Conclusion

Relationship education programs do little to deliver on their original promise of addressing financial poverty, turning the tide on state divorce rates, or increasing state marriage rates, but participants see their relationships and their children benefiting nonetheless. An underlying reason is because these programs seem to address factors related to parents’ risk for social poverty—unclear expectations for their new social roles, techniques for carrying out these roles successfully, and trust in themselves and one another. Social Poverty offers a set of recommendations for social policy and relationship education programs. This includes the idea that policy must be constructed using the lens of social poverty, such as by designing programs to promote dignity and human connection.

Committing to a Relationship

This chapter draws on role theory and the changing cultural norms around relationships to explain how a risk of social poverty accompanies parents’ attempts to build lasting partnerships. These couples want to create and maintain healthy, lasting unions and parent their children together. Often their relationships are young, and so they are figuring out how to successfully occupy these roles. Role theory helps explain the challenges of the multiple role transitions—to adulthood, partnership, and parenthood—these young people are undertaking. This is particularly challenging given today’s relaxed social norms for romantic relationships, called “deinstitutionalization.” Despite these relaxed norms, which can make expectations and roles unclear, the partners often share relationship ideals. However, they often face an array of obstacles—such as finances and their concerns about their partners’ and their own abilities to be good spouses—to achieving these ideals; this increases the likelihood of social poverty in their lives.

Relationship and Parenting Changes

In this chapter, drawing on interviews with parents approximately a year after they enrolled in the program, participants reflected on what it meant to them to take part. Some credited the program with helping to address core issues in their relationships, often around trust and communication. This did not mean relationships were perfect or arguments didn’t occur. Rather, couples saw things moving in the right direction, which gave them a sense that their relationships were worth investing in. When couples had inadequate living space or social-psychological resources, it could be difficult for them to institute the techniques they learned in the program. Women who broke up with their partners felt supported by the program staff during this transition. These findings can shed light on the quantitative results of a federally funded national study of relationship education programs, Building Strong Families.

Family Expectations

This chapter describes the Family Expectations program, which is a long-running relationship education program targeted at low-income, new parents in Oklahoma City. Often women take the lead in suggesting to their male partners that they attend the program, but men are won over once they visit the well-appointed facility with its friendly staff. Couples attend because they desire a better relationship with one another both for themselves and for their children. They enjoy the relationship skills workshops, and the educators’ lessons about communication resonate with them. The program helps couples form shared expectations regarding what counts as healthy relationship dynamics. Their relationships with staff appear to be key to their enjoyment of and participation in the program.

Becoming a Parent

This chapter discusses how becoming a parent involves a huge transformation in social role and identity. It often spurs young people to want to act more grown-up and do better—at work, in their relationships, with their educations—than before, all to give their children a better life than they themselves had while growing up. These role transitions—to adulthood, partnership, and parenthood—are intertwined in these young people’s lives, and complications and challenges arise from tackling these transitions simultaneously. Amid a great deal of instability and change, the young parents in this study struggle to trust one another and themselves, which makes securing their desired social resources and avoiding social poverty that much more difficult.

Introduction

This chapter explains the concept of social poverty and how it offers a new way of analyzing policy and of understanding human behavior. For example, it helps to explain the puzzle of why relationship education participants are enthusiastic about these programs, even though commentators and researchers are often critical of them. The low-income, unmarried, new parents who attend relationship education programs often face a great deal of instability in their lives, which can challenge their social resources. Parents see relationship education programs, such as Oklahoma City’s Family Expectations program, studied here, as offering tools they need to build these social resources and guard against social poverty.

Becoming an Adult

This chapter explains the challenges of the transition to adulthood for the young parents in this study, and it reflects on the implications of this transition for their risk of social poverty. In today’s culture, the transition to adulthood is a self-focused time of instability and exploration. Young people are often not settled with their education, employment and career plans, living situation, transportation, and ability to pay the bills. The multitude of changes and possible futures of this stage in life make it more difficult for romantic couples to create a stable foundation for a future together and commit to one another, when so much of what is to come is unknown. In many ways, the transition to adulthood can increase the risk of social poverty.

Learning Skills

This chapter discusses the experiences parents have early on in the year in which they are enrolled in the relationship education program; this is when their participation is most intense, often including weekly workshop attendance. Researchers have debated whether relationship education programs have a substantial impact on participants, and they have critiqued programs’ ideological underpinnings and ability to resolve participants’ financial needs. Three months after enrolling in Family Expectations, the participants described learning relationship skills, including specific techniques for facilitating healthy communication and avoiding destructive conflict; some also described becoming more knowledgeable and confident parents. They often described the program as having benefited their relationship by increasing its quality and making them feel more hopeful about its future. In short, they felt the program helped solidify their relationship as a social asset—a protection against social poverty.

Young, Poor Parents

This chapter elaborates on the concept of social poverty, engaging with previous theory and research across the fields of sociology, psychology, and health to explain the importance of social poverty and its particular salience in the lives of young, unmarried parents with new babies and limited budgets. The concept of social poverty contrasts with much of the social capital literature’s emphasis, which often focuses on the use value of social ties rather than their inherent value to people. Social poverty is marked by the perceived absence of relationships that are of adequate quality to meet socioemotional needs. Social poverty, including feelings of loneliness or social isolation, can have consequences for psychological and physical health. Young, poor parents are making a variety of life transitions to adulthood, partnership, and parenthood, which can raise the risk of social poverty by creating instability and making it more difficult to develop trust in relationships.