Love prevails: When parents have strong bond, children more likely to succeed

It’s very common for a marriage or relationship to change in tone after having kids. From the moment their son or daughter enters the world, parents’ lives are incredibly different. In a very real sense, everything becomes about the family’s newest addition. As such, many mothers and fathers see their own connection and love start to wither away as they devote the majority of their attention to their newborn. A new study, though, finds that the level of love and affection between parents goes a long way towards influencing their kids’ decisions later on in life.

Researchers from the University of Michigan say that children born to parents who maintain a loving relationship typically stay in school longer and marry later in life. The influence of parents’ affection between each other on their kids’ long-term life decisions and outcomes is obviously a hard relationship to empirically analyze, due to the extensive data necessary to form a full picture. To conduct this study, unique data collected from families in Nepal was used.