The nuclear family does work, in the sense that average outcomes for children raised by their married biological parents are better than for other children.
Is that correlation or causation? I could imagine that the kind of people who make sensible choices about who to marry and are able to hold a marriage together for a long period of time would also happen to be the kind of people who could raise children adequately.
Like for example being discriminated against throughout your life, first because your parents are the gay weirdos at the corner, and then later because with all your liberal, non-conformist ideas you always strike the wrong chords with people.
Regardless of whether it is correlation or causation it seems to be an objective observation.
I would also wager having a "better" child of the sort that would have good outcomes also helps hold families together better. If you have a kid that just is downright "broken" somehow in a way that places unusual demands from the parents, it often harms the marriage. That is, perhaps it is also the case the kind of children that have better outcomes tend to place less unusual demands on their parents, allowing the family to continue to bond. A particular violent, psychologically psychopathic child that might be measured as having bad outcomes might also drive the parents apart as family life becomes unbearable.
A nuclear family is a subset of the greater family, so I don't see your point. Having nuclear family plus less direct family members would be included in the nuclear family observation.
Ah, so there's a confusion in regards to terminology. My understanding is that a nuclear family and a multigenerational family aren't the same thing. From Wikipedia:
"A nuclear family, elementary family or conjugal family is a family group consisting of parents and their children (one or more), typically living in one home residence. It is in contrast to a single-parent family, the larger extended family, or a family with more than two parents."[1]
From the Miriam Webster site:
"Well, yes. Nuclear families—the term refers to a family group that consists only of parents and children—are nuclear but in a sense of that word that's now much less common than today's most common uses of nuclear."[2]
I take it you mean "both parents + any number of extras" with your definition?
Search the dictionary for "subset." The nuclear family is a subset of larger families; if 3 generations live together the nuclear family is still present.
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RE:
>With that approach then all nuclear families contain subset single-parent and childless families as well.
Yes, now you understand. Someone saying nuclear families do well is not saying extended families do worse. Your premise is completely a straw man.
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>If we go with this "subset" logic and nuclear families are the best because they are a subset of extended families, then the best outcomes for children are single orphaned people without children because they are subsets of every family.
This is another strawman. You made the assertion about extended families, not op. Op was talking about nuclear families. If the extended family includes the nuclear family, then necessarily a statement made about the nuclear family still applies to the child contained in that family.
No one said they were better because they are a subset, they're saying the superset of the subset is not said to be worse. That is, a nuclear family is not said to be worse than an orphan child. It's entirely an argument of your own making to imply one is saying the superset is worse than the subset, when nothing of the sort was implied.
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>There are no supersets of a nuclear family that are worse than the nuclear family?
I'm sure there are. Just because no one is saying it is objectively worse doesn't mean there aren't cases where it is worse. Not claiming that something is worse is different than claiming that it is never worse.
>There are possibly properties of a nuclear family that only exist when it is a singular nuclear family and those don't necessarily extend to every superset, which is why I asked my original question.
Yes the bizarre thing was your accusation:
>Really? We know this for a fact that the nuclear family is better than extended families or group co-housing arrangements for children?
OP never claimed that a nuclear family inside of an extended family was worse.
> No one said they were better because they are a subset, they're saying the superset of the subset is not said to be worse. That is, a nuclear family is not said to be worse than an orphan child. It's entirely an argument of your own making to imply one is saying the superset is worse than the subset, when nothing of the sort was implied.
There are no supersets of a nuclear family that are worse than the nuclear family? There are possibly properties of a nuclear family that only exist when it is a singular nuclear family and those don't necessarily extend to every superset, which is why I asked my original question.
OK, you're replying weird, but let's go with this....
> Yes, now you understand. Someone saying nuclear families do well is not saying extended families do worse.
I mean, I reject that logic, but my initial question was do nuclear families do better than extended families? If we go with this "subset" argument and nuclear families are the best because they are a subset of extended families, then the best outcomes for children are single orphaned people without children because they are subsets of every family.