[Frank Mott] then compared the scores of fatherless and father-present children whose mothers had similar educational backgrounds. When he did that, the differences in scores disappeared almost entirely.

When Mott adjusted for mothers' education and other factors, however, these differences disappeared entirely. In fact, black girls tended to show higher levels of anti-social behavior when their fathers were present in the home, suggesting that they were in some respects worse off in an intact family than with a single mother.

Another study, headed by [David Demo], looked at 742 adolescents from a variety of family situations: intact; where the mother had divorced and remarried; where she had divorced and remained single; or where she had never married. He found that children of intact families fared slightly better in measures of academic performance and personal and emotional adjustment. But those differences were very small.