Derb – Fair enough, I have to hit the road in a few minutes (the Goldbergs’ adventure continues). And I certainly concede the point that there are several social harms at work in single mothering. I agree entirely that the greatest sin of the Murphy Brown is not that she mistreats her own child by eschewing marriage, but the signal she sends to others. But, it seems to me, that it’s hard case to make — as you seem to be doing — that single motherhood is a large society-wide problem, but not much of one in actual single-parent families. How does that work? Why is it bad for society to have a million single-moms, but its of non consequence of any particular mom/child? Is there some tragedy of the commons factor I’m missing?

I still have problems with your invovations of our genetic past. Sure, single moms were no doubt common, in part because so many men were killed by other men and so many women were raped. Also life expectancy was low and behaviors and habits we would consider barbaric today were often the norm. That a child brought up by a single mom 100,000 years ago would be able to live long enough to procreate (and hence be “okay”), is not quite the same thing as saying a kid raised by a single mom would be okay in 21st century America, in terms of how we define ok. It seems to me the role of parents is more important today because the burdens of citizenship are so much more complex.

But, as is already clear, we could go around and around like this all day.

Also, thanks to all readers who sent in email, agreeable and disagreeable alike. Alas, I can’t post all of it, never mind respond to all of it, but I did quite a lot along these lines, and I think it’s basically right so I thought I’d share:

Hi Jonah, I bet you’re getting a ton of mail about this. I’m in your camp, but I think one thing that has to be said is that parents aren’t going to make as big an impact on kids if they’re teaching the same things the broader culture does, and leaving most of the teaching to the culture. My parents are countercultural (not just conservative, but religious; not just religious either but thoughtful, and turning always a critical eye toward the culture), and I was home-schooled, so the good parenting I received is by far the greatest “environmental” determinant of who I am today. “Nonshared environment” shrinks considerably when you compare my family to most others today. For those children who are basically raised by public schools, TV, and other aspects of popular culture, with much less time spent interacting with their parents, I’m willing to believe a lot of those parents (who tend to ”go with the flow” of the culture) could be interchanged without affecting the kids a huge amount. And those kids represent the majority of our society today. I don’t think your kids or Derb’s kids would fall in that category though–Derb’s selling himself short.