wrote:

This suggests that children living with single mothers would be more successful
if the mothers were better off financially.


Oh crap! As if the powers that be need more excuses to chase after big
CS orders from men!

And the very next sentence:


"Parents with higher socioeconomic status are usually better positioned to create
positive family environments," Downey said.


Gotta' love are laws. Wouldn't it then make more sense to have the
parent with the
biggest paycheck be the CP? Oh wait, that wouldn't be any fun for the
state if they
couldn't play their take-from-one-and-give-to-the-other games.

Another bogus argument I've seen when discussing this study is that it
"proves" that single mothers are actually BETTER than single fathers
because only the best fathers ever win custody, so you'd expect them to
do a better job parenting than the average single mother, but they
don't. This is basically admitting to discrimination against men in the
family courts and then using it to further discrimination against men in
the family courts.

The reason it is bogus is that, first, not every single father wins
custody in the family courts (I'd guess that such single fathers would
be in the MINORITY amongst all single fathers, but I don't have any
data). Single fathers may "win" custody by default because the mother
dies or abandons the kids. Even more importantly, it is a fallacy to
assert that only the "best" of fathers win custody in family court when
it seems that in the majority of cases where fathers win contested
custody against mothers, it is due to the court finding the mother unfit
to parent rather than the court finding the father to be a "better
parent" than a basically fit mother. In all of these cases, the fitness
of the father -- beyond not being considered a danger, and sometimes not
even that -- is irrelevant.

- Ron ^*^