ABSTRACT
In a recent study, Robert L. Maginnis of the conservative Family Research Council concluded, ‘Children from single-parent families are more prone to commit crime’. Making a common elision (between single-parent and unmarried mother), Maginnis explains, ‘This is because unmarried mothers often lack the skills to support a family or to manage a household effectively’.1 The popular media generally accepts such conclusions as fact, despite the serious doubt much recent scholarship casts on these assertions. A 1998 Newsweek headline about a program directed at single mothers claimed, ‘Sorry. Government Programs Can’t Undo Most of the 111 Effects of Family Breakdown’.2
