted children in various ways. Firstly, they observe that income from a one parent home is less and the child therefore grows up economically disadvantaged and will, subsequently, later experience problems with getting into the right college and finding a career.

A single parent home also causes education difficulties with the child being less able to adjust in school. Other difficulties include chaos for child since his security of family has been taken from him and no other family member, including grandparents, can provide the stability and security of a 2-parent household.

Furthermore, the single mother may cut off contact with community and friends from a source of depression, or bitterness or endeavor to make new friends. This will increase child's alienation and aimlessness. Most significantly, the child may see the mother engage in sex and other behavior that may be prompted by change, causing the child himself to engage in irresponsible behavior. In short, the child almost always transitions through the difficult periods of finishing school, finding a job, and starting a family. Children who grow up with both parents are more readily able to do this than the child who grows ups with just one parent. This is so, not only because he or she may lack the model figure that she so drastically needs, but because, being left on her own and likely exposed to loss of resources, oftentimes loss of father figure, unavailability of mother, poor family examples, stress, and far more - all of which affects academic achievement, opportunities of finding a job, and social interaction -- the child is, almost always, bound to fail.

On all counts, then, Mclanahan et al. see the single-parent family as a non-desirable situation that is to be avoided.

Cherlin's (2007) essay follows a similar point, although focusing more on the destructiveness of divorce to children. Her longitudinal cross-sectional studies conducted in both Britain and the U.S.A. were implemented in order to evaluate the impact of divorce on children and to see which of the gender were more effected if at all, boys or girls.

A subsample of children (aged 7 in the British sample and aged 7 to 11 in the American data) were surveyed before divorce and surveyed again four years later following divorce (when they were 11 years old and 11 to 16 respectively). At both times, in both samples and during both interviews in the British scenario children were graded on their reading and mathematic achievements. At both times, during both interviews in the American scenario, parents rated their children's behavior before and following divorce. Children, whose parents were divorced or separated during this time limit, were compared to children from intact families. For both boys and girls, pre-existent marital conflict and its possible effect on their behavior were taken into consideration.

The authors discovered that taking into effect prior conditions, including achievement and behavior problems that were already evident before divorce sharply reduced the negative impact seen on boys' behavior following divorce and separation. For girls, the differnce was still there but less pronounced.

Limitations that exist in this study include the fallibility of comparing children of two different countries with very different atmospheres and values one to the other. Expectations of schooling, for instance, are far stricter in the UK than they are in the U.S. And American academic results may have shown lesser difference than those from Britain did. Likewise, American families, generally, have different models and discipline styles than British ones do. In both behavior and academic results, the two countries are so diametrically different that application of results from one to the other cannot be made.

Furthermore, although the authors were correct in including other potential variables such as marital stress and conditions before the divorce and separation into the equation -- many other researchers have failed to do this -- they fall short in failing to consider other variables that may account for the disturbance that the children evidenced… READ MORE

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