Our dysfunctional society today...

Recently in the news it was published that marriage (normal traditional marriage) is on a decline, making up less than 50% of stats for Canada. Interestingly enough, Manitoba has bucked this trend, with something like 68% of couples claiming marital status. (yay us!). There have been many studies over the years done that have proven beyond a doubt that the best environment for children to live in is a stable, 2 parent (one of each sex) committed home. This means a man and a woman living together with a legitimate recognition of their binding; MARRIAGE.

Licia Corbella wrote an excellent column on this subject...


We don't need no piece of paper from the city hall, keeping us tied and true -- no ..."
-- Joni Mitchell from My Old Man (1971)
As much as I admire Joni, that sentiment was, and still is, hokey and more importantly, untrue if not dangerous.
Those hippie days are long past, but the notion of shacking up grows more prevalent every year, as Statistics Canada's release Wednesday of 2006 census data shows.
Couples have common-law relationships for a myriad of reasons -- most of them terribly unromantic -- and include convenience, being incapable of true commitment, waiting for someone better to come along or because they think they are being (yawn) oh, so original with their anti-establishment attitude.
But the census figures and other studies show that the so-called "piece of paper" Joni derided in that song holds a lot of value, particularly for the well-being of children.
Anne-Marie Ambert, professor emeritus of sociology at York University in Toronto, says shacking up carries with it some very serious societal side effects when kids are part of the arrangement.
"That piece of paper matters a lot because cohabitations are much less stable than marriages," explains Ambert.
According to figures from StatsCan's 1998 National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth, 63% of children whose parents were living common-law had seen their parents split by age 10, compared with 14% of children of married couples.
LET'S SPLIT
In other words, common-law relationships are a whopping 450% more likely to split up than a marriage!
The latest census figures show that common-law unions have increased by 19% since 2001 and account for 15.5% of all Canadian families.
Ambert says the resulting increase of lone-parent families -- which have reached a record 15.9% -- is also the leading cause of childhood poverty and the attendant risks associated with poverty and single parenting including, poorer educational outcomes, increased teenage pregnancy, a spike in criminality, etc.
In 2005, the median income for two-parent Canadian families was $67,600. For single-parent families it was $30,000, which means half of all single-parent families had incomes of less than that annually. About 80% of lone-parent families are headed by women.
According to a U.S. study cited by Ambert in a paper she published with The Vanier Institute of the Family, boys raised without a father are twice as likely to be jailed, though boys raised in step-parent families are at an even greater risk of turning to criminality.
That now seemingly quaint adage, "we're staying together for the sake of the kids," is starting to make a lot of sense.
"You very rarely have a very serious criminal who comes from a good, two-parent family," says Ambert. "You have delinquents and kids who go through a phase, but lots of studies around the world show that when you look at the population of very hardened criminals, very few of them grew up with a father."
Ambert adds most children raised by single parents turn out fine; it's just the negative risks grow exponentially.
TAX SYSTEM
Meanwhile, Canada's income tax system still penalizes married couples by disallowing income splitting. It's madness.
So, yes, pieces of paper hold enormous importance in this world, after all, how many of us would dare buy a house, car or couch without receiving a piece of paper in return? Unthinkable isn't it?
Paper is important. Parents who don't have that "piece of paper" are literally putting the well-being of their kids at risk.


As a side note: I can't believe how long it's been since I've written in my blog....bad Facebook.....