Promiscuity and Absence

"The incidence of casual sex is inversely proportional to the strength of attachment you experienced in childhood. The less attachment you had as a kid to your parents, the more likely it is that you will exhibit promiscuous behavior in adolescence. The reverse is also true. The stronger and more secure attachment you had to your parents the more likely it is that you will avoid promiscuity in adolescence (as well as many other high-risk behavior). We can now predict the level of life and relationship satisfaction toddlers will have in adulthood based upon the amount of affection they received as toddlers. Extravagant affection in toddlerhood predicts healthier life and relationship skills in adulthood. "

This makes sense: that children who have absentee parents will likely experience a lack of ability to form meaningful bonds later in life, and hence will instead merely use people. Ergo, they will become more promiscuous as circumstances permit. Thus, the breakdown of the family becomes a vicious cycle--children hailing from broken homes may not know their fathers (for example), and may not actually know their mothers well either (the mother in question being forced to either work or look for another spouse, thus taking time away from her children). They then grow up, become promiscuous, and when they get around to trying to actually start a family, they find that they are unable to remain as intimate as they would like in their marriage, which (when couple with no-fault divorce laws permitting the quick and relatively easy dissolution of a legal marriage) results in another broken home, and so on.

I wonder if something good will come of this current fad of attachment parenting, then: will it result in a generation which grows up to be less promiscuous? Somehow, I suspect not, since nature and social pressure would be working against nurture on this one, and since I'm not actually convinced that attachment parenting actually necessarily results in the right kind of affection for the toddlers in question. The attachment may seem stronger, but I suspect that it is not, in fact, more secure--part of a relationship's real strength and security comes from the ability to say no, to resolve conflicts, and to deal well with (short-term) separation when it does occur.