Families with children

How many parents do children typically live with? Today, it is still the case that most children (almost 60%) are in families with two parents.

Of course, some of these families have a mother who is married to someone other than the biological father of their children. In this case, the family would be a married couple family, according to the census bureau definitions. It's still relatively rare for children to live with unmarried fathers, but it's only about half the percentage living with lone mothers (12 versus 22 percent). The difference is (as explained here) that many of the lone fathers are cohabiting with the child's mother.