I think Slate is trolling me

Slate is soliciting feedback and stories based on the premise that it's better to be raised by a single parent. No, really.

This essay is a long paean to confirmation bias; it makes my head hurt and also irritates me. A lot. I was sufficiently moved to write a response and send it in, mostly because the essay from Ms. Gripke was such a steaming pile of bullshit. 

Anyway, the gist of her essay is how awesome she is as a parent, and how awesome she is as a single parent, and how totally awesome it is that her kids get to grow up with a single mom (who is so awesome).

You know what I've never heard a parent in a healthy relationship say? This: "We've got too many damn people around here! This would all be so much easier and better for the kids if there was just one of us. Imagine how much tougher they would be! They would have grit and value hard work and other stuff!"

If you can't raise a kid with two parents it's not because there's too many parents, it's because you're doing it wrong.

Anyway, my response.
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I was raised by a single mother from the time I was 5 until adulthood. Moreover, I have a fraternal twin sister that was raised in the same household.

There is no doubt that I learned some hard lessons at a younger age than most of my peers. Custody battles will do that to a kid. So does housing instability caused by money shortages.

Not sure what your metric for success is, but I guess I turned out okay. Not perfect, but I graduated from a UC school, support myself financially, and generally try to be a productive member of society. Also I am able to sustain healthy friendships and healthy romantic relationships.

My sister dropped out of high school 22 years ago, and (so far) has no career and no marketable skills, can barely hold down a job. If you measure success by the metrics I listed for myself, she is an abject failure. Her biggest achievement to date was getting one of her children taken away by the state of Oregon because she is an unfit mother. My mom took the child out of foster care, which is a great joke in my family because she's currently batting .500 but could bring her average to .666 with a late surge.

So why did I turn out more or less normal and why did my sister become a drug-addled grifter? I'm not strictly sure. We had similar social opportunities, the same public education (through 10th grade), same diet, etc. The same single-parent household that gave me 'grit' also created a high-school dropout long-term welfare recipient with multiple dependents. So.

(As an aside: Of course Ms. Gripke thinks that her kids get a 'winning combination' when raised by a single parent. That's not good parenting, that's confirmation bias.)

The determining factor in the success of your children is not how many parents you have. It certainly isn't 'better' to be raised by a single parent. It's better to be raised by parents that teach you to be a good adult, regardless of number.

Put another way: You can create a self-entitled brat with any number of parents and just about any budget. You can create generous, hard-working, successful adults in almost any circumstance, but it is easier if there are two people there to do the heavy lifting.