Single Mother ain't no badge of honor.

Illegitimacy a "Badge of Honor"?

By Larry Elder

 

A few years ago, I visited a friend living in Cleveland's inner city.

 

As we sat on my friend's porch, not one, but two teenage girls -- visibly pregnant -- walked by. My friend cheerfully called out their names. They smiled and waved back as they continued walking. I turned to my friend and said, "You see that?"

 

She said, "See what?"

 

I said, "That."

 

She said, "What?"

 

I said, "Those two girls, they're both pregnant."

 

She says, "Yeah."

 

I said, "What about that?"

 

Pointing to houses, she said, "What about the one over here, the one over there and the one down there?"

 

I said, "So, this is acceptable?"

 

She said, "I didn't say it was acceptable -- it just is."

 

Fantasia Barrino, winner of the recent "American Idol" contest and a single-parent mom, dropped out of school in ninth grade, got pregnant and gave birth at age 17. Fantasia, in a recently released CD, calls single-parent motherhood "a badge of honor." In "Baby Mama," Fantasia sings, "It's about time we had our own song. Don't know what took so long." While the song does talk about the struggles single parents face -- "I see you get that support check in the mail, Ya open and you're like, 'What the hell.' You say, 'This ain't even half of daycare.' Sayin' to yourself, 'This here ain't fair.' To all my girls who don't get no help. Who gotta do everything by yourself. . . ." -- she nevertheless refers to single parenting as, "Cuz now-a-days it like a badge of honor." A badge of honor?

 

According to The World Almanac 2005 -- which now lists illegitimate birth rates under the politically correct heading "Nonmarital Childbearing" -- nearly 70 percent of black children are born outside of wedlock. With Latinos, the rate is almost 45 percent, whites nearly 30 percent, and Asians 15 percent. Overall, about 34 percent of America's children today are born outside of wedlock.

 

According to the Heritage Foundation, children born outside of wedlock were more likely to engage in early sexual activity and have children out of wedlock. The report further stated, "Compared to children living with both biological parents in similar socioeconomic circumstances, children of never-married mothers exhibit 68 percent more antisocial behavior, 24 percent more headstrong behavior, 33 percent more hyperactive behavior, 78 percent more peer conflict, and 53 percent more dependency. Overall, children of never-married mothers have behavioral problems that score nearly three times higher than children raised in comparable intact families."

 

About her life before hitting it big in "American Idol," Fantasia said, "I wasn't working. I wasn't doing anything, and Zion [her daughter] wasn't in daycare. . . . I had my own little apartment [presumably at taxpayers' expense] and I would do her hair all day, watch movies. . . . We would play dress-up. We had nothing to do." Her baby's father, Brandel Shouse, was arrested and pled guilty for assaulting Fantasia. (They are said to be on cordial terms, now.)

A badge of honor? Tell that to Coach A.

 

Coach Ted Anderson worked as the basketball coach for the Memphis, Tenn., Hamilton High Wildcats for over 20 years. Memphis, until recently, allowed corporal punishment, one of the few big-city districts that still permitted the practice. Coach Anderson, who, himself, attended Hamilton High -- where he received the occasional paddling -- earned a reputation as a basketball coach for being hardworking, fearsome, and who would, from time to time, administer the correctional swat.

 

Anderson said he swatted kids for tardiness, unruliness, disrespectful behavior, poor grades and -- twice in his career -- for poor play. Unfortunately for Coach A., at a tournament during halftime, he swatted three players for poor play, one parent complained and despite no other complaint in his 20-year career as Hamilton's basketball coach, the school board fired him as coach and transferred him to teach a middle school class.

 

During Coach Anderson's career, single moms brought their children to him precisely because they wanted their sons to see a strong male figure, a presence frequently absent from the kids' lives.

 

One of Anderson's former student athletes told me that he credits Anderson with his success in life and in business. Several other former students rallied to his support in urging the district to reconsider.

 

Many studies show that the best predictor of violent crime in a community is not the race or economic status, but the proportion of households without fathers. Most juvenile and adult offenders come from homes without fathers.

 

In his book "My Father's Face," James Robison wrote about a chaplain in a federal penitentiary who decided to improve morale. He persuaded a greeting card company to supply him with Mother's Day cards for the inmates. The prisoners enthusiastically sent each mom a card. Morale improved so dramatically that the chaplain decided to repeat the success on Father's Day. The chaplain offered the cards to the inmates. But not one inmate sent a card to his father. Not one.

 

A badge of honor?

I guess you missed the boat on this one:

http://Off Topic Forum.com/showthread.php?t=66244&highlight=single+mothers

I guess you missed the boat on this one:

http://Off Topic Forum.com/showthread.php?t=66244&highlight=single+mothers

 

Sadly, that whole thread consisted almost entirely of personal rubbish stories and little on the socioeconomic effects of the bastardization of America.

Sadly, that whole thread consisted almost entirely of personal rubbish stories and little on the socioeconomic effects of the bastardization of America.

Fair enough. You do have a point there.

Sadly, that whole thread consisted almost entirely of personal rubbish stories and little on the socioeconomic effects of the bastardization of America.

 

Oh...Fuck you and the horse you rode in on...

 

Bastard...right, because they don't have a piece of paper we in a Western Society call a marriage certificate?

 

What rubbish.

 

The real essence of importance is the one of teaching our males to take responsibility for their offspring, not call people names because they or their parents decided not to have a marriage certificate.

 

You are a fool and an asshole. Lick my hairy balls.

 

You are a fool and an asshole. Lick my hairy balls.

 

ROTFLMFAO!!!

Oh...Fuck you and the horse you rode in on...

 

Bastard...right, because they don't have a piece of paper we in a Western Society call a marriage certificate?

 

What rubbish.

 

The real essence of importance is the one of teaching our males to take responsibility for their offspring, not call people names because they or their parents decided not to have a marriage certificate.

 

You are a fool and an asshole. Lick my hairy balls.

 

Ain't got much to do with apiece of paper. Most prisoners have no father figure, legal or otherwise, to speak of. Parenting is one tough job that works best with two people doing it. The crime rates of children of single parent homes speaks for itself.

From:

 

THE ROOT CAUSES OF CRIME

 

by David MacRae

 

 

Yet for all this talk about the root causes of crime, there is one factor which overwhelms all of the others: fatherlessness. The link between fatherlessness and crime is so strong

From:

 

THE ROOT CAUSES OF CRIME

 

by David MacRae

 

 

 

Single mothers are not a good thing.

 

You are a fool and an asshole. Lick my hairy balls.

 

 

Oh, I was mistaken. My apologies.

 

BULLSHIT! That should be LICK MY HAIRY BALLS, AND THEN SUCK ON MY ASSHOLE FOR GOOD MEASURE.

 

Are you really this dumb?

 

Just who is David MacRae? Hmm.

 

"David MacRae is a software consultant who works out of his home in St. Laurent, Quebec" http://www.quebecoislibre.org

 

I just wasted a bit of time trying to track down the so called statistics in your posts by this fool. I couldn't find ONE. Nope, not one.

 

Perhaps you have hyperlinks to support this trash although I doubt it.

 

Go slap yourself twice for being so stupid.

Oh, I was mistaken. My apologies.

 

BULLSHIT! That should be LICK MY HAIRY BALLS, AND THEN SUCK ON MY ASSHOLE FOR GOOD MEASURE.

 

Are you really this dumb?

 

Just who is David MacRae? Hmm.

 

"David MacRae is a software consultant who works out of his home in St. Laurent, Quebec" http://www.quebecoislibre.org

 

I just wasted a bit of time trying to track down the so called statistics in your posts by this fool. I couldn't find ONE. Nope, not one.

 

Perhaps you have hyperlinks to support this trash although I doubt it.

 

Go slap yourself twice for being so stupid.

 

Clearly one internal organ that ain't working properly is your brain.

More info for those capable of processing information.

 

The Secret Is Out

By Larry Elder

FrontPageMagazine.com | January 26, 2001

 

NOW WE KNOW. Rev. Jesse Jackson's admission that he fathered a child out of wedlock helps to answer the big question. Why does the so-called black leadership fail to fight the No. 1 problem facing the black community: children having children?

In his statement acknowledging an extra-marital affair resulting in the birth of a daughter, Jackson said, "I was born of these circumstances, and I know the importance of growing up in a nurturing, supportive and protected environment. So I am determined to give my daughter and her mother the privacy they both deserve."

 

Jackson also said he provides "emotional and financial support" to the mother and their daughter.

 

Flashback to 1970. Sociology 101: My college freshman class read a highly controversial book by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, later the Democratic senator for the state of New York. His book, The Negro Family: A Case for National Action, made an argument many considered racist -- that the rising number of black children born outside of wedlock threatens the stability of the black community. The nearly all-liberal, predominantly white class went bonkers. They taunted Moynihan, calling him "Racist," "Eurocentric," "Patriarchal," as well as one who subscribes to "middle-class values."

 

But now we know. Since Lyndon Johnson's so-called War on Poverty, government taxpayers "invested" trillions of dollars, much of it designed to "alleviate poverty." The result? In the last 30 years, the black poverty rate stagnated, while the percentage of black children born outside of wedlock exploded from 25 percent to nearly 70 percent. What, no marches, no picketing, no sit-ins?

 

The absence of a father in the home increases the odds of a child going on welfare, dropping out of school, getting involved in crime, or becoming a teen parent. Did Rev. Jackson's situation, and his possible concern about the revelation of his out-of-wedlock child, cause him to pull his punches on this disturbing phenomenon?

Certainly we place Jackson -- as an adult with resources -- in a different category than a teenager impregnating another teenager, after which the male often abandons his spiritual, emotional and financial obligations. The president of the NAACP, Kweisi Mfume, fathered five children out of wedlock. Like Jackson, he says that he supported and remained involved in the children's lives. But because of his past, does Mfume, like Jackson, spend more time pursuing the Great White Bigot at the expense of far more pressing issues of personal responsibility?

 

In 1911, Booker T. Washington said, "There is (a) class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs -- partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs ... " And, "There is a certain class of race problem-solvers who don't want the patient to get well, because as long as the disease holds out they have not only an easy means of making a living, but also an easy medium through which to make themselves prominent before the public." Hm-mm.

 

Rev. Jackson frequently complains about the income and net worth gap between blacks and whites. But the employment rate for married black men approaches parity with that of married white men. And, for welfare recipients, the quickest and easiest route out of poverty remains marriage. Men who father children and then take a hike create the moral equivalent of a drive-by shooting. Jackson, Mfume, and other "black leaders" could and should lead the charge. But they don't.

 

Think tanks like the Heritage Foundation, as well as many government studies, reach the same conclusion: dads matter. Black columnist Jonetta Rose Barras wrote, "At 13, my older sister was pregnant and unmarried. I followed in her footsteps, becoming pregnant at 17, continuing a series of bad choices. My older brother had already begun his walk down his own crooked road, getting arrested by the time he was 16 on a half-dozen occasions for petty crimes. We were linked by fatherlessness. None of us knew it then, but the loss of our father through divorce ravaged our lives. It took two decades to discover fatherlessness was at the core of my vandalized childhood and resulting adult dysfunction."

 

Reconciling Jackson's behavior with his wife is Jackson's business, for he is an adult who acknowledges his paternity and who possesses resources for the child's welfare. But what about the inner-city 15-year-old who gets pregnant by a 19-year-old "inseminator"? It may be hard for a Jesse Jackson or a Kweisi Mfume to say children cannot assume adult responsibilities. But they must. That they don't, well, one can only ask why ...

 

The connection between fatherlessness and crime is so clear that only a total moron (such as CES) cannot see it.

Oh...Fuck you and the horse you rode in on...

 

Bastard...right, because they don't have a piece of paper we in a Western Society call a marriage certificate?

 

What rubbish.

 

The real essence of importance is the one of teaching our males to take responsibility for their offspring, not call people names because they or their parents decided not to have a marriage certificate.

 

You are a fool and an asshole. Lick my hairy balls.

 

Gawd I love you.

You can post all the stats you want and quote all the "those who know" you want, it's all bull. Through divorce I raised my daughter from age 2 on by myself and did a damn fine job with a daughter to be proud of. Through all these years I witnessed the same of other single parent families. I also witnessed the opposite in both single and 2 parent families. It's not the quantity of parents, it's the quality.

You can post all the stats you want and quote all the "those who know" you want, it's all bull. Through divorce I raised my daughter from age 2 on by myself and did a damn fine job with a daughter to be proud of. Through all these years I witnessed the same of other single parent families. I also witnessed the opposite in both single and 2 parent families. It's not the quantity of parents, it's the quality.

 

 

My parents were divorced when i was 5, my father lived in another state so i saw him in the summers. I've had my share of mischief, but never been in jail or convected of any crimes. I think i turned out pretty well, worked part time till i graduated then full time ever since. Have a family, own a house. I wouldn't wish parents or kids to have to grow up that way, but in some cases both are better off. Almost anyone can have kids, but it takes someone special to be a parent.

You can post all the stats you want and quote all the "those who know" you want, it's all bull. Through divorce I raised my daughter from age 2 on by myself and did a damn fine job with a daughter to be proud of. Through all these years I witnessed the same of other single parent families. I also witnessed the opposite in both single and 2 parent families. It's not the quantity of parents, it's the quality.

 

 

BRAVO!!!

 

Hugo, you're still wrong on this and you're still an asshole.

Gawd I love you.

 

 

Ditto my dear, ditto!

Clearly one internal organ that ain't working properly is your brain.

 

Poor Hugo...

 

I'll wager the logical self-thought and cognitive evaluation skills of just my Frontal Lobe against your combined Frontal, Parietal, Occipital, and Temporal lobes, anyday of the week and twice on Sunday.

 

Care to have a friendly debate? My personal thoughts versus your googled crap?

 

Back to your initial garbage; you still haven't given any credible source for any of this. All of the cited references in the original article, were either completely fabricated or unverifiable.

 

What a crock of shit. You should smack yourself hard, twice, for such Neanderthal thinking.

 

Tell me something, were you waving your redletter Bible in the air with one hand when you typed out that crap with the other hand?

While there is a grain of truth in the unsupported posts that Hugo-a-gogo has pasted here, the missing link is the effect on children of spouses who choose to stay together, despite their being no love left in their relationship.

 

Violence and spite in relationships has a more far-reaching negative effect on the developing psyche of children than the momentary trauma of separation, particularly when the non-custodial parent continues and maintains contact with their children, without the angst and back-stabbing that ended the relationship in the first place. While this amicable plateau can take years to achieve in some breakups, the fact that the non-custodial parent maintains contact and demonstrates love for their children is enough to overcome the trauma of separation.

 

My own son tried for almost a decade to get me and his mum back together. He now appreciates why it never happened. He also knows that I love him unconditionally, and now that he is in his teens, my support is more important to him now than ever before.

 

Will he become a criminal because he hasn't lived with me full-time? No.

While there is a grain of truth in the unsupported posts that Hugo-a-gogo has pasted here, the missing link is the effect on children of spouses who choose to stay together, despite their being no love left in their relationship.

 

Violence and spite in relationships has a more far-reaching negative effect on the developing psyche of children than the momentary trauma of separation, particularly when the non-custodial parent continues and maintains contact with their children, without the angst and back-stabbing that ended the relationship in the first place. While this amicable plateau can take years to achieve in some breakups, the fact that the non-custodial parent maintains contact and demonstrates love for their children is enough to overcome the trauma of separation.

 

My own son tried for almost a decade to get me and his mum back together. He now appreciates why it never happened. He also knows that I love him unconditionally, and now that he is in his teens, my support is more important to him now than ever before.

 

Will he become a criminal because he hasn't lived with me full-time? No.

 

< 10 >

 

Enough said...

I read an interesting article pertaining to just this earlier this week. .

http://www.nbc30.com/family/5526693/detail.html

(See that? A LINK)

Events Before Divorce May Harm Kids More

Research Finds Split Sometimes Eases Problems

The most harm to a child's mental health takes place in the years before parents split up, according to a University of Alberta study.

That suggests staying together for the sake of the kids is not always the right choice, researchers said in a news release.

"Levels of child antisocial behavior actually drop following parental divorce for kids living in highly dysfunctional families," author Lisa Strohschein said.

Rather than comparing children whose parents have divorced with those whose haven't, Strohschein looked at divorce as a process. This approach allows researchers to separate effects on child mental health that are actually due to divorce and not due to other family characteristics, the release said.

In the research, kids whose parents eventually divorced displayed higher levels of anxiety/depression and antisocial behavior than kids whose parents stayed married.

Parents who divorce tend to report higher levels of family dysfunction and depression, and lower levels of marital satisfaction.

"Once these family characteristics were taken into account, differences in mental health at the initial interview between children whose parents divorced and children whose parents remained married can no longer be detected," said Strohschein. "This suggests that troubled families are at risk for both divorce and child mental health problems, and calls into question the assumption that it is the divorce event that is necessarily damaging to child mental health."

I believe parenting, single or married, is a badge of honor in itself.

 

That's all I have to say on this matter.

I believe parenting, single or married, is a badge of honor in itself.

 

That's all I have to say on this matter.

Amen to that. Preach on.

Amen to that. Preach on.

 

I've been on a roll all week, don't EVEN get me started today.

I believe parenting, single or married, is a badge of honor in itself.

 

That's all I have to say on this matter.

 

 

My brother speaks the truth! Rock On!

[

Testimony of

Michael Tanner

Director of Health and Welfare Studies

The Cato Institute

Before the:

Senate Judiciary Committee

Subcommittee on Youth Violence

 

June 7, 1995

 

 

Last year, the Maryland NAACP released a report concluding that "the ready access to a lifetime of welfare and free social service programs is a major contributory factor to the crime problems we face today."(1) Their conclusion appears to be confirmed by academic research. For example, research by Dr. June O'Neill's and Anne Hill for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services showed that a 50 percent increase in the monthly value of combined AFDC and food stamp benefits led to a 117 percent increase in the crime rate among young black men.(2)

 

Welfare contributes to crime in several ways. First, children from single-parent families are more likely to become involved in criminal activity. According to one study, children raised in single-parent families are one-third more likely to exhibit anti-social behavior.(3) Moreover, O'Neill found that, holding other variables constant, black children from single- parent households are twice as likely to commit crimes as black children from a family where the father is present. Nearly 70 percent of juveniles in state reform institutions come from fatherless homes, as do 43 percent of prison inmates.(4) Research indicates a direct correlation between crime rates and the number of single-parent families in a neighborhood.(5)

 

As Barbara Dafoe Whitehead noted in her seminal article for The Atlantic Monthly:

 

The relationship [between single-parent families and crime] is so strong that controlling for family configuration erases the relationship between race and crime and between low income and crime. This conclusion shows up time and again in the literature. The nation's mayors, as well as police officers, social workers, probation officers, and court officials, consistently point to family break up as the most important source of rising rates of crime.(6)

 

At the same time, the evidence of a link between the availability of welfare and out-of-wedlock births is overwhelming. There have been 13 major studies of the relationship between the availability of welfare benefits and out-of-wedlock birth. Of these, 11 found a statistically significant correlation. Among the best of these studies is the work done by June O'Neill for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Holding constant a wide range of variables, including income, education, and urban vs. suburban setting, the study found that a 50 percent increase in the value of AFDC and foodstamp payments led to a 43 percent increase in the number of out-of-wedlock births.(7) Likewise, research by Shelley Lundberg and Robert Plotnick of the University of Washington showed that an increase in welfare benefits of $200 per month per family increased the rate of out-of-wedlock births among teenagers by 150 percent.(8)

 

The same results can be seen from welfare systems in other countries. For example, a recent study of the impact of Canada's social-welfare system on family structure concluded that "providing additional benefits to single parents encourages births of children to unwed women."(9)

 

Until teenage girls, particularly those living in relative poverty, can be made to see real consequences from pregnancy, it will be impossible to gain control over the problem of out-of- wedlock births. By disguising those consequences, welfare makes it easier for these girls to make the decisions that will lead to unwed motherhood.

 

Current welfare policies seem to be designed with an appallingly lack of concern for their impact on out-of-wedlock births. Indeed, Medicaid programs in 11 states actually provide infertility treatments to single women on welfare.(12)

 

I should also point out that, once the child is born, welfare also appears to discourage the mother from marrying in the future. Research by Robert Hutchins of Cornell University shows that a 10 percent increase in AFDC benefits leads to an eight percent decrease in the marriage rate of single mothers.(13)

 

As welfare contributes to the rise in out-of-wedlock births and single-parent families, it concomitantly contributes to the associated increase in criminal activity.

 

Secondly, welfare leads to increased crime by contributing to the marginalization of young black men in society. There are certainly many factors contributing to the increasing alienation and marginalization of young black men, including racism, poverty, and the failure of our educational system. However, welfare contributes as well. The welfare culture tells the man he is not a necessary part of the family. They are in effect cuckolded by the state. Their role of father and breadwinner is supplanted by the welfare check.

 

The role of marriage and family as a civilizing influence on young men has long been discussed. Whether or not strict causation can be proven, it is certainly true that unwed fathers are more likely to use drugs and become involved in criminal behavior.(14) Indeed, single men are five times more likely to commit violent crimes than married men.(15)

 

Finally, in areas where there is a high concentration of welfare, there may be an almost total lack of male role models. This can lead to crime in two ways. First, as the Maryland NAACP puts it, "A child whose parents draw a welfare check without going to work does not understand that in this society at least one parent is expected to rise five days of each week to go to some type of job."(16)

 

Second, boys growing up in mother only families naturally seek male influences. Unfortunately, in many inner city neighborhoods, those male role models may not exist. As George Gilder, author of Wealth and Poverty, has noted, the typical inner-city today is "almost a matriarchy. The women receive all the income, dominate the social-worker classes, and most of the schools." Thus, the boy in search of male guidance and companionship may end up in the company of gangs or other undesirable influences.(17)

 

 

Notes

 

John L. Wright, Marge Green, and Leroy Warren, Jr., "An Assessment of Crime in Maryland Today," Maryland State Conference of Branches, NAACP, February 1994, "Executive Summary," p. 7.

M. Anne Hill and June O'Neill, "Underclass Behaviors in the United States: Measurement and Analysis of Determinants," Barcuch College, City University of New York, March 1990.

Deborah Dawson, MD, "Family Structure and Children's Health and Well-Being: Data From the 1988 Interview Survey on Child Health," paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Population Association of America, May 1990.

William Barr, "Crime, Poverty, and Family," Heritage Foundation Lectures, July 29, 1992, citing statistics from the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

See, for example, Douglas Smith and G. Roger Jarjoura, "Social structure and Criminal Victimization," Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, February 1988; William Niskanen, "Crime, Police, and Root Causes," Cato Institute Policy Analysis no. 218, November 14, 1994.

Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, "Dan Quayle Was Right, Atlantic Monthly, April 1993.

Hill and O'Neill.

Shelley Lundberg and Robert Plotnick, "Adolescent Premarital Childbearing: Do Opportunity Costs Matter?" Population Association of America, May 1990.

Douglas Allen, "Welfare and the Family: The Canadian Experience," Journal of Labor Economics, January 1993.

Ellen Freeman, Karl Rickles, et. al., "Adolescent Contraceptive Use: Comparisons of Male and Female Attitudes and Information," American Journal of Public Health, August 1980.

Laurie Schwab Zabin, Nan Marie Astone, and Mark Emerson, "Do Adolescents Want Babies? The Relationship Between Attitudes and Behavior," Journal of Research on Adolescence, 1993. Professor Zabin reports that among those teens who chose an abortion, fully 78 percent believed that having a baby would pose a problem. But, as Douglas Besharov of the American Enterprise Institute points out "that is exactly the point: the more inconvenient unwed parenthood seems to a teenager, the less likely it is that she will become a mother. Douglas Besharov, letter to the editor, Wall Street Journal, April 27, 1994.

Hawaii, Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, and Pennsylvania. "The Infertility Trap," Newsweek, April 4, 1994.

Robert Hutchins, "Welfare, Remarriage and Marital Search," American Economic Review, June 1989.

Robert Lerman, "Unwed Fathers: Who Are They?" The American Enterprise, September/October 1993.

"From Home Life to Prison Life: The Roots of American Crime," Rockford Institute Center on the Family in America, Vol. 3, no. 4, April 1994.

Wright, Green, and Warren.

See, for example, David Blankenhorn, Fatherless America: Confronting Our Most Urgent Social Problem (New York: Basic Books, 1995), pp. 26-32.

See, Michael Tanner, "Ending Welfare as We Know It," Cato Institute Policy Analysis no. 212, July 7, 1994.

 

Notice the sources cited in this article. Forgive me for not taking time to use government sources to document the obvious, two parents tend to do a better job then one. Builder has a point that two people should not stay together simply for the childrens sake, but 16 year olds having children out of wedlock should definitely be discouraged. A upper income family that gets divorced can use other resources and, of course, the non-custodial parent can remain a strong influence in a child's life. Currently our government subsidizes the bastardization of America. That needs to stop.