"Marian Wright Edelman...to talk[ed] about children not as the offspring of individual mothers and fathers responsible for rearing them, but as an oppressed class living in generic, nebulous, and never-to-be-analyzed 'families.' Framing the problem of ghetto children in this way, CDF was able to mount a powerful case for a host of services, from prenatal care to day care to housing subsidies, in the name of children's developmental needs, which did not seem to include either a stable domestic life or, for that matter, fathers."

I once read somewhere that a man had to earn something on the order of $30,000 in America before he could make an economic case for not being replaced by Government Dad, the web of programs a single mother could rely on to help her raise kids. I am unsure if that number is well-supported or not. But it did occur to me then, regardless of the actual number, that there was a magic number that represented the economic "flip point". A number where young mothers would look at a partner and say "I don't need your shit! Get out!" And the way things are in our society, the father then has to leave.

And we get single parents (mothers, really) as a result. This surprises people?

True, there is a non-economic component to partners and parents. And we would hope that the mothers place a value on the fathers apart from their paycheck (you there, the MRA guys in the back, quit laughing!), but there will be, I suggest to you, a segment of humanity that will not value the non-economic as much as they should.

Hmmm. My SIL is a single mom, and she gets (with 3 kids):

-nearly $800 a month in food stamps
-when they were under 5, she also got about $120 a month in WIC
-free medical care for them (say, $500 a month copays and insurance that other's pay)
-free school breakfasts and lunches now that they're over 5 ($5 each a day times 3 kids)

And that's just what I know of. That's over $1500 a month, free and clear, or nearly $19,000 a year. I'm sure there are other things I don't know of.

And we would hope that the mothers place a value on the fathers apart from their paycheck (you there, the MRA guys in the back, quit laughing!),

Kids need to grow up in families, the way kids grew up in families before this boom in single mothers. Every woman is not looking to bleed a man. My neighbors are a great example of a loving family. The husband lost one of his jobs and they're soldiering on, and he's a great dad and they're both great parents and have a really loving environment in which they raise their kids.

More gay parents, OK Amy? That'll fix it.

If only all those pissed-off young black men had TWO snarking mommies at home to show them how to reach masculine adulthood, everything would be OK.

Golly, when you're compassionate enough, all these ancient human problems sorta take care of themselves, y'knowuddimean?

Crid got the dick factor turned up to 11 today? Ok wise and noble master how is it that you see gay marriage (which was voted down by blacks in California) as being relevant here. Taking shots at one another personal views is always fun but why go so blatantly off topic?

Also I'd rather two snaking mommies than one snaking mommy and my tax dollars. I'm shocked that you rather pay higher taxes to support single motherhood.

"Every woman is not looking to bleed a man." Nonetheless, if you encourage a behavior, you get more of it. It's no secret that babies and young children are rough on adult relationships. A woman may not set out to milk the system, but after a week's worth of arguments and getting up at 2 AM to feed the baby, she maybe has her girlfriends whispering in her ear that she can dump that worthless man who is never around to help (because he's working two low-paying jobs), and maybe even improve her standard of living a bit by living off of Uncle Sugar. It becomes the easy thing to do. The checks come in reliably each month. And you get to be the unquestioned boss of the household (at least until the rugrat gets old enough to start sassing back). Lots of people aren't necessarily evil, but they aren't of strong moral character either. And they lack the ability to look into the future and see the long-term consequences of their actions. So they just slide into the system. And of course, once they are in, they never leave. Because the system is designed that way.

"72 percent of black children born in 2007 were born to single mothers.)"

Grim.

Oh, I think this has gone a long stage past the single momma throwing the father out... Fathers are simply never expected to stay... or even really be a part of the families. There may/may not be lip service paid to having him take responsibility, but it's always AFTER the fact. That doesn't stop him from getting her preggers, essentially without a downside.

It would be handy if he would take responsibility, but there isn't anything to MAKE him do so. There is also no value swap before hand. "no hugee, no kissee, till you make me your wife... don't hand me no lines and keep your hands to yourself."

She doesn't NEED to make that value swap, since there is a decent backstop Uncle Sam, and he may be even better than the guy to begin with.

Basically this is all too easy to get into a place that is painless, but there is no way to get a place that is actually joyful...

and, Moynihan had some interesting things to say back then, totally non-PC nowadays.

In the last two or three weeks, there have been at least 4 stories in the Daily Mail about women and their "partners" (code for baby daddy) living together while she claims to be single. They always have like 10 kids and are bitching that the government needs to get them a bigger and nicer house. "Why, we have to share bathrooms and bedrooms."

Reading the UK papers is a real eye opener. I am convinced that they are maybe 15-20 years ahead of us in terms of the coming social crisis... thanks mostly to New Labor. If you really want to piss yourself off and see how bad life can get spend some time reading the Daily Mail.

Here is today's outrage. I believe we were talking about this last week...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1311777/Up-750-000-special-needs-pupils-just-badly-taught.html

I'm as suspicious of these kinds of social studies as I am of epidemiological health studies, and for the same reason. They both equate correlation with causation. That ghetto families do a poor job of raising children AND also happen to have a lot of single moms doesn't mean that one follows the other.

It seems to me that the quality of parenting in the ghetto is the problem, not the quantity of parents. I have a number of friends who are single parents and are doing a great job. The difference is that they give a shit about their kids, their lives and their community. Expecting that two demoralized ghetto rats will suddenly produce well adjusted children if only they stay together is naive at best.

women and their "partners" (code for baby daddy) living together while she claims to be single.

That happens a lot here in flyover US too, been watching it close up. The baby daddy just sort of hangs around, and it's all very ambiguous to extended family (are they still together or - ?). Then he's gone out of state...then he's back. Point being, it doesn't matter, she doesn't need him for support, and it's better if he's not around too much anyway, just in case welfare finds out.

Meanwhile she tires of him, and finds out things she didn't know about him when they first hooked up, decides it was good she didn't get all serious with him after all.

Next thing you know, the kid is acting out, has all sorts of issues, needs therapy...fucking chaos it is.

That isn't the point AllenS... you don't want anyone producing children unless they will work the infrastructure to raise them...

you have to get the cart on the correct end of the horse. When you talk good "parenting" you are really talking "mothering" because the fathers by and large are not in the picture at all to parent. They may not know or care that they have kids. Since Uncle will provide for the kids anyway, there is no incentive to change anything.

I'll bet your single mama friend are frantic to do enough work to pay for everything, and they teach their children that it takes work to get ahead in life. This is a pretty big difference.

Taking care of yourself often causes people to more closely examine if they can care for someone else. Not always, but often. Thinking about things that way is much more likely to cause you to attach to one partner, choose well and make it work. THAT give you a better parent outcome on balance, and forms a family unit. The building block of a community.

Uncle isn't the building block of the community, rather is the product of communities.

My point is that life lived in the ghetto is mostly a result of poor morals. Having children out of wedlock is but one of the many bad choices made when one does not have a strong moral base. And two parent families with poor morals don't raise children any better than single parent families with poor morals. The results will both be bad.

And so to hang the fault of ruined lives in the ghetto mostly on the failure of marriage is indeed getting the cart before the horse. There has to be a whole range of good life choices made prior to getting married and having children that ultimately result in the production of well adjusted children.

BTW Amy, as you well know, I can show you NUMEROUS peer reviewed studies that show that high cholesterol and high fat diets lead to heart disease.

> the research shows that what matters are
> intact families, not the sex of the parents.

Fuck that. "THE" research? You've seen it all? It fits on a shelf, can be readily comprehended by undergrads or humanities enthusiasts (such as yourself), and supplants and contradicts the whole of human experience since the dawn of time, such that we can –at last!– begin composing families based on rationality rather than bone-through-the nose superstition, and everything we've ever read or heard or experienced?

Preposterous. And anyone who truly cares about children ought to say so. There's no reason for anyone to accept your ludicrous incantations of "research" as their standard or proof.... Or even as yours.

Much more likely that you're most concerned about your social standing at white-wine parties in elegant coastal cities— And perhaps far removed (in that postwar, picket-fence American kind of way) from the chaotic, unpredictable, spirit-forging emotional truths of families where every child DOESN'T have a private room and a catalog of choices, however frosty, for life. As it is you'll do anything, ANYTHING to claim as your own the civil rights achievements of recent earlier generations... Even though those victories were, let's face it, had through the risk and toil of people who were not at all like you. 'There's someone they've forgotten!', you'll protest, with your scolding, infantile finger in the air, as in the old Peanuts cartoons... 'The gays!'

After all, you'll be in the cardiac ward by the time the kid with two mommies starts wondering why no one warned him what manhood would be like, right? Or the kid with two daddies or... You don't even care which half. No matter how children suffer, you want to be nice to the contemporary passerby grownups from whom you've come to imagine honor is most likely to be conferred. (At least, most likely to be conferred to YOU.) The actual children? Like, whatever... You'll throw away their intimate appreciation of both genders, and you'll never miss it... As you wheeze, distantly, into the oxygen mask, watching the Demerol stream snaking to your arm through your clear plastic I.V. tube....

Perhaps you think sex & gender haven't worked out so well in your own life, so there's no reason to worry if later generations are prepared to deal with them. I mean, like, what else could explain your mindless frost?

> how is it that you see gay marriage (which
> was voted down by blacks in California) as
> being relevant here

First of all, we talk about what we want. Always. When people say we can't, I smell a rat.

Secondly, I resent most the smug self-righteousness of Amy-types who imagine themselves to be the spear point of compassion and insight, but only when it's OTHERS who'll suffer the losses from their ignorance and/or posturing. (For neither sin is she excused.)

Thirdly, it's telling that you describe "blacks" as a voting block which "votes down" social changes like this en masse... Especially when they are indubitably the ones who see the consequences of child-raising without fathers most closely. Off the top of your head, do you suppose more white or more blacks voted against prop 8? Answer quickly, and no Googling.

And fourth, Vlad....

> Ok wise and noble master
> how is it that

Rise from your chair, draw the blinds. Look to your left, glance to your right. Unzip your pants. Bend over and blow yourself. Blow yourself like a trumpet, blow yourself to the root, blow yourself like there's no tomorrow. Blow yourself until a tiny weeping peach presents itself through your asshole... Just there, beyond the bridge of your nose.

Dude, that's "the dick factor". Do we understand each other?

Slightly off topic:

I think a significant problem with the divorces is that many of the women are way over-estimating what they will get and/or under-estimating their expenses.

My brother's ex-wife thought she was going to get a big wad and a lot of on-going payments. She insisted that he must have been hiding money but the records showed otherwise - there was no money to hide. She didn't get near what she expected.

The handy man working on my brother's house recent divorce was similar his wife expected to get $2.5M which she intended to live on (according to him). She expected to get a huge payout from her half of their general contracting business. Since it was not possible to pull a bunch of money out of the business it was sold - which after its debts were paid did not leave much. In the end, each got about $250,000 less $50k held to pay for the kids to go to college and then of course they had to pay their law fees.

I know of others and that seems to be a common theme - the women think they will have a lot more money (or less expenses) than they actually do.

Are historically WASP institutions suffering? None of the ones I've been involved with are, I mean, yeah there's a recession hit to the endowments, but they seem to be doing fine...

My guess is Obama, having attended historically WASPy institutions, is already donating to them anyhow.

Crid, are you ok? You seem like you're in a bad mood today. Or yesterday.

Myself, I haven't seen any research showing children of gay households do worse than the children of straight ones, but if there is such a study I'd be happy to know about it.

If this thread is still alive, I'll risk tossing a well-considered opinion into it. Below is the opinion of a justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court. She voices what I have always wondered, whenever Amy refers to studies on this issue.

In a nutshell, Justice Sosman says that there are no valid studies, because this is all too new. Just how many openly gay couples have lived together in long-term relationships, and raised children to adulthood for us to study? Very few. This is all too new, and only time will tell.

Here is what Justice Sosman wrote:

"Conspicuously absent from the court's opinion today is any acknowledgment that the attempts at scientific study of the ramifications of raising children in same-sex couple households are themselves in their infancy and have so far produced inconclusive and conflicting results. Notwithstanding our belief that gender and sexual orientation of parents should not matter to the success of the child rearing venture, studies to date reveal that there are still some observable differences between children raised by opposite-sex couples and children raised by same-sex couples...Interpretation of the data gathered by those studies then becomes clouded by the personal and political beliefs of the investigators, both as to whether the differences identified are positive or negative, and as to the untested explanations of what might account for those differences. (This is hardly the first time in history that the ostensible steel of the scientific method has melted and buckled under the intense heat of political and religious passions.) Even in the absence of bias or political agenda behind the various studies of children raised by same-sex couples, the most neutral and strict application of scientific principles to this field would be constrained by the limited period of observation that has been available. Gay and lesbian couples living together openly, and official recognition of them as their children's sole parents, comprise a very recent phenomenon, and the recency of that phenomenon has not yet permitted any study of how those children fare as adults and at best minimal study of how they fare during their adolescent years."

er, Nicole, it WASP was a replacement of "Historically Black Colleges and Universities" which is what is in the actual article...

Oh, and? I think everyone should get a sense of proportion on the children of gays issue... It's a small number...
while the overall number of single mother births was 1.7 million in 2007. Out of 4.3 million total. Certainly some percentage of those births were to women with actual committed partners that are going to be involved and pay their share and what not, but what is the percentage? Even if it's 1/2 that means ~850,000 kids are born without 2 parents involved.

I'd bet that number is more.

EVERY YEAR.

I couldn't find a stat on the number of children born to gay parents a year, but I'd have to guess it was small based on how difficult it is to accomplish...

So, while I understand your argument Crid and Amy, and both sides, I would submit that for the problem at hand it's irrelevant.

I know that WASP was replacing Historically Black Colleges, what I'm asking is, is there really a need to make a big show out of donating to historically WASP institutions? Are the major historically WASP schools suffering from want of funds?

Related story: About 20 years ago, the historically black colleges in Alabama convinced the state, under threat of a federal lawsuit, to award them all large payments from the general fund on top of their standard budgets. This was given as "compensation for vestiges of discrimination". Reparations, if you will. One such institution, Alabama A&M University, is in the town where I live. IIRC they got about $15M. Guess what they spent the money on...

A football stadium.

Elizabeth Warren's book talks about that, Dave. Lots of colleges spend money on sports hoping it will be a money maker for them. And it is... if you happen to have a winning team. Sadly, not all colleges have winning teams, so it ends up being a huge drain for them, driving up tuitions. And then they can't give their faculty cost of living raises, but sure like to whine about having to pay them!

Hey Cousin Dave, I'm in Huntsville too. Nice stadium for A&M. Too bad they don't know where the rest of their money ran off to (or with).

In any case, what no one has mentioned is that the decline in the intact family also mirrors the decline in religion as our generally accepted moral compass.

Do men have an incentive to stay with their wives and children when things get tough? Why do women keep a man around if they can do it fine on their own? If you are only looking at human nature or at the financial bottom line, it's understandable why we have the situation we do. When you know that you have a responsibility to a higher power, when one day you will answer for what you do, when you believe that God instituted marriage and a belief that sexual relationships and parenthood work better within that context, then you believe that the difficulties of marriage and parenthood have an eternal payoff.

Yes there are plenty of agnostics/athiests who have stable marriage and are good good parents. Just like their are plenty of single parents who raise great kids, like my mom.

I always find the "loss of religious morals" argument fucking hilarious - especially when it comes from women.

The loss of such relgious "morals" is what led to rape laws, suffrage, and legal parity with men.

Ever read the bible Lesley? according to it women are the socrce of all the worlds problems and need to be kept in their place.

I serioulsy doubt you'd enjoy livivng in a world that had clung to religiously based morals

Don't the Bible Belt states have higher divorce rates than the rest of the states?

Interesting, I must have missed that part of the Bible that reads "women are the socrce of all the worlds problems and need to be kept in their place." Can you give me the reference?

I do, however know these parts: "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her" (Ephesians 5:25). "In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church” (Ephesians 5:28-29). “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh” (Ephesians 5:31). Galatians 3:28: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."

Exactly what part of that do you object to?

Loss of religion led to rape laws?? You mean rape was legal before 1960? What about this part of the OLD TESTAMENT (you know, that part where God hates women and insists they all be oppressed and kept behind the tent flaps?) "But if in the field the man finds the girl who is engaged, and the man forces her and lies with her, then only the man who lies with her shall die. But you shall do nothing to the girl; there is no sin in the girl worthy of death, for just as a man rises against his neighbor and murders him, so is this case. When he found her in the field, the engaged girl cried out, but there was no one to save her," (Deut. 22:25-28).

NicoleK: the Bible Belt also has the highest poverty rates in the country, a large concentration of blacks (the morals of whom started this thread), an average early marriage age, poor secondary education and lack of higher education. All those are also high risk factors for divorce, I don't believe you could single out religion. Actually the NE has the lowest rate of divorce and the highest percentage of Roman Catholics. Perhaps we can say that religion *reduces* divorce then?

1 Timothy 2 11-15

You want more?

This verse, and the few other similar ones in the Bible, don't bother me at all, for two reasons. First, I have an understanding of the nature/tendencies of men and women and the needs of men and women, both of which are different and frequently in opposition of each other. For a marriage to work, men need to feel respected and women need to feel secure - those are their primary needs. Women by nature (and I generalize, of course there are exceptions) tend to dominate, leaving their man feeling insecure and unneeded, which goes back to the original article and how men in the black community have been left behind in the wake of "strong women." Verses like these remind women that while they are equal in the eyes of God, how we behave can either build up or tear down our husbands. I happily attend a church with female pastors, I teach Bible classes to men, etc. and feel no conflict with this verse. I do not, however, teach my husband. I share what I've learned, we discuss, we learn together, but I do all I can to encourage *him* to be the spiritual leader of our home - this makes him a better man, which makes him a better husband and benefits me.

Secondly, if I believe in God, then why wouldn't I believe that what He says is best for me is best for me? It makes no sense to believe in God and then reject what He says is truth. There are things in the Bible that I don't understand, but God's pretty clear in the Bible that His truth isn't going to always make sense. My faith is built on stronger stuff than that.

If you don't believe in God, you won't believe in what God says is true, so there's no sense arguing about it. You can, however, appreciate that people of faith (any faith), while still imperfect, do have a high standard they should be seeking to live up to. My original point was that we have, as a society, dropped the idea that our spiritual selves have an impact on our moral selves. My original comment never mentioned any particular religion at all. My entire point is that if you don't believe that you have a responsibility to anyone but yourself, you act only in a way that pleases (in broad sense) yourself.