I really wish you'd stop with the "personal responsibility" things; it slows down the takeover.

From the Newsweek cover story "A World Without Fathers: The Struggle to Save the Black Family" (Aug. 30, 1993)

"Many black leaders rush to portray out-of-wedlock birth as solely a problem of an entrenched underclass. It's not. It cuts across economic lines. Among the poor, a staggering 65 percent of never-married black women have children, double the number for whites. But even among the well-to-do, the differences are striking: 22 percent of never-married black women with incomes above $75,000 have children, almost 10 times as many as whites."

And, from the introduction to Katha Pollitt's "Reasonable Creatures" (note that it's not quite contradictory):

"...To say that unwed mothers cause poverty is like saying hungry people cause famine, or sick people cause disease...

"...It would be closer to the truth to say that poverty causes early and unplanned childbearing. Across the income spectrum, after all-and to an extent that would horrify their parents if they knew about it-young people are having sex and young girls are getting pregnant. Strangely enough, however, you don't find many 15-year-olds dropping out of exclusive private schools to have babies. Girls with bright futures - college, jobs, travel-have abortions. It's the ones who have nothing to postpone who become mothers.

"What none of (those) who have dominated the welfare discussion betray any sign of understanding is that babies are a centuries-old way that women have put meaning, love, pleasure, hope and self-respect into their lives. If society is serious about cutting down on teenage motherhood, it will have to offer girls another way of obtaining these things. I'm not saying teenage motherhood is a great idea. It isn't, either for women or for children, and whether or not marriage is involved. But if impoverishing women were a deterrent, it surely would have worked by now..."

Well, there's no express route to poverty like being a poor teenager who becomes a single mother.

Abortion isn't pretty or ideal. But, it can mean focusing efforts towards self-sufficiency and maturity before entering into parenthood.

And I'm an old fogy who thinks couples should marry each other (one way or another) prior to starting a family. That's another thing to consider, it shouldn't be that one is just having a kid, it should be about starting a family.

\Sarcasm ON
Now Amy, that's just racist stereotyping. Shame on you.
\Sarcasm OFF

It seems to me now that it is totally offensive to people to call out this type of poor decision making (even to those who don't engage in this type of behavior) - where have the discussions about what is BEST for all gone? People act like their most selfish and destructive whimsies should be acceptable and never called into question.

Abortion isn't pretty or ideal. But, it can mean focusing efforts towards self-sufficiency and maturity before entering into parenthood. ~ Posted by: Jess at April 3, 2015 8:05 AM

You're assuming that, sans children, those efforts would be focused towards self-sufficiency and maturity.

Or even that self-sufficiency is a desired outcome of any efforts at all.

Now Amy, that's just racist stereotyping. Shame on you.

And slut shaming. #WarOnWomen

" "welfare discussion betray any sign of understanding is that babies are a centuries-old way that women have put meaning, love, pleasure, hope and self-respect into their lives." " lenona from newsweek, I presume...

lemme set that strawman on fire... in "centuries past those women were married or about to be so... and there was a steep cost to not being that... for the impregnating guy, he was likely to face her brothers and father, and likely his own brothers and father, who would ask when the wedding was to be, potentially with weapons in hand. All the women he knew were likely to ask similar questions, quite insistently.

for the woman who was with child, the assumption is she would marry the guy, end of story.

This was common, though there were exceptions, like guys who let out for the territories, or whatever... but if they came back, there was likely to be blood. This was true even in the cities, where it was harder to get away.

But. What that gave that woman in centuries past, was a provider. There was a strict assumption that he would be so, and serious downsides, if he was not. This was reinforced by both religion and society...
and there wasn't much backup safetynet, if you failed.

the argument that it was the kid that provided all those nice feelings isn't the whole story or even the major part, there was a whole 'nother part to life that was carried by becoming part of a family.

couple it with the idea that getting married and having children gave great purpose to life, for some people the major purpose to life... and it was in alignment with their evo-psych prerogatives, so doing so made sense.

Outliers? certainly. there were people who didn't want kids, and made that choice... but not commonly, the way it is now. Were there terrible parents? There are terrible people, and there have always been, and will always be.

But. If you stop holding people accountable, stop making it a point to form bonds, and then find someone else to pay for it all [or at least to appear to pay for it all] ... what d'ya get?

Teenage birth rates are not up... unwed ones are, in all age groups.

Part of it may be a high school education doesnt cut it any more so people put off marrying. Yet those are the horniest and most fertile years of life.

Lenona,

What happened after 1950? Cause prior to that everything you said is false. Or were women somehow more self actualized back then? They sure weren't richer.

So Lenona, do you have a link to that article? I searched a bit and found lotsa references, but not much online that seemed to be the story itself, though this one MIGHT be it...

Amy, if you care, perhaps you have resources to find it. What I find most fascinating is that it is 22 years old, and what has changed? If anything this dissolution has accelerated. Give it a gander, but I haven't a clue if this is the actual article, or commentary... it's quite interesting as a beginning point.

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/bit.listserv.free-l/PSNNubHjXHM

Add in the fact that 50% of black pregnancies are terminated by abortion, and the picture gets even uglier ...

@Lenona: "...To say that unwed mothers cause poverty is like saying hungry people cause famine, or sick people cause disease..."

That quote is truly dimwitted. Unwed mothers become that way on purpose.

"...It would be closer to the truth to say that poverty causes early and unplanned childbearing."

No, it would be closer to the truth to say that if you subsidize people to have kids they can't support, they'll have more of them. Which is exactly what AFDC/TANF does.

I propose we stop paying useless people to have kids, and start taking kids in these situations away from the mother (for neglect) and putting them in foster care. They'll have a better future, and the needless creation of more of them will stop.

This especially goes for teenage mothers (whom the welfare system now sponsors to move out into their own homes as soon as they get pregnant). That's a huge incentive and it's producing Marching Morons by the millions. Enough!

Poverty can be avoided by most if you:

1. Graduate high school,
2. Do not have a baby before you are 20 years old,
3. Do not have a baby unless you are married, and
4. Do not commit a felony.

the problem I have with you both jdgalt, and Nick, is that you are acting like people are somehow NOT like people.

It is important to separate the statistics from the individual, in order to see this aright.

It is true that you are more likely to have a kid if there is not much downside to having one, AND lotsa other people around you are.

I want you to march right into Cabrini Green in Chicago, and start talking to those young women, and see how far you get.

Convincing an individual to change, you well know, is not as easy as telling them to.

you tell them their older life will suck, but this may well be the only one they know. You tell them to go get a job, and they tell you that there isn't one FOR MILES [go visit, I can assure you] much less someone to take care of the kid they have.

And now we run headlong into the complication that is life.

JUST LIKE thinking that getting someone to buy a house, or get a college education, or get married, DOESN'T mean they will be suddenly middle class, you can't just tell someone that everything they know is wrong, and CHANGE RIGHT NOW!

What makes you believe they will even listen?

Basically what we are talking about is nothing less then reinventing from the ground up. It takes time. It take buyin. It takes not pandering by a buncha politicians whose power is derived by keeping the status quo. [good luck with that]

Even with all that, it's generations to fix this... it HAS BEEN Generations since Moynihan started blasting away on this, but with no good effect.

because telling people they suck, doesn't help.

Teaching responsibility and character matters, is probably the only place to start, and for that everyone will have to stop acting like the poor dears can't handle the truth. Once you tell them the truth, then you have to give them a pathway to get there from here... but this has to come from their own community...

Unfortunately the Al Sharptons, and Jesse Jacksons, and Bobby Rushs, and Valarie Jarretts will be against it, when they could have a powerful voice. that's not even mentioning the prez or flotus. "Let's Move"? Don't make me laugh. How about Let's Learn... How about Character Counts? How about find your future?

Nobody will listen to an old white guy like me, 'cuz I'm ev0l or something...

But if you don't catch the kids @7 or 8 years old, and get them to look at what their elders did as being a bad path... you will never raise children into adults that can take on responsibilities, and make decisions with forethought, and accept consequence.

Convincing an individual to change, you well know, is not as easy as telling them to.

No one is saying we should TELL them to change.

We are saying we should stop giving them money and if they have any interest in making that pain in their gut go away they will figure it the fuck out on their own

"I want you to march right into Cabrini Green in Chicago, and start talking to those young women, and see how far you get."

Cabrini Green was torn down several years ago but I am sure there is some equivalent hell-hole today.

"No one is saying we should TELL them to change.

We are saying we should stop giving them money and if they have any interest in making that pain in their gut go away they will figure it the fuck out on their own"

Don't we all wish they would but we know they won't

Don't we all wish they would but we know they won't

Either way the problem gets solved.

"Don't we all wish they would but we know they won't"

Actually they will. People respond to incentives. Over 200 years of slavery in America wasn't able to break the black family. Beatings, rape, and forced separation couldn't do it. But the Great Society accomplished that goal in only 20 years by paying people to abandon their families. Incentives matter.

This is a large part of why I want to abolish government based marriage. Since LBJ the US has incentivised single parenthood. Enough is enough! Without government intervention people will form two person families all on their own. It is long past time to get the US government out of marriage.

" "welfare discussion betray any sign of understanding is that babies are a centuries-old way that women have put meaning, love, pleasure, hope and self-respect into their lives." " lenona from newsweek, I presume...
___________________________________

Wrong. As I said, it was from Katha Pollitt's "Reasonable Creatures" - a book of her columns.
____________________________________

lemme set that strawman on fire... in "centuries past those women were married or about to be so... and there was a steep cost to not being that... for the impregnating guy, he was likely to face her brothers and father, and likely his own brothers and father, who would ask when the wedding was to be, potentially with weapons in hand. All the women he knew were likely to ask similar questions, quite insistently.

for the woman who was with child, the assumption is she would marry the guy, end of story.

This was common, though there were exceptions, like guys who let out for the territories, or whatever... but if they came back, there was likely to be blood. This was true even in the cities, where it was harder to get away.

Posted by: SwissArmyD at April 3, 2015 10:51 AM
__________________________________________

As the late essayist Ellen Willis wrote, in 1985:

"To begin with, in the past people assumed that by having heterosexual relations the WOMAN acquired obligations if pregnancy resulted. For the most part, the man was held responsible only if he was married to the woman, willing to marry her, or forced by family and community pressure to marry her. (Such pressure was of course exerted on behalf of 'respectable' women only: if she was the 'wrong' class or race or had a 'bad reputation' she was on her own.) Nor have idealistic scruples about the connection between sex and procreation ever deterred men from sleeping with women they had no intention of marrying."
_______________________________________

Lenona,

What happened after 1950? Cause prior to that everything you said is false. Or were women somehow more self actualized back then? They sure weren't richer.

Posted by: Ben at April 3, 2015 11:11 AM
__________________________________

Clarify, please?

__________________________________________

So Lenona, do you have a link to that article? I searched a bit and found lotsa references, but not much online that seemed to be the story itself, though this one MIGHT be it...

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/bit.listserv.free-l/PSNNubHjXHM

Posted by: SwissArmyD at April 3, 2015 12:35 PM
__________________________________________

I skimmed it and yes, it looks like the same one. (I have the magazine at home.) Google on any of the sentences from the above link you found - but I suspect that, to see any photos or charts from the original, you'd have to subscribe to Newsweek.

Lenona,

Prior to 1950 in the US and most of the world poverty did not cause single motherhood. That would seem to disprove your thesis.

How do you know?

To my knowledge, no one has tried to claim that Pollitt is inherently wrong.

I mean, why do you think the notorious "orphan trains" existed in the first place, from 1853 to 1929? Likely not just because of children born to poor married couples, since plenty of people couldn't afford to marry in the first place.

I don't have good stats for you and I haven't read Pollitt. But your claim that poverty causes single motherhood is farcical. I also recognize you are hardly unique in making that claim.

Prior to 1950 the rate of single motherhood was sub 10%. And the greatest cause of single parenthood was death of a spouse. Today single motherhood is roughly 33%. And the greatest cause is never married or divorced. By any measure people are more wealthy than they were in 1950, so if poverty caused single motherhood why is the rate increasing with wealth instead of decreasing? Even if you argue that relative poverty causes single motherhood you are in trouble. Yes, since 1970 the gini coefficient for the US has risen. But it was higher in 1935 and fell till 1970. So no relationship, much less causal.

You asked about orphan trains. I don't know much about them. But what little I read talked about kids taken from unfit parents and sent to rural states. There was usually a reference to a parent dying and the remaining parent being unfit (either due to alcohol or lack of work). I fail to see how this supports your argument.

You quoted to Swiss "Nor have idealistic scruples about the connection between sex and procreation ever deterred men from sleeping with women they had no intention of marrying."

But it did deter women from sleeping with men. After all they were the one to bear the cost. Incidentally those same forces of one party (previously the women) bearing most of the costs of child care are now deterring men from sleeping with women. At least if the man has income or assets.

On the other side of things, if you want proof that single motherhood leads to poverty just look at child costs. I ran the numbers recently for a relative who is expecting. Depending on how thrifty you want to be I get numbers between $1k-$4k/year to feed, cloth, and take care of a child. Not that big of a deal. But daycare runs at least $10k/year and often over $30k/year. So, if you are a single parent and have to put your child into daycare in order to work you need to make at least $7.50/hr just to pay for a single kid, much less leave anything for yourself. And that is some fairly dangerous daycare. If you can't make $10/hr (and not everyone can) or have more than one child it makes more sense to me to just go on welfare and have the state pay you to stay at home with the kids. Hence single parenthood for the poor only became a reality after 1965 when much of the welfare state was started.