Economist Tim Harford presents a good analogy that applies to why black women are more likely to be single mothers: 10 men and 10 women are in a room called the Marriage Supermarket. Couples can pair off and then collect $100 (representing the benefits of marriage), which they cab split however they choose. The obvious outcome is that everyone gets a partner and splits the money evenly. Now, imagine that the room now contains 9 men and 10 women. As couples start to pair off, the 10th woman realizes that she's going to be left with no money, so she quickly offers to accept an uneven split-$10, $20, or $30, which is better than nothing at all. Eventually she prices herself low enough that someone accepts her proposal and they marry. However, we're still left with an extra woman so the process continues-not to mention that the remaining men have seen their peers walk away with a %70, $80, $90 share, and are unlikely to accept less. And there's still one unpartnered woman left at the end.

Obviously this is an oversimplified model, but I think that it sheds insight in the abundance of single mothers in the black community. Black men are all too frequently removed from the dating game by jail, drugs, or death. This leaves the remaining black men in an advantageous position, and there's much less incentive for them to settle down with one woman, or accept the responsibility of raising their child. Meanwhile, I'm willing to bet that most black women WANT a responsible, reliable husband and father, but the option isn't out there so they're settling for sub-par men. And the lack of potential husbands doesn't stop them from having kids, since they know that the government will act as a financial safety net. And then sons raised without a dad are more likely to fall victim to drugs/gangs/violence/crime, and daughter are more likely to see a one-parent household as an acceptable norm, so the cycle perpetuates itself.

I think one way to possibly break the cycle would be to stop providing welfare but more actively enforce childcare payments. The deal should be you give us the name of the father or potential fathers; we'll track him down, provide DNA testing and make him pay (and throw him in jail if he doesn't), but if you can't identify the dad then, sorry, you're out of luck. This would make the women more cautious about using birth control and sleeping with men whom they know couldn't support a child, and it would make men more cautious about with birth control as well. Plus, men may decide that it's easier to marry their child's mother then be taken to court for child support payments, so at least you have a dad on the scene. And dads who can't or won't pay the child support get put in jail where at least they can't knock anyone else up (maybe the prisons could provide a way of earning money, learning a useful trade, or earning a GED). In that case, the mom and child are out of luck, but that's part of the incentive not to sleep with those guys in the first place.

All of this doesn't address the issue of accidental pregnancies, which are a completely different situation-there's no point in stigmatizing someone who didn't want to be pregnant this first case. The solution here is preventative-make condoms and birth control pills free and easily available (maybe high school nurses offices could dispense BC?). I'd even be in favor of free abortions for people who can't afford one-if you can't afford an abortion than you can't afford a kid, and I'd rather use my tax dollars on a $500 procedure then 18 years of supporting a child that you didn't want.

Shannon, I've no idea if your idea would work, but thanks for at least posting one.

It's very easy to say, "People should do XYZ" but the fact is they aren't, so the question is... how to get them to do so.

If you spend some time in Africa, with Africans, you'll learn that it is fairly common across most of Africa for children to be raised without the biological dad around much. The reason it still kind of makes sense in most of Africa is that in the African cultures, children are raised by aunts/uncles and also grandparents, as families traditionally live together, and the aunts/uncles are in fact almost more considered the 'parents' than the biological parents themselves. When this African way of doing things mixes with the Western way (tiny family unit, aunts/uncles live elsewhere), you end up with babies that don't have the aunts/uncles around to raise them, or both biological parents. I don't know if this African way is a genetic tendency or cultural or both.

Except that at the turn of the century, more black people lived in traditional Western family units than they do now... why the sudden reversion?

"why the sudden reversion?"

Good question. It could be explained if the tendency is somehow genetic (thus African Americans could be 'reverting to type', so to speak), though of course it's wildly politically incorrect to postulate such things. It doesn't really make sense, I mean African Americans have never had it so good; they have more rights, freedoms and opportunities and access to better education (and education opportunities) than almost anyone born anywhere in the world.

Modern welfare could also partly explain it --- if the state gives you money to be a single mom, you have less incentive to keep a working man around. But that wouldn't explain the demographic differences in single parenthood rates.

Likewise feminism has contributed to single-motherhood being considered acceptable. Again though, wouldn't explain the demographic differences.

The solution is more lesbian Mommies, right Amy?

If only LaPrell had two mommies, this wouldn't be an issue....

"I think one way to possibly break the cycle would be to stop providing welfare but more actively enforce childcare payments."

Even more poor mothers and lawsuits against broke men are unlikely to solve issues of getting food into childrens' mouths. Nor will it provide children a better chance at mentoring and parenting.

I am all for not subsidizing bad decisions, and for asking people to account for their kids, but your two policy outcomes sound like an direct increase in cops and an indirect reduction of the mothers' funds to buy kids' food. Neither strike me as very sound.

The solution is more lesbian Mommies, right Amy?

That's one solution. If more women were lesbians there would be fewer surprise babies.

Good so far as it goes, but none of this is a surprise. And rare is the lesbian today who thinks her reproductive opportunities should be in any way foreshortened.

why the sudden reversion?

Well, it wasn't sudden, it took a generation or two, but google "Daniel Patrick Moynihan" for your answer. It would be piling on to ask why we don't expect similar unintended consequences from President Obama's agenda.

Mark D has the answer. Moynihan saw what was happening in the 60's and he was ignored. This report pretty much says it all. http://www.heritage.org/research/lecture/the-collapse-of-marriage-and-the-rise-of-welfare-dependence

This is the progressives and feminists wet dream made manifest.

And even now, with the utter destruction of two or three generations of black children as a result of the very things they espouse, they STILL won't recant, or back down. No, they've instead gone all-in.

Liberalism is a mental disorder indeed.

"it is fairly common across most of Africa for children to be raised without the biological dad around much"
- - - - - - - - -
Even if true, the situation here has nothing to do with African culture (except for the equally poor outcome).

It has nothing to do with race - the same thing is happening in England with the "Chav" underclass living on the dole.

It's about getting more of what you subsidize.

When Reagan-era reforms curtailed welfare for bastards, a whole lotta girls suddenly remembered how to cross their legs.

> Research shows...

I love that. Our topic is that most central and eternal of human experiences, family. But nothing in literature or culture or the blood in your own veins can arm you as you need to be armed for this discussion... Suddenly, you need to talk about "research". As if you'd need research to say why the leaves fall from the trees.

You do these silly little posts about broken families as if you care, but you obviously don't. You have other things on your mind.

Thanks for the link Isobel.

"And rare is the lesbian today who thinks her reproductive opportunities should be in any way foreshortened."

Yes but by default that baby is planned.

"Our topic is that most central and eternal of human experiences, family." Actually till very recent it was clans and not 2 parent homes. So family of one man and one women are novel for humans not eternal. Nice try though.

One of the things I wonder is how many of those children are actually in a single parent home? There is a great incentive to be a "single mother" in that you get more money then a married one. So you simply live with "yo baby daddy" and collect the max possible free shit provided by the rest of us.

Ultimately, the only people with the power AND the impetus to stop this are black women. The guys obviously don't care, so while they could fix this, they aren't going to. The infrastructure built to help "support" this won't change anything either, because it owes it's existance to this problem. Bureaucracy becomes a self sustaining life form IFF the problem can be made never to go away.
So, who is left?

Only the people most affected by the start of this, but with the perverse rewards involved, what interest do they have in changing it? The only answer I know is the politically unpalatable making of more pain, rather than reward. At the least it has to be called what it is. It is black women, who need to name it. Not men.

No research, no kids, and living in a predominantly white area, but I'm putting in my two cents anyway:

One of my best friends here is a single dad. He has two sons, and when they were eleven and thirteen their mom decided she was done with being a wife and mother and moved out of the state.

He is a good father, and now his sons are grown men. He just became a grandfather recently. His son and the mother are married.

For the past fifteen years, he has lived with a woman I introduced him to. They like it that way and have no plans to marry.

He had spent many years fending off the single mothers of most of his son's friends, who knew a good thing when they saw it. He was lonely, but he didn't trust any of these women.

Now to come to the point of this post: His home was the place all his son's friends wanted to hang out at. It wasn't a party house by any means. The guys just liked being there. The place with the Dad.

I had a few interesting conversations, the most memorable being when one young man told me he would deliberately sabotage his mother's new relationships. He did not want another man in "his" house. But he did want to spend a lot of his time in the house with the established father figure in it.

Draw your own conclusions.

> It's because I read the research, at
> your urging, that I realized that it's
> damaging for kids to be raised by
> single parents.

It came at you from SCIENCE? Never from your encounters with other people?

"Even if true, the situation here has nothing to do with African culture"

It very much does *if* that tendency of African-Americans might either be ascribed to remnants of their ancestral cultures that they brought along with them on the slave ships, or genetic predispositions, both of which seem plausible. African-Americans are from Africa, remember. It seems like a giant coincidence to simply brush aside and conveniently ignore (because you don't like hearing it) that they share this behavior with their counterparts in Africa.

"It has nothing to do with race"

As a matter of fact it does - check the demographics of single-parenthood - it affects African-Americans the worst of all ethnic groups, by a wide margin. It is a pure, undeniable fact that it has something to do with race -- the only question is why.

It's going to be very difficult to change this, as someone is going to have to change a whole culture that views single motherhood as totally acceptable.

I live and work in a city with a large African-American community, and for the most part, they think that a 16 year old girl having a baby is just no big deal at all. In fact, I've seen at our hospital the mothers of these teen moms get EXCITED by the fact that they're going to be a granny. They're patting their daughters on the back and talking about buying cribs. My parents would have been horrified. One nurses' aide I worked with was going to be a grandmother at the age of 38. Do the math on that one. And she wasn't phased a bit. Her daughter had no idea who the father was - this woman admitted that to her co-workers, and again, it was just not a big deal.

Until Barak Obama and people like Oprah start saying publically that it is NOT acceptable to be having a baby at 15, this is never going to change.

Just a side note on the whole, :if you reward behavior you get more of it" theme. My daughter is currently trying to finish her college degree through an outreach program at our local community college. She wants a job as a juvenile probation officer and needs about 30 more hours for a degree in Criminal justice. Fortunately the tuition is modest, about 1300 a semester and my daughter got a Pell grant for this year which should have arrived in August in order to be available for the fall and spring semester. My daughter applied in March. My daughter is single, 26 years old and made about 14k dollars last year working at Goodwill. Currently she is working at a restaurant three days a week so that she can pay her utility bills while going to school and she has gotten straight A's for the last three semesters. My daughter was awarded 2600 dollars for the entire year which has yet to arrive. Her friend "Kristi" who is in most of her classes also applied for a Pell grant only she applied several months after my daughter did. She is single, 23 years old, has a 3 year old son and she has never been married. Kristi's Pell grant came in today. She got 10,000 dollars. This is in addition to AFDC payments, and Medicaid for both of them and also near free day care at the college because of her income level. I didn't realize that Pell grants had become a welfare supplement but apparently that is exactly what the government is using them for. Isabel.

In line with Shannon's comment above: one way to tie negative incentives to girls making babies at too young an age is to tie all subsequent benefits to their ability to correctly name the father of said child. A single mother wants to receive any sort of benefit that accrues from single parenthood then she should have to submit the child in question for DNA testing, and the named father needs to provide same.

Father wont? Then no benefits.

Mom says no? No benefits.

Sure, you have to phase something like this in so that you get the message into the population over a period of time. But nothing tells young aspiring fathers (or young men looking to dip their wick) that they need to put that rain coat on more than the knowledge that they will be held liable for their actions. Because the second part is letting everyone know that the father will be held accountable for all of the standard shit that fathers are held accountable for with kids. Only the testing comes at the beginning. Identify first, then start taking their money.

Daddy is going to do what he needs to do in order to avoid the title daddy if he knows that the state is going to take their cut. Mommy will be crossing her legs (or at least taking appropriate measures to avoid the kid) if she knows that she actually has to provide a correct name for the daddy.

This concept hinges on actual and timely testing. Without the testing then it is a non-starter.

Not a panacea, but it is a potential solution for a piece of the problem.

Should be: "A single mother WHO wants..."

Damn typos....and lack of proofreading...

"Until Barack Obama and people like Oprah start saying publicly that it is NOT acceptable..."

Bill Cosby has been forcefully & eloquently saying exactly that for some time now. His reward from the black community? Being called a traitor to his race:

http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/_dmn-bill_cosby.htm

And as I recall, some time after his inauguration, President Obama gave a speech calling on black men to step up to the responsibilities of fatherhood. His reward? Jesse Jackson cursing about cutting his nuts off.

I don't know if Amy intended it, but there's a clear connection between this post & the previous one, about OJ Simpson's acquittal. A murder trial turned into an inquisition about real & imagined white racism. A nearly all-black jury voted to let a black man get away with savage murders, and blacks everywhere, educated middle & upper class blacks included, cheered them on. Calling for an end to fatherless families means calling for blacks to take responsibility for their actions and stop blaming their pathology on others. I don't see that happening.

"But as long as the norm in black communities is for boys and men to father children without raising them, the killing will continue."
_________________________

I'm sure it will.

What I don't quite get is, in homes where boys turn out badly even when the fathers ARE living there, why is it traditional to blame the MOTHERS for that? After all, if the above is true, so much for the idea that it's women's job to civilize little boys!

As one woman wrote to Dear Abby, years ago (sarcastically): "If a kid turns out good, he's a chip off the old block. If he turns out bad, his mother did the rotten job of raising him."

And, I would add, while adults should certainly do all they can to reform the bad children they're in charge of - with or without a partner's help - it's important for women to remember that it is NEVER their job to "help" a adult cad reform when he has no interest in reforming. I.e., of course you shouldn't have his baby or even sleep with him, but don't expect God to "reward" you with a Prince Charming before you turn 30 or 40 just because you're smart enough to reject men for caddish behavior. (Elizabeth Bennett got "rewarded," but that's because "Pride and Prejudice" is a fairy tale, when you think about it. In real life, Darcy would just shrug and move on to someone else.)

it'd be great to get the father on the DNA hook for paternity, Gareth, but you have to provide a disincentive for the mother, too. Naming the guy is nothing, I'm sure they'd have no problem. But. The curtrent state of child support in the US, they're just going to go after the guy, and the mother just has more incentive to have other kids. It won't help much other than to put a buncha guys in jail for not being able to pay the STATE it's child support. In many cases the women don't want to actually know who the father is, because that connection may do nothing other than to complicate her life. It was a hookup, nothing more.

At some level in the long run, this may convince guys to be more careful, but as is often seen in criminal stats, knowing the consequences doesn't necessarily make you stop...

Now, if you put the guy AND the girl both on the hook, well maybe that would cause some change. But if you don't have consequence on both sides, it doesn't work out. And, contrary to popular opinion, having the kid itself appears not to be enough consequence. The welfare mothers with 5 kids, should show that one...

SAD: the disincentive for the mother is connecting benefits with actual identity of the father. Granted, not the best disincentive in the world. But I am not talking about the best solution in the world, just something that can assist in alleviating some of the issues resulting from the problem of single-parenthood. Or pick your euphemism.

Point being, the mother's incentive is potential benefits. The disincentive is the knowledge that there are no benefits without accurate information regarding paternity.

Father consequence is the state taking the child-cost from him in some way, shape or form. And granting that the state needs an actual effective means of executing this.

Mother consequence is lack of benefits.

Like I said, or tried to say: far from perfect. But, it is a means of extracting cost from both sides and providing incentives to both mother and father to be more aware of the consequences of their actions. The hook for the dad is not getting tossed in the can for being a deadbeat dad, mom's hook is getting free shit. Seems like a semi-reasonable approach to, if not solving the issue, at least alleviating some of the associated problems. And I am very far from claiming an operational solution. Just an idea.

Solution is easy: Black women, please marry white guys.
Anyways, mixed-race women are really hot.

> What I don't quite get is, in homes where boys
> turn out badly even when the fathers ARE living
> there, why is it traditional to blame the
> MOTHERS for that?

This is tradition? Where?

Nevahoi davit.

... of course you shouldn't have his baby or even sleep with him, but don't expect God to "reward" you with a Prince Charming before you turn 30 or 40 just because you're smart enough to reject men for caddish behavior.

I wish more women understood this. I was 37 before I found someone I was happy with.

As those who visit here frequently know, Crid and I have had our disagreements.

In this case, his opinions have absolutely nothing going for them.

Except, that is, for cold, hard, reality.

Amy:

From City Journal: The Black Family: 40 Years of Lies, by Kay Hymowitz.

I meant to forward it to you, but caught a case of getrountuit.

Research shows that it's INTACT families that produce healthy children. While I think it's essential that children have male and female role models ...

Having it both ways, are we?

Same sex couples having children (as opposed to adoption, which has a different set of issues) are pure egoists.

African-Americans are from Africa, remember.

Um, not to poke holes in your theory of genetic familly arangements, but every human on earth is from africa

"it'd be great to get the father on the DNA hook for paternity, Gareth, but you have to provide a disincentive for the mother, too. Naming the guy is nothing, I'm sure they'd have no problem."

I don't think it matters if they do or not; it isn't going to make any difference. The men we're talking about here are, in a sense, survivalists. They have no ties to the community, and they make and spend all of their money in the underground economy. They have no problem with moving around and changing identities to escape the messes they make. You hit one with a child support order, and you'll never see or hear from him again.

After the discussions we've had on this over the last couple of weeks, I am now convinced that the only possible solution is the complete elimination of welfare. There is no additional government program that can cure welfare's ills; it's akin to trying to cure a poisoning victim by giving them more poison. The perverse incentives are now so thoroughly built in that rooting them out is just not possible.

Unfortunately, there are way too many people invested in the status quo. I don't see the situation doing anything but getting worse in my lifetime. I fear that eventually the demands of the recipients will exceed society's ability to provide for them, and at that point there will be a sort of civil war... imagine the Watts riots on a national scale.

I fear that you are right, Cousin Dave. I think there's a pretty healthy probability that we will all live to see what you describe, maybe in the next 10 to 20 years. (I'll be 50 and 60 then, respectively, and am not looking forward to it.)

Please, tell me, how have you learned to live without hope? Hope is starting to equal wishful thinking in my personal dictionary. Not that I am determined to look at the future through shit-colored glasses - it's more that I'm looking at the future through clear lenses and see shit.

It's been quite a round of mental gymnastics for me, to try and abandon my planner/long-range thinking mentality and replace all that with (what I see as) simple-minded, short-range focus. You seem like a smart guy - what is your coping mechanism?

> Same sex couples having children (as opposed
> to adoption, which has a different set of issues)
> are pure egoists.

Pisses me off agreeing with you this much.

It's been quite a round of mental gymnastics for me, to try and abandon my planner/long-range thinking mentality and replace all that with (what I see as) simple-minded, short-range focus. You seem like a smart guy - what is your coping mechanism?

At this point I foresee the breakdown to the crowds roaming the countryside (a'la Ayn Rand) and gated cities, towns, and villages.

I'm picking up silver, guns and ammunition, fully functional swords and keep a stockpile of canned food hand on-hand.

My hope is that I come through the other side or die early.

On a total off-topic -- I go to the local ren fest. About 50% of us are carrying some sort of edged weapon (about 70% of those are "live"). I wonder what would happen if the Chicago (or other major metropolitan) area became a "Shall issue" for concealed carry weapons.

"An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life." -- Robert A. Heinlein

Unfortunately, there are way too many people invested in the status quo. I don't see the situation doing anything but getting worse in my lifetime. I fear that eventually the demands of the recipients will exceed society's ability to provide for them, and at that point there will be a sort of civil war... imagine the Watts riots on a national scale.
Posted by: Cousin Dave at October 4, 2010 6:46 PM

I fear that you are right, Cousin Dave. I think there's a pretty healthy probability that we will all live to see what you describe, maybe in the next 10 to 20 years. (I'll be 50 and 60 then, respectively, and am not looking forward to it.)
Posted by: Pirate Jo

So I take it you two missed the riots in Europe this last week?

UW, you mentioned the mothers of teens getting excited about being Grandmas... but what do you expect them to do?

I certainly expect my daughter (due in 10 days! Maybe she'll come today!!! I've been saying that every day for a week and a half now...) to put off childbearing until marriage, and to put off marriage until she has a bachelor's or equivalent career path. But if she got pregnant when she was 16 and decided to keep the kid, obviously I'd get on board.

I mean, should Grandma be in the hospital calling her daughter a whore and talking about what a mistake it was? Would she, once the baby was born, talk about how the mother shouldn't have had the baby, how the baby ruined her, etc? Seems like a good way to produce a fucked-up baby.

No, I think I'd go the Sarah Palin route (the getting behind the kid I mean, not the flaunting them on TV)... what else CAN you do?

One thing about Isobel's link, is that one of the commenters suggested that the women should be given access to a better pool of men... and a poster above suggested white guys. OK. But if these women get the men, then it means some other women won't get the men. That would just move the problem, not fix it.

Jim, you make me want to take up fencing again! :)

At this point I foresee the breakdown to the crowds roaming the countryside (a'la Ayn Rand) and gated cities, towns, and villages.

Before you slip into a warm bath, read Matt Ridley's "The Rational Optimist".

Once the baby's here, it's a blessing. Period. Which is not to say the right thing to do might not be to bestow that blessing on a responsible loving couple. Which is also not to say you shouldn't do everything you rationally can to keep your teen from MAKING the baby in the first place. I went on the pill at 14, I imagine my kids will too. The fact that women in my family tend to have very heavy very irregular periods, and BC pills are the treatment for that, just makes things easier.

But yeah, once your baby's having a baby, scorn and derision aren't useful.

So I take it you two missed the riots in Europe this last week?

No, but we are in the U.S., which is maybe ten years behind.

"One of the things I wonder is how many of those children are actually in a single parent home? There is a great incentive to be a "single mother" in that you get more money then a married one. So you simply live with "yo baby daddy" and collect the max possible free shit provided by the rest of us."

This is what I see happening. Many of my black male employees are actually somewhat involved fathers - albeit with several different baby mamas and too many children. They give their baby mamas money on paydays, buy medicine, and show up for school events.

"Single mother" in the black culture doesn't necessarily equate to no male influence. The problem is that what the males have to offer, in the way of teaching values and self-sufficiency, is poor.

Welfare is the problem. These mothers would not be so willing to have so many children, and accept so little in the way of fatherly support, if they couldn't also be supported by welfare.

Welfare is mainly what's rendered black fathers obsolete, but I agree with the points Lobster brought up, that much of this may be genetic, or at least traditional. The black family structure has never been the same as whites.

Matt Riddley's right, in the long term. In the short term things are going to really suck for a while. It annoys me that I might already be dead before things start to get better.

Once the baby is here, then absoluteley, it should be treated as a gift.

What I'm talking about, though, is those mothers of teen moms in the ER who jump up and down with glee when we tell them that 15 year old Natasha is pregnant. There is no sorrow, no show of disappointment of what could have been, no asking Natasha what in the hell she was thinking having unprotected sex...

I've seen time and again these women act like their teenaged daughter just won a full ride scholarship to Yale instead of creating a situation that has huge social and economic impact.

I don't care what race/ethnicity/social background you come from. When a teenager is pregnant, NO ONE should be gleeful. You figure out what is best for the pregnant mother and the baby, but you shouldn't be throwing confetti.

And what makes it even worse? When the social worker comes in to talk to the teen mom-to-be, and she very casually says "Oh, I'll just go on welfare."

Offer anyone that has not reproduced a monetary incentive (cash!) and lower federal taxes for life if they get permanently reproductively non-functional. And pay for the surgery, too.

UW, that last bit does sound very sad.

"What I'm talking about, though, is those mothers of teen moms in the ER who jump up and down with glee when we tell them that 15 year old Natasha is pregnant. There is no sorrow, no show of disappointment of what could have been, no asking Natasha what in the hell she was thinking having unprotected sex..."

Okay then. That is sucky. They're probably ecstatic about more welfare and food stamps.

> But yeah, once your baby's having a baby,
> scorn and derision aren't useful.

www.projectprevention.org

PJ, first of all, thanks for the compliment. Second of all, maybe I'm deluding myself, but I think that if/when it happens, it will be put down pretty fast and the major damage will be confined to the coastal cities. It will work out that way for a couple of reasons: (1) that's where most of the entitled classes live, and (2) our side has all of the really heavy weaponry. Look at a map of where military bases are in the U.S. and you'll see what I mean.

There will be serious economic repercussions, yes, but the country will recover from that as it did from the Civil War. After the conflict, when it becomes clear that the bennies won't be forthcoming any more, a lot of the entitled classes will leave the country in search of greener pastures, and the post-war conditions will make possible the reforms that were previously impossible, just as the aftermath of the Civil War made it possible to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment where it was impossible before the war.

I have to admit that sometimes I wonder if our generation is going to wind up like the monks of Alexandria, desperately trying to keep the remnants of civilization alive. But I think that's unlikely. And: as I see it, my role in the current drama is to keep trying to be the best citizen, husband, family member, and co-worker I can be. And as long as I do that, maybe it makes the country just a tiny bit better place to live. But I can't do it if I let gloom and doom dominate my thinking. So I have to fight that. One of the things I do is to think about my grandfather. He spent his life working in a cotton mill. He and my grandmother lived in a mill-village two-bedroom house with eight kids. For most of his life, he couldn't afford an automobile or a television or air conditioning. For much of his later years he suffered from congestive heart failure, which today would easily be relieved with bypass surgery. Even if my own standard of living declines some, it's still pretty good by comparison.