As National Family Month and National Adoption Month wrap up, focusing on marriage and its impact on children is appropriate. Institute for Family studies says the social science is clear: children raised by their own married parents are more likely to thrive than are children living in any other family arrangement. That’s because children in homes with married moms and dads tend to enjoy more stability, more money, more consistent discipline, and more attention than their peers in other families.
Children in homes of their married dads and moms are, at a minimum, more likely to graduate high school, stay out of jail, are less likely to experience poverty and less likely to engage in risky behaviors. As the institute points out, marriage is much more than a piece of paper! We need families and churches to be marriage champions—especially for the sake of children.
