Medical Daily – Elana Glowatz
“About 80 percent of life is just showing up, the saying goes. The same could probably be said for parenting, in light of a recent study on the effect of parental absence on certain risky behaviors, such as childhood smoking and drinking. In a study published today in Archives of Disease in Childhood, researchers found that kids with an absent parent were generally more likely to smoke or consume alcohol by age 11. The absences were due to either a parent death or separation before the child turned 7, although there was a caveat for kids who had a dead parent: those children were less likely to have drunk alcohol, but of those among them who had, they were more likely to have consumed enough to get drunk. And for all the youths, the results were across the board. “No differences were found by child sex or age, or [which] parent [was] absent,” the study said.”(more)