Posted on 03/14/2011 8:18:42 PM PDT by TheDingoAteMyBaby
The scandal and heartache of teen pregnancy has been exploited by producers of popular prime-time TV, who have made stories of 16-year-olds stumbling through accelerated adolescence into marketable drama. Likewise, news media have scrutinized the teen birth phenomenon for some time.
The truly shocking and underreported story, however, is that of unmarried 20-something parents. While 21 percent of children born outside of marriage are to teen mothers, more than 60 percent of unwed births occur to women in their 20s. It is not the young girls studying for the SAT or fretting over their prom prospects that make up the majority of women bearing the 40 percent of children born outside marriage. It is women in their 20s and 30s, demonstrating the impact of increasing cohabitation and the collapse of marriage, who are putting cradles before wedding bands.
While the teen pregnancy rate is important and should be addressed, the increase in unwed childbearing among young women in their 20s may signal serious social and economic problems for future generations. With unmarried, female households composing more than half of all families in poverty and the child poverty rate in single-parent households six times greater than in married families, the increase in unwed births threatens the economic and social well-being of women and children. Besides the higher average income and greater accumulation of assets among married families, children raised by married parents often have higher educational achievement, better health, and fewer behavioral problems than their peers living in single-parent households.
The economic consequences of an increase in unwed childbearing extends well beyond the individual women and children left unprotected by the benefits of marriage. Of the roughly $400 billion in welfare spending on low-income families in 2010 alone, nearly three-quarters went to single-parent households. With annual welfare spending increasing 44 percent since the 1996 welfare reform, American taxpayers can no longer afford to ignore the consequences of the collapse of marriage and increase in unwed childbearing. Policymakers can work now, however, to remove disincentives to marriage in low-income communities and to promote healthy marriage.
To learn more about the role of the family and religious practice in maintaining limited government and civil society in America, visit FamilyFacts.org.
Such selfish people denying a child their natural right to be raised in the safest and emotionally superior environment of a loving mother and father. Biology is the best because there is genetic interest in the future and past of the child that will give meaning and roots to the person like nothing else can.
Men do not really care about children if there is no genetic interest. It is the nature of man.....Children are much more likely to be molested and abused or killed by boyfriends of these women who are not the father. They are so dumb.
Nation of bastards.
There’s a systematic war against men in the U.S. Colleges and professional schools are on the way to 60/40 female/male.
Destroy the family and you destroy the society. That’s been the goal for decades and they’re getting there.
$400 Billion is a heck of a lot of money to spend on welfare. That is just under half of an Obama stimulus program.
Is there any doubt why so many parents chose to raise their kids out of wed lock? (Yes, when a father leaves a family, he choses to have his children raised out of wedlock.) When you substitue God's Word with Government Policy, nothing good can happen. Replace government with God in the equation and this problem will begin to rectify itself. The government has to stop subsidizing sin.
Yeah, tell my Aunt Bobbie’s brother about the benefits of marriage. Of course, you’ll have to do it standing over his grave. His wife put a hit out on him last year.
More generally, one of the disincentives to marriage is that the divorce system is stacked in favor of women. Child custody usually goes to the woman, regardless of her morals or behavior. Furthermore, guess who gets the house and who gets the restraining order...
Yes, Cultural Marxism. Feminist Friedan was a communist who hates men. Actually , she hates God’s design of women and resents men most because they don’t have to give birth.
These God -hating atheists know to destroy culture you destroy the two pillars that made it the greatest.....the natural family (Patriarchal family structure has been vastly superior to anything else in the history of man) and Christianity is the morality that was the underlying morality that created trust between all people....no other religion can do that.
Dewey (Fabian socialist) put moral relativism into the schools....”feel good, do it” and they sexualize children through Sex Ed in schools to take morality out of the sex act and remove reproduction from the act. They want to reduce man to nothing but an animal which can be easily herded.
The more dysfunctional...the better for the New World Order. Dysfunctional people (those out of wedlock children) will need a master.
bump for later reading
“to remove disincentives to marriage in low-income communities”
Low income itself is a major disincentive to marriage. Women are more willing to marry when they can marry up financially and receive an upgraded standard of living in return.
They should think of that when breeding. Instead they breed with some guy who is already supporting two other illegitimate children by two other unwed mothers -- or spending most of his time in jail for not supporting them.
Makes me seriously sad.
Of course, angry, bitter feminists destroying boys and men in education leads to a lesser chance of a discerning woman finding a man worth marrying. And these bitter harpies claim to be standing up for women?
Want to give me the Black/Mexican breakdown on those figures??????????
“Want to give me the Black/Mexican breakdown on those figures??????????”
_________
Why?
I am old enough to remember when a birth out of wedlock was a huge scandal. Just goes to show how morals have declined in 50 years.
So what percentage of births do married twenty somethings account for?
There's a strong financial incentive NOT to get married.
I know someone who found herself pregnant by her cohabitating boyfriend. He was going to marry her, but she found out that if she stayed unmarried she would qualify for free healthcare and a bunch of other benefits. The baby was born out of wedlock, and they plan to get married in a few years when the benefits dry up for the young baby.
I've done the math in my own case and with my young children I'd be financially the same if I divorced my husband, lied about him living with me, worked a low-wage job, and rode the EITC, free healthcare, WIC, and TANF train. Even just divorcing him but keeping my current job, I'd see my student loans cut in half because of government loan forgiveness (that I do not qualify for because of household income).
Men do not really care about children if there is no genetic interest. It is the nature of man.....
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Get a frikkin’ clue susie.
There are countless men such as myself who are in blended families. Raising children we did not spawn. Faithfully and happily. Coaching their sports teams. Going on school field trips. Being there for them because their biological father is non-participative.
You know nothing about us because we are not in the news. We make no noise, make no headlines for our efforts. We just raise our (blended) families the best we can.
/rant off from stepdad of 2, biodad to 1. Oh, and learned how to do it from a stepfather.
Well, of course, that is cultural results of the Christian Western Civilization’s paradigm.
For thousands of years....starting with the Jews and their promotion of marriage as being sacred and children as being the children of God and given importance....we ended child sacrifice and elevated the worth of women which became the most perfect for emotional health and individuality with Christianity.
Culture gives worth to children (or not)....the nature of man is restrained by its culture—called civilization.
I love the Christian Western Worldview which creates men who can love all human beings regardless of biological connection. That is the culture that teaches that to men. Marriage was a way to harness that nature of man and to protect women and their babies.
I am referring to Natural Law Theory and the origins of ideas which can either glorify the natural family or destroy it. Marxism wants the destruction of all biological attachment which will create dysfunctional, dependent masses.
The “Culture of Death” is destroying the children and all parental responsibility for their progeny—they have given control over their children to the state and strangers. The media and public schools are forming the thinking and worldview of the masses....The established culture right now is producing obamabots—Postmodern irrational atheist/hedonists who need a master. The facts prove that children are safest and less likely to be emotionally damaged if raised by their biological parents. That is God’s perfect design.
Of course, there are exceptions....but the design of the natural family should be always promoted by governments based on natural law and God’s laws (like our government). It is the natural right of children which should NEVER be denied since God’s design is the most perfect for creation of happiness and safest which gives tremendous meaning and connection to the past and future.
BTW, my brother has stepchildren whom he loves and raised since they were tiny with great care but he has confessed to loving his biological children more (not to me) but to his wife. She said he really felt guilty about it but that she said she could understand it. To deny any biology connection is to deny nature. You are not being honest.
Only a truly perfect Christian person or a purely Marxist ideologue will say biology has no effect on the nature of man. That concern about your genetic propagation is a survival instinct that can only be erased by denial of nature.
Christianity under Aquinas was aligned to natural law using reason and logic...to help create a cohesive protected society for children and women which has always been needed for a culture to flourish. Polygamous societies never have freedom for all. Certain ideology is superior to others. Christianity has proven to be superior to all others in all aspects—creativity, freedom, minority rights, etc. America was not an accident when based on Christian Western Civilizational ideas where private property and the natural family used to be protected by law. No longer is...and we are seeing the chaos.
I’m not sure. The author was just concerned with unwed births for this story. There seems to be more protracted singleness, that is, fewer people in their twenties who are married.
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