It's been a while since I stirred the waters.

[SweetWitch]

I found this little gem on the internet:

The Changing Contexts of Parenting in the United States

Decreasing Stability in the Lives of Children
While it is a major factor in the well-being of both adults and children, the stability of family life is clearly decreasing. Single parents and multiple families during childhood are inescapable facts of American life. One half of all children will spend some time in a single parent family.

There is an array of correlated outcomes from the resulting parent-child interactions: psychological effects on parents and children, educational attainment of parents and children, teen sex, teen pregnancy, substance abuse, and unmarried childbearing, all of which the literature associates with family structure. It is a complicated task for scientists to sort out the causal factors in this area. Certainly income plays an important mediating role, especially in educational attainment.

From 1960 to 1992 the proportion of children in single parent families more than doubled among whites and blacks. Of particular interest from a policy perspective is that the level for whites is now at the level it was for blacks at about the time that Patrick Moynihan was writing about the instability of families among black children. We are on a trajectory in which movement in and out of single parent status is likely to continue.

Concern for the future productivity of the economy is dire indeed when a quarter of all children are spending at least part of their childhood in poverty. This has serious implications for investments in children now and the nature of the labor force in the next generation. Conservatives and liberals ought to be able to reach common ground over this. I emphasize parenthetically that much of the research in this area focuses on the false dichotomy of being "in poverty" or "out of poverty." Economic stress is a variable that extends well across the income continuum. A sharp drop in income for a family following divorce may be above the poverty line and still have drastic consequences in stress on the family and the lives of the children involved.

With the exception of orphanhood, children's family experiences now result from decisions made by parents. How has this happened to us? Do we really value stable relationships and parenting?

Discussion?

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Add in the factor of the declining birthrate among all but Hispanic populations and things get really complex. All those people who bemoan the increasing population (among people who don't look like them!) haven't been paying attention.

 

[SweetWitch]

Add in the factor of the declining birthrate among all but Hispanic populations and things get really complex. All those people who bemoan the increasing population (among people who don't look like them!) haven't been paying attention.

This should be a good topic, right up Ami's alley.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

but I don't think Ami approves of anybody . . .

 

[TE999]

The increasing rate of illegitimacy (coyly referred to now as 'single parent families') among girls/women of all races is nothing short of appalling.

Presumed causes or reasons for this increase are legion...sexual permissiveness, promiscuity, generous welfare benefits, lack of affection, impulsiveness, a desire to be 'liked', pernicious cultural influences, poor role models in popular media...some or all the above...no one really knows...a lot depends on the individual.

It's just sad.

 

[SweetWitch]

The increasing rate of illegitimacy (coyly referred to now as 'single parent families') among girls/women of all races is nothing short of appalling.

Presumed causes or reasons for this increase are legion...sexual permissiveness, promiscuity, generous welfare benefits, lack of affection, impulsiveness, a desire to be 'liked', pernicious cultural influences, poor role models in popular media...some or all the above...no one really knows...a lot depends on the individual.

It's just sad.

Lack of "self".

 

[voluptuary_manque]

The increasing rate of illegitimacy (coyly referred to now as 'single parent families') among girls/women of all races is nothing short of appalling.

Presumed causes or reasons for this increase are legion...sexual permissiveness, promiscuity, generous welfare benefits, lack of affection, impulsiveness, a desire to be 'liked', pernicious cultural influences, poor role models in popular media...some or all the above...no one really knows...a lot depends on the individual.

It's just sad.

However, there is a strong demographic difference between the single parent families among white women and those that Moynihan decried. Teenage pregnancies are less common and the women who are choosing to have children without husbands are already established in careers. These aren't accidental, unwanted pregnancies, they are deliberate. It makes a big difference.

 

[Boxlicker101]

Originally Posted by TE999
The increasing rate of illegitimacy (coyly referred to now as 'single parent families') among girls/women of all races is nothing short of appalling.

Presumed causes or reasons for this increase are legion...sexual permissiveness, promiscuity, generous welfare benefits, lack of affection, impulsiveness, a desire to be 'liked', pernicious cultural influences, poor role models in popular media...some or all the above...no one really knows...a lot depends on the individual.

It's just sad.

However, there is a strong demographic difference between the single parent families among white women and those that Moynihan decried. Teenage pregnancies are less common and the women who are choosing to have children without husbands are already established in careers. These aren't accidental, unwanted pregnancies, they are deliberate. It makes a big difference.

Single parent families don't always involve illegitimacy. Sometimes they result from widowhood or divorce with one of the parents not around.

Besides the women who elect to have and raise children on their own, there are millions who are in long-term relationships, either lesbian or straight, and the child is raised by two parents, who are not married. Most children, whether born to a single girl or woman or a married one, are wanted, even if unplanned, because she elects to refrain from having an abortion. This was not a legal option fifty years ago, although some girls and women had abortions anyhow.

What I am saying is that, being PG and single, besides not being the stigma it used to be, is also not as bad in other ways as it was half a century ago.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Whatever floats your boat...just don't expect me to pitch in when you decide to have the baby. And don't expect any of my tax dollars to support you ass.

I supported and raised my own children I don't see why I would have to support anyone else's.

 

[Weird Harold]

With the exception of orphanhood, children's family experiences now result from decisions made by parents. How has this happened to us? Do we really value stable relationships and parenting?

ETA: Children's "family experiences" have always been the result of "decisions made by parents." Good parents make (mostly) good decisions and bad parents make (more) bad decisions.

I think a factor that isn't mentioned is that we have less emphasis on dysfunctional families staying together "for the kids." More people recognise that breaking up a dysfunctional or abusive family is better for the children in the long run, despite any increased stress from financial concerns.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Being a gardener I know that veggies do best when their environment stimulates without disturbance or damage. Combined with the essential nutrients and conditions, stimulation makes them flexible.

 

[rgraham666]

Don't care much for kids being referred to as 'illegitimate'.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

SEAWITCH

Stirring people up makes them feel alive. It breaks the barnacles that encrust their souls.

 

[bronzeage]

Don't care much for kids being referred to as 'illegitimate'.

Yeah, all those illegal children should be sent back to where they came from.

With the exception of orphanhood, children's family experiences now result from decisions made by parents. How has this happened to us? Do we really value stable relationships and parenting?

When have family experiences not resulted from decisions made by parents? The insertion of the word "now" is silly. The parent's decisions are the childhood experience. This has been true from the beginning of time.

Articles such as this one pop up like marigolds. It's an observation which is made in any age, like all before it, offers no solution.

Talk about single parenthood, teen pregnancy and child rearing always comes down to the same single issue, telling other people how to live their lives. We aren't very good at that, so instead, we try to make the life they have a little easier. Call it welfare, aid to children, unemployment benefits, it all comes down to the same thing. We have substituted the stick for the carrot. When one carrot isn't enough, we throw more.

This is just one more observation with no solution.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

When folks start paying the freight for what they do then they can do as they please.

 

[bronzeage]

When folks start paying the freight for what they do then they can do as they please.

It doesn't matter who pays the freight. They can still do as they please.

 

[3113]

Stirring the waters...that's it? That's the best you can do? Yawn.

Discussion?

That's stirring the waters? Bor-ing! Cliché. Been there, done that, and how very '70's.

Here. Try this...the rise in single parents, if rise there has been, and all the resulting "damage" it's done if damage it has done is due entirely to the cultish belief that giving birth is a sacred miracle, rather than something any living thing does (reproduce), similar to eating and shitting. In the past thirty years anti-abortion forces have been winning out, making it very difficult if not illegal for women to get abortions and/or to feel getting an abortion is an okay thing to do. AND in the meantime, we've also had schools and such teaching abstinence rather than birth control, movies and television shows glorifying the pregnant teen who goes through with the pregnancy, and sexual education discouraged even at home.

You want girls (and boys) to be more responsible? To not burden society with their babies and their babies with their bad decision to have that baby?--insist on sex education, no matter whether or not the parents want them to know about it. Teach them about contraception (which has been proven to lower the teen and out-of-wedlock birth rates) and make abortion the private and personal decision it ought to be. Stop glorifying in movies and television (and in the news--remember Bristol Palin?) teens who get pregnant and keep their babies, and start glorifying those who use birth control, and wait till they are older and in a committed relationship to have a child.

In short, I'm tired of people whining about these single parents as if they had nothing to do with this situation. Yeah, sure, sex was that single parent's decision, but making it easy or hard for them to prevent pregnancy was society's decision. Did we make sure to educate them on contraception? Did we make it easy to get condoms? Encourage them to masturbate instead? Did we give money to Planned Parenthood so a girl seeking to have sex could get advice? Or did we put roadblocks in the way while glorifying women who decide to have babies no matter what the difficulties and hardships?

'fer Christ's sake, stop being so "shocked, shocked, shocked" by all these single parents. This is the bed we made and now we're lying in it. Deal!

 

[TE999]

That's stirring the waters? Bor-ing! Cliché. Been there, done that, and how very '70's.

Here. Try this...the rise in single parents, if rise there has been, and all the resulting "damage" it's done if damage it has done is due entirely to the cultish belief that giving birth is a sacred miracle, rather than something any living thing does (reproduce), similar to eating and shitting. In the past thirty years anti-abortion forces have been winning out, making it very difficult if not illegal for women to get abortions and/or to feel getting an abortion is an okay thing to do. AND in the meantime, we've also had schools and such teaching abstinence rather than birth control, movies and television shows glorifying the pregnant teen who goes through with the pregnancy, and sexual education discouraged even at home.

You want girls (and boys) to be more responsible? To not burden society with their babies and their babies with their bad decision to have that baby?--insist on sex education, no matter whether or not the parents want them to know about it. Teach them about contraception (which has been proven to lower the teen and out-of-wedlock birth rates) and make abortion the private and personal decision it ought to be. Stop glorifying in movies and television (and in the news--remember Bristol Palin?) teens who get pregnant and keep their babies, and start glorifying those who use birth control, and wait till they are older and in a committed relationship to have a child.

In short, I'm tired of people whining about these single parents as if they had nothing to do with this situation. Yeah, sure, sex was that single parent's decision, but making it easy or hard for them to prevent pregnancy was society's decision. Did we make sure to educate them on contraception? Did we make it easy to get condoms? Encourage them to masturbate instead? Did we give money to Planned Parenthood so a girl seeking to have sex could get advice? Or did we put roadblocks in the way while glorifying women who decide to have babies no matter what the difficulties and hardships?

'fer Christ's sake, stop being so "shocked, shocked, shocked" by all these single parents. This is the bed we made and now we're lying in it. Deal!

Don't hold back, 3. Tell us how you really feel.

 

[rgraham666]

You'd have to look pretty hard to find a person who carries a heavier load than a single parent.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

How noble of these heroic girls to bear the burdens of bastard children. They care!

 

[stephen55]

Dan Quayle Was Right..........

Does anyone remember the fun and games that followed (then) Vice President Dan Quayle's 1992 criticism of TV actress Candice Bergen for portraying a soon-to-be single mother on her TV comedy Murphy Brown? Can you remember all the talking heads making fun of Quayle for his defense of the family? Do you remember all the late show TV jokes, mostly about Quayle's oh-so gauche conservatism in his stance that network TV shouldn't have been glorifying single parenthood and his defense of the two parent family? The script writers of Murphy Brown even wrote in lines mocking Quayle's assertion that father's are a necessary part of a family.

In the magazine Atlantic Monthly (April, 1993) Barbara Dafoe Whitehead wrote an essay she entitled "Dan Quayle Was Right".

http://www.worldwithoutend.info/love/articles/dan_quayle.htm

The essay is a long read and is dated 1993, but it still rings true today. The children of stable, two-parent families do better in all markers such as education, social skills, extra-curricular activities, jobs, income and future well being. Being a child of a single parent family, whether it started that way or became that way, puts one at a significant disadvantage in life.

It's an essay written 17 years ago that is timely today. It reminds me of the advice I was given and like to give to young adults....

The most important thing a mother can give her children is a father.
The most important thing a father can do for his children is love their mother.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

If someone castrated STEPHAN would it make any difference?

 

[stephen55]

Yo... "Shit For Brains".....

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_nkUzMI4SIbo/Sq9KxE2XNLI/AAAAAAAAAJA/kCxVXUq9pIU/s400/stop_being.jpg

 

[Boxlicker101]

Does anyone remember the fun and games that followed (then) Vice President Dan Quayle's 1992 criticism of TV actress Candice Bergen for portraying a soon-to-be single mother on her TV comedy Murphy Brown? Can you remember all the talking heads making fun of Quayle for his defense of the family? Do you remember all the late show TV jokes, mostly about Quayle's oh-so gauche conservatism in his stance that network TV shouldn't have been glorifying single parenthood and his defense of the two parent family? The script writers of Murphy Brown even wrote in lines mocking Quayle's assertion that father's are a necessary part of a family.

In the magazine Atlantic Monthly (April, 1993) Barbara Dafoe Whitehead wrote an essay she entitled "Dan Quayle Was Right".

http://www.worldwithoutend.info/love/articles/dan_quayle.htm

The essay is a long read and is dated 1993, but it still rings true today. The children of stable, two-parent families do better in all markers such as education, social skills, extra-curricular activities, jobs, income and future well being. Being a child of a single parent family, whether it started that way or became that way, puts one at a significant disadvantage in life.

It's an essay written 17 years ago that is timely today. It reminds me of the advice I was given and like to give to young adults....

The most important thing a mother can give her children is a father.
The most important thing a father can do for his children is love their mother.

I remember the flap quite well. I agreed with Dan Quayle then and I agree with you now. Murphy Brown was old enough and mature enough and financially able to raise a child as a single parent, but she set a terrible example for the girls of America. Most 15 or 16 year old girls are not capable of being good mothers, unless somebody else provides most of the support, such as her parents or the taxpayers, but Murphy encouraged them to do it anyhow.

When Quayle expressed dismay at the example she was setting, the TV show used their bully pulpit for bullying, and disparaged him and insulted him and effectively destroyed his political career. He was stuck with a reputation for being a moron, even though he had enough smarts to earn a law degree from the U. of Indiana and pass the bar.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

And what was really a hoot is that Candace Bergen, who played Murphy Brown while pregnant, was married and if I recall correctly, agreed with Quayle. She still ended up as a single mom when her husband died suddenly.