The traditional Success Sequence is largely prospective. It tells someone standing at the beginning of adulthood: Here are decisions that may increase your likelihood of economic stability.

Fatherhood and family-strengthening work is often responsive. We meet people after some of those decisions have already been made. The question is no longer simply: “What sequence should you follow?” It becomes: “Given where you are today, what decisions can move you toward greater stability tomorrow?”

Success can’t simply be a reward for people who made every decision in the right order. It must also be something people can move toward from wherever they are.

By Dr. Matisa Wilbon, Co-Chair, Moynihan Institute for Fatherhood Research and Policy

I recently participated in a fatherhood conference where several people discussed the Success Sequence. I’d heard the concept before, but I’d never heard it explored in much detail.

What Is the Success Sequence?

At its core, the Success Sequence offers a fairly straightforward path: complete your education (at least high school), get a job, get married, and then have children. Research on the concept suggests that following those milestones in that order is strongly associated with economic stability, and the numbers are difficult to ignore.

Recent research examining Millennials in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth found that 97% of young adults who followed the Success Sequence were not poor in their 30s, while 86% had reached the middle or upper class. Even among young adults who grew up in poor families, 94% of those who followed the sequence were not poor by adulthood.

Earlier research from the Brookings Institution found a similar pattern. Only about 2% of Americans who followed its success-sequence norms lived below the poverty line, while more than 70% reached the middle class or above.

These are significant associations, and they deserve our attention.

In its ideal form, there is certainly value in the message. Helping young people think intentionally about education, employment, relationships, and parenting can give them a stronger foundation for adulthood.

But as I listened to the conversations at the fatherhood conference, one question kept coming to mind: Where does that leave everyone else? 

The Success Sequence Raises Questions

Even when we talk about the Success Sequence as a tool for young people, there are questions worth asking.

What exactly do we mean when we say, “finish school”? If we mean graduating from high school, is a high school diploma alone enough to provide economic stability in today’s economy? In many communities, the answer may be no. Do we need to talk about college? Trade school? Certifications? Apprenticeships? Entrepreneurship? Career pathways?

Interestingly, even contemporary proponents of the Success Sequence have begun to acknowledge that education does not necessarily mean earning a four-year college degree. Technical education, apprenticeships, and other pathways to skilled employment can also provide routes toward economic stability.

And when we talk about couples and families, are we encouraging both partners to obtain the education, skills, and employment opportunities necessary to help create a financially stable household?

These questions don’t necessarily invalidate the concept. They simply suggest that preparing people for success may require more than a sequence of milestones.

There’s also an important distinction between association and inevitability.

The research tells us that people who complete these milestones in sequence have dramatically lower rates of poverty. It doesn’t mean that completing the sequence guarantees economic security, nor that failing to follow it inevitably leads to poverty.

Education, employment opportunities, wages, housing, neighborhood conditions, discrimination, health, family resources, access to child care, and many other factors influence whether families thrive. In fact, Brookings scholars who have written about the Success Sequence have also argued that public policy must address the disadvantages and economic conditions that can make following the sequence more difficult in the first place.

It’s critical to consider this broader context, but there’s another challenge that concerns me even more. 

What About Success for People Who Are Already Living Their Lives?

A great deal of fatherhood and family-strengthening work happens long after fathers and their co-parents are teenagers standing at the beginning of adulthood with every choice still in front of them.

We work with fathers who already have children. We work with mothers and fathers who are trying to figure out how to co-parent. We work with couples who are struggling. We work with people who didn’t finish school. People who had children before marriage. 

People whose relationships ended. People who have been incarcerated. People who have struggled financially. People who have made decisions they wish they could change. And people who simply didn’t have access to the opportunities that would have made it possible to follow a prescribed sequence.

If our primary message about success is based on decisions that were supposed to happen years ago, we risk unintentionally telling millions of people they missed their opportunity.

That can’t be where the conversation ends.

Success Can’t Only Be About What You “Should” Have Done

There’s certainly value in prevention. We should give young people information that helps them make thoughtful decisions about their futures. But human beings also need pathways for recovery, growth, and transformation:

• A person who dropped out of high school can go back and earn a diploma or credential.
• A father who was absent during the first few years of his child’s life can decide to become consistently present.
• Parents who are no longer together can learn to communicate and become effective co-parents.
• Someone who has struggled to maintain employment can develop new skills and build a career.
• A couple experiencing conflict can learn healthier ways to communicate.
• A parent who made poor financial decisions can learn to budget, save, and build financial stability.

This is where I believe our interpretation of success needs to become broader.

The traditional Success Sequence is largely prospective. It tells someone standing at the beginning of adulthood: Here are decisions that may increase your likelihood of economic stability.

Fatherhood and family-strengthening work is often responsive. We meet people after some of those decisions have already been made. The question is no longer simply: “What sequence should you follow?” It becomes: “Given where you are today, what decisions can move you toward greater stability tomorrow?”

Success can’t simply be a reward for people who made every decision in the right order. It must also be something people can move toward from wherever they are.

Expanding the Success Sequence

Perhaps the question isn’t whether we should abandon the Success Sequence. Perhaps we can expand the conversation instead.

Alongside a sequence designed to help young people avoid certain challenges, we also need a success pathway for adults already navigating those challenges. That pathway might focus less on whether someone completed historic milestones in the proper order and more on whether they are moving toward several important conditions:

• Stability / Are you developing the education, skills, employment, and financial habits necessary to provide greater stability for yourself and your family?
• Responsibility / Are you accepting responsibility for the decisions you make today, regardless of what happened yesterday?
• Healthy relationships / Are you learning how to communicate, resolve conflict, establish boundaries, and build relationships rooted in respect?
• Responsible parenting / Are you consistently showing up for your children emotionally, physically, and financially?
• Strong co-parenting / When a romantic relationship doesn’t continue, are both parents learning how to put the well-being of their children ahead of their conflict with one another?
• Growth / Are you becoming better equipped to make tomorrow different from yesterday?

That kind of framework doesn’t ignore personal responsibility. In many ways, it demands it.

It also recognizes something equally important: Your past can influence your future without determining it. 

One of the dangers of statistics is that we sometimes stop asking questions once we find a strong association. If 97% of young adults who follow the success sequence avoid poverty, one obvious policy question is: How do we help more young people follow it? It’s a legitimate question, but it shouldn’t be the only one.

We should also ask:

• What makes following the sequence easier for some young people than others?
• What happens when stable employment is unavailable?
• What educational opportunities provide genuine pathways to family-supporting wages?
• How do we help young parents who already have children become economically stable?
• How do we strengthen fathers who are parenting outside of marriage?
• How do we help parents create stable environments for children after relationships end?
• What interventions help families recover after incarceration, unemployment, relationship disruption, or financial crisis?

These questions do not compete with the Success Sequence; they complete the conversation. The same research that shows ordered milestones matter should motivate us to build institutions and programs that help people achieve stability—even when their paths haven’t been orderly.

Hope Must Be Part of Every Success Sequence

Anyone working in fatherhood, family strengthening, workforce development, education, or community development eventually encounters people whose lives don’t fit neatly into an ideal sequence.

Our challenge isn’t simply to tell people what they should have done. Our challenge is to help them determine what they can do next:

• A young person may need a roadmap that helps them avoid unnecessary obstacles.
• A 32-year-old father of three may need a roadmap for becoming more financially stable.
• A separated couple may need tools for becoming healthier co-parents.
• A father returning home after incarceration may need employment, housing, relationship support, and an opportunity to reconnect with his children.
• A mother and father struggling in their relationship may need help determining whether their relationship can be strengthened while ensuring that their children remain protected from destructive conflict.

These are also success stories. They simply begin at different starting points.

And this is where I believe fatherhood programs have an especially important role.

Our responsibility isn’t simply to reinforce a set of decisions that should ideally occur before fatherhood. It’s also to help a man who is already a father become more stable, more responsible, more connected, and more prepared to support his children.

The arrival of a child shouldn’t close the door to economic mobility. A divorce shouldn’t close the door to healthy parenting. Incarceration shouldn’t permanently close the door to responsible fatherhood. A poor decision at 19 shouldn’t become a life sentence at 39.

The Success Sequence may help us think about prevention. A Success Pathway can help us think about possibility.

When Life Doesn’t Unfold in Perfect Sequence 

The Success Sequence may provide useful guidance for young people to think about their futures. The evidence linking education, employment, marriage before having children, and economic stability is substantial and deserves a place in the conversation.

We should continue examining that research, asking questions about how the model applies in today’s economy, and helping young people understand the consequences of major life decisions. But our work cannot end there: We also need frameworks that recognize reality.

People will make mistakes. Relationships will change. Children will sometimes arrive before people feel prepared. Economic circumstances will shift. Opportunities will not be distributed equally. 

Life will rarely unfold according to a perfect sequence.

The measure of a meaningful family-strengthening strategy can’t simply be whether we can describe the ideal path. It must also be whether we can help people move forward when their lives have taken a different one.

Perhaps one of the most powerful messages we can give a father, mother, couple, or family is this: “Here’s where you are. Here’s where you want to go. Now let’s build a path from one to the other.”

That’s where hope lives. And maybe that is where success begins.