katscratch makes a valid point regarding the tendency to point at extreme personal experiences and use them to dismiss the entire concept of the nuclear family. People who are, understandably, defensive of either their own efforts at single parenting, or those of their hard-working single parents, take unwarranted offense at any mention of the overwhelming evidence that children are best served when raised in the context of marriage (or at least 2 parents who behave exactly like married people). This fact does not invalidate your efforts, nor do your efforts invalidate this fact. The fact that some of us are trying really hard to make the best of a broken world doesn't mean that nearly all social ills are not at their root the product of human selfishness.