Posted on 06/17/2011 6:59:22 AM PDT by flowerplough
Confronting the common belief that public assistance undermines the family structure, new federal efforts are designed to engage fathers and dispel myths.
Does the state discourage poor fathers from being present in their children's lives? There are the emblematic images, like Diahann Carroll as a single mother on welfare in the 1974 movie Claudine, struggling to hide her boyfriend from a social worker.
Urban legends tell of "man in the house" rules that prohibit men from living under the same roof as moms who receive public assistance. Between media images, half-truths -- and also well-meaning but flawed policies -- the belief that the welfare system undermines poor families has been entrenched in the public mind for decades.
Now, with new fatherhood initiatives at public-housing authorities nationwide, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is seeking to debunk that idea.
"All of us realize the critical importance of fathers in the home," Ron Sims, deputy secretary of HUD, told The Root. "We want fathers to understand that they are welcome at our housing-authority sites, and that we want them there to play meaningful roles in raising their children and supporting the women that they've been with."
In time for Father's Day, HUD officials are hosting fairs this weekend at 200 public-housing authorities across the country to celebrate fatherhood and families. The events will feature appearances by NFL athletes and fun activities for kids, as well as information about social services -- from various federal agencies, including the departments of Labor, Education and Justice -- for dads. "HUD and our partners want to provide support for the fathers there, to address questions and needs that they may have," said Sims.
(Excerpt) Read more at theroot.com ...
Absentee father-ism is about the only thing the MSM likes to talk about at this time of year. More evidence of just who it is who decides what we as a country should be talking about.
I read the whole article, and suggest that others do the same. Although I don’t think if was the intent of the writer to do so, the article lays out exactly how much of our money has been poured into “The Black Family” and we can see that it’s all been a huge waste of money, but worse than that, it has made the situation much worse through the years.
I’m not getting the leap from ‘unskilled labor demand decreased’ to ‘only 38% of black families have a father present’.
When the slaves were freed after the Civil War, many of the men spent years searching, usually on foot, for the wives and children they’d been separated from by sale.
I wonder sometimes what these black MEN would think of the modern black male who can’t even abandon his family because he never bothers to form one. Or the black female who allows it.
I just wish they wouldn't always save the topic for fathers day.
Then after welfare - only 38% of black families have a father present.
Children and minorities hardest hit!
or the gov’t policy and social programs that make it desirable for the female to “allow” this.
Seriously, if there weren’t a check from the gov’t,
women would be a lot more choosy about whom they had sex with,
and men would have to be better men in order to have access to sex.
And sheeperals are hurt and offended when you point out these results of their attempt to help.
They aren’t attempting to help anyone except themselves.
The purpose of a welfare system, to a sheeperal, is so that they can feel good about themselves as “good people” for “caring about the poor” without actually making ANY personal sacrifices whatsoever.
When I was much younger, I worked as an RN in the Emergency Room of Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.
It was an extremely crowded place, and there were 2 policeman with a German Shepard on duty in the ER 24/7.
One day, I went on my coffee break with one of these Cops. He educated me, this young woman from Texas, about Lyndon Johnson's and the Democrats scheme to help the black family.
It started with women on welfare receiving more in welfare payments for each child they had out of wedlock.
This cop told me that at that time, there was a large group of black men who's sole duty in life was to keep a certain number of women pregnant as often as possible. (What a life!)
Anyway, each time the mother's welfare check would be increased, she would give a certain portion of that money to the father.
Spot checks were made on the women in their homes, and if the social worker ever saw evidence of a man living in the home, the welfare money would stop.
I think that is still going on today, but is now not limited to black families. I see evidence of others riding this gravy train, too.
I think that there are two very basic human truths that our society has turned it’s back on which have fed this problem.
1. Not everybody is cut out for college. This has nothing to do with intelligence. Some young men hate the idea of grinding away in a classroom for years only to be tied to a desk for the rest of their lives. They’d prefer to do a physical trade job and find such jobs more rewarding. In the ‘good ol’ days’ a young man could start his life out as a teenager working as an apprentice in a trade. By the time he was in his early 20’s he was fully capable of providing for a family.
Today, it’s college or nothing. All of our young man are tied to a classroom through-out their teens and miss out on years of time training. In addition, they get jaded and fed-up with this system. Even the trade schools are now ‘more college’ and nobody is prepared to take off in the world upon graduation. They still need years of work experience after school to be successful providers.
2. Many girls feel a biological need to be mothers in their mid-late teens. In the past, this was off-set by negative consequences for early pregnancy and supervision. Now, with welfare, we’ve removed the consequences and nobody in today’s society properly supervises these girls. There is no reason for a young woman who feels the urge ‘I want a baby’ to stop herself. We used to understand that there were certain girls who needed to be married off young for their own protection and there were good men who were willing to take on that responsibility. (I could go off on a diatribe on the ease and acceptability of divorce, but I think that it’s already understood that this is a contributing factor.)
This is also a circular problem. An absent father (or mother) leaves a young woman feeling abandoned and fills her with a deep need to be loved. She’ll whore her body to men in an effort to fill that void and, when that fails, try to fill the gap with motherhood. This is a deep instinctive/psychological pull. Because she doesn’t have to fear for her protection or for her child, she has no reason to ignore this longing.
We have to remove the security of welfare from young women who’ve not yet fallen into this trap. We have to allow young men who’re not ‘college material’ to opt out of the current system as early as 14 and begin an apprenticeship in a trade.
Give the boys the tools and take away the choice for the girls and the bulk of the problem of young, unwed motherhood will solve itself.
Side note: I am weary of the media's Mother Day stories of "heroic" single —never married— mothers. It's a lot tougher to give Fathers Day the same treatment, but they try.
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