A traditional family, with a mother and a father, is best for children, a recent study confirms. Published in the Journal of Communication and Religion, the study found, unsurprisingly, that for balanced development, boys need a mother, and girls a father (November 2008).

“[A] child’s relationship with his or her parents is the single most important factor in predicting that child’s long-term happiness, adjustment, development, educational attainment, and success,” said an article published in American Thinker that details some of the study’s findings. The article states,

While family communication and interaction is critical to high-quality relationships for children and adolescents, this study suggests that the opposite-sex parent is especially important in making children feel validated and encouraged. This is true of boys as well as girls, but it is especially true of daughters. Fathers have the greatest impact on their daughters’ vitality as an adolescent college student. Daughters with a strong relationship with their father are more self-confident, self-reliant, and are more successful in school and career than those who have distant or absent fathers.

Of course, this study just confirms what the Bible has taught all along regarding God’s design for families.

The truth is that, ideally, children need a mother and a father to bring them up as well-balanced individuals. A father teaches his sons how to be men and his daughters what it means to be loved—what proper, respectful male attention truly is. The mother’s role is equally important. She nurtures and teaches her children and plays a major part in their emotional development.

Husband and wife have two different but complementary and vitally important roles. Yet, today, the “traditional” family is rapidly becoming unusual. In 2006, the National Center for Health Statistics said that 48 percent of all U.S. marriages end in divorce. Thirty-seven percent of American children are born out of wedlock.

For more information, see our articles “Daddy’s Girl,” “The Need for Fathers” and “Principles of Living: Wanted: Good Mothers.”