There’s a huge difference between single mom with a baby daddy that ran away, and a shared custody agreement between two people who are both in the picture. “Single mom” stories and statistics are usually about the former. I’m not sure how much worse the latter is compared to a two parent household

It's a better situation, but still not ideal. A lot depends on the custody terms and how well the two parents get along.

If you could measure what would have happened if parents stayed together then yes. But parents break up for a reason, and trying to put that back together makes zero sense. In the US, a large minority of single parents have fathers who have spent time in jail...is it a good idea to put a child into that environment? Probably not.

And the main issue with single parents is income/income instability (which is why there are focused benefits in many countries for single parents). As ever, an income issue gets classed as something else.

> In the US, a large minority of single parents have fathers who have spent time in jail...is it a good idea to put a child into that environment?

Very well could be a good idea. If the father was in jail because of some youthful drug offenses, it could very well be that he could still be a devoted and loving parent and no danger whatsoever to the child.

> A single parent household leads to worse outcomes for children in pretty much every single metric you can think of.

Divorce does not always result in single-parent households.

Divorced parents can and do remarry.

While true — in addition to your point about remarriage, I’ve met a couple who legally split because same sex marriage didn’t exist at the time and one of them was trans — you should probably show the frequency rather than existence of such groups.

From a financial standpoint, probably.

Children not encountering lies, strife, or emotional disattachment on a daily basis anymore seems a significant improvement, however.

Having lived many years in both a miserable, acrimonious two parent household, and a post-divorce situation - my personal opinion is the latter is, unintuitively, far more harmful long term for the kids. But the former is so much worse for the parents that I don’t think it’s worth it to, say, stay together until they leave the nest. If that were possible without total loss of sanity, I think it would be better. But the divorce was decidedly not amicable so I don’t know what that’s like.

Right, so if I interpret you correctly, you were in the situation of living with two parents in a bad relationship, and the divorce added additional stress of having two different houses, visitation/custody complexity, and possibly additional fights between the parents about those issues.

So the alternative of having one home and more access to both parents could be better for the child even if the parents don't get along with each other well.

That is exactly what I mean, yes. If both parents sincerely want what’s best for the kids, that should take priority and thus the bar should be accordingly high for divorce until the kids are grown, whatever you feel grown means. Higher than the parents just wanting to “live their best life”.

As I recall, I didn’t take my parents’ daily fighting, even my mom screaming and throwing things, as much to heart as some might think. I’m glad you used the word access because that’s precisely what I valued most, and the biggest loss. Second to that was the devastating financial strain (2 apartments, 2 cars, etc but same income).

I will second this sentiment as I grew up in a very similar situation, extremely unhealthy two-parent relationships that left me with some really bad memories and then a vicious divorce between two people who hate each other. Often children are used as weapons against the divorced spouse in this situation which adds significant stress in growing up. At least when the parents are together the children can't be used as proxy wars.

> At least when the parents are together the children can't be used as proxy wars.

Of they can be used as such.