Is it Rare for Someone's Biogical Parents to Stay Together?

[The Mad Monk]

Perhaps you should just take this as another example of just how broken Philadelphia really is.

[Dinner]

I read **** like this:

"Married adults now divorce two-and-a-half times as often as adults did 20 years ago and four times as often as they did 50 years ago... between 40% and 60% of new marriages will eventually end in divorce.

Yeah, but that double or even triple counts some people who have been married and divorced multiple times. One guy gets married and divorced three times and it's counted as three marriages even though we're only talking about one guy. In short, most people who get married do not end up divorced but some people who get divorced multiple times do skew the numbers a bit.

[notyoueither]

It's biological impossible for both homosexual parents to be the biological parents of 79.5% of children in same-sex households. It's also reasonably doubtful that 79.5% of children in same-sex households have one gay parent being biological, unless surrogate mothers/fathers have exceeded adoption as the most common means for homosexual couples to have children?

First sentence, yes.

Second sentence, no. A lot of people who identify as gay have been closeted in the past and have children from previous relationships, or they are women who sought out children as a single parent. Also, I have read that there are more bisexual people than exclusively gay and lesbian. I am not surprised by the census data at all.

[Al B. Sure!]

Yeah, but that double or even triple counts some people who have been married and divorced multiple times. One guy gets married and divorced three times and it's counted as three marriages even though we're only talking about one guy. In short, most people who get married do not end up divorced but some people who get divorced multiple times do skew the numbers a bit.

I already showed the stats:

http://www.divorcerate.org/

50% percent of first marriages, 67% of second and 74% of third marriages end in divorce, according to Jennifer Baker of the Forest Institute of Professional Psychology in Springfield, Missouri.

LOOK!

[Al B. Sure!]

First sentence, yes.

Second sentence, no. A lot of people who identify as gay have been closeted in the past and have children from previous relationships, or they are women who sought out children as a single parent. Also, I have read that there are more bisexual people than exclusively gay and lesbian. I am not surprised by the census data at all.

But therefore most homosexual households with children would be step-families! One biological parent and a non-biological parent both married equals step-family!

The traditional and strictest definition of a "stepfamily" is a married couple where one or both members of the couple have pre-existing children who live with them.

So pre-existing children in the situation you described would be now in a stepfamily household.

Yet the census says only 11.1% are 'step or adopted' (census terminology!!!!) households... so if X% are adopted, then the percentage that you describe would be (11.1-X)%

HUH?!

Clearly something is wrong with the metric used to define what step is.

[Jon Miller]

Maybe most marriages that end in divorce don't produce kids.

JM

[notyoueither]

But therefore most homosexual households with children would be step-families! One biological parent and a non-biological parent both married equals step-family! Yet the census says only 11.1% are step or adopted families... so if X% are adopted, then the percentage that you describe would be (11.1-X)%

HUH?!

Clearly something is wrong with the metric used to define what step is.

Sure, but you did not stop there. You went on to make assumptions about homosexual people and families. I was explaining where you went wrong and why the stat WRT biological children (of at least one parent) is not unusual in families headed by same-sex couples.

[Al B. Sure!]

Sure, but you did not stop there. You went on to make assumptions about homosexual people and families. I was explaining where you went wrong and why the stat WRT biological children (of at least one parent) is not unusual in families headed by same-sex couples.

BUT WHY ARE THEY NOT CLASSIFIED AS STEPFAMILIES WHEN THEY ARE?!

[giblets]

The website you linked to provides two contradictory sources, the first of which claims that first marriages fail 50% of the time and the second of which says they fail 40% of the time. And the first one only claimed that some unknown person at an obscure institution says it. The site you linked to also claimed that childlessness makes divorce more likely, which undermines the argument you've attempted to make.

[Al B. Sure!]

This is what wikipedia says:

Statistics in the United States are difficult to come by, because the U.S. Census Bureau has discontinued providing estimates of marriage, divorce, and remarriage except for those that are available from the 1990 and earlier censuses.[4]

The most common form of blended family is a mother and stepfather arrangement, since mothers often maintain custody of the children.[2]
One-third of all children entering stepfamilies were born to an unmarried mother; the other two-thirds of cases involve divorce or the death of one parent.[5]
Of the 60 million American children under the age of 13, half are currently living with one biological parent and that parent's current partner.[6]
The 1990 U.S. census estimated that by the year 2000 there would be more stepfamilies than original families.[6]

But then in the same article:

If only children residing in legally married stepfamilies are included, 23% of U.S. children would be designated as living in a stepfamily; when children are included who live with a cohabiting parent, the figure rises to 30%.[7]

Clearly something is amiss with all these statistics.

[notyoueither]

BUT WHY ARE THEY NOT CLASSIFIED AS STEPFAMILIES WHEN THEY ARE?!

That's not my concern. BTW, you might want to be careful about blood pressure.

[Al B. Sure!]

That's not my concern. BTW, you might want to be careful about blood pressure.

If gay stepfamilies are not being counted as stepfamilies, how do we know straight stepfamilies are being counted as stepfamilies?

[kentonio]

A gay couple with one biological parent is not comparable to a stepfamily for goodness sake.

[Al B. Sure!]

A gay couple with one biological parent is not comparable to a stepfamily for goodness sake.

The census notes 'step' children, lumping them with adopted at 11.1% of gay households. Under what circumstances does a gay household have stepchildren? When are they considered biological and when are they considered 'step'? Clearly something is up and I don't comprehend how you all don't see it.

[kentonio]

When a childs parents seperate and a new parent is introduced to the equation then it would presumably count as a step parent.