"This is a social catastrophe"

[Dick Whitman]

So says a Time Magazine column by Rich Lowry, the editor of National Review.

It's behind a paywall, unfortunately:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2107496,00.html

However, I think we all have thought about the issue enough to discuss whether he's right. According to Lowry, citing the New York Times, more than 50 percent of births to women under 30 now occur outside of marriage. Lowry cites social science that notes that children in two-parent households are more likely to graduate from high school, finish college, etc., etc.

Thoughts? Is "social catastrophe" going too far? Is this a case where correlation does not equal causation?

 

[The Big Ragu]

Re: "The is a social catastrophe"

Correlation with what?

 

[Dick Whitman]

Re: "The is a social catastrophe"

Correlation with what?

Correlation between those social ills and a single-parent household.

Is the real correlation between poverty and a single-parent household?

I'd be more interested to see how kids of the same economic means do when one is in a single-parent household and one is in a traditional household.

 

[The Big Ragu]

Re: "The is a social catastrophe"

Kids raised in mom-only homes tend to be poorer, for obvious reasons. Poverty correlates with a lot of bad outcomes in life. The two aren't unrelated.

 

[YankeeFan]

Re: "The is a social catastrophe"

The Times gave this issue a big writeup last week:

It used to be called illegitimacy. Now it is the new normal. After steadily rising for five decades, the share of children born to unmarried women has crossed a threshold: more than half of births to American women under 30 occur outside marriage.

Once largely limited to poor women and minorities, motherhood without marriage has settled deeply into middle America. The fastest growth in the last two decades has occurred among white women in their 20s who have some college education but no four-year degree, according to Child Trends, a Washington research group that analyzed government data.

Among mothers of all ages, a majority — 59 percent in 2009 — are married when they have children. But the surge of births outside marriage among younger women — nearly two-thirds of children in the United States are born to mothers under 30 — is both a symbol of the transforming family and a hint of coming generational change.

One group still largely resists the trend: college graduates, who overwhelmingly marry before having children. That is turning family structure into a new class divide, with the economic and social rewards of marriage increasingly reserved for people with the most education.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/18/us/for-women-under-30-most-births-occur-outside-marriage.html?pagewanted=all

I guess I'm not sure what to think.

If you say it's a problem, it's like you're making a moral judgement regarding single parenthood, which people get defensive about and reject.

But, if you don't address it as a problem, you won't get improvements. We end up sustaining generational poverty.

And, it might not be a perfect pairing to this article, but I thought this one in today's Times was interesting:

When the bell rings and the school’s 3,295 students spill out of classrooms into the maze of hallways, escalators and stairs like ants in a farm, blacks stand out because they are so rare. Rudi was one of 64 black students four years ago when she entered Stuyvesant, long considered New York City’s flagship public school. She is now one of 40.

Asians, on the other hand, make up 72.5 percent of Stuyvesant’s student body (they are 13.7 percent of the city’s overall public school population), a staggering increase from 1970, when they were 6 percent of Stuyvesant students, according to state enrollment statistics. Back then, white students made up 79 percent of Stuyvesant’s enrollment; this year, they are 24 percent, and 14.9 percent systemwide.

Hispanic students are 40.3 percent of the system. Currently, they make up 2.4 percent of Stuyvesant’s enrollment, while blacks, who make up 32 percent of the city’s public school students, are 1.2 percent.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/education/black-at-stuyvesant-high-one-girls-experience.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=all

Is this a problem? If so, how do we address it?

 

[YGBFKM]

Re: "The is a social catastrophe"

I'd like to hear arguments as to how this trend is a good thing --for the children and the parents. It's a lot closer to catastrophe than the other end of the spectrum.

 

[TigerVols]

Re: "The is a social catastrophe"

I wonder how many of the unmarried moms the Right are complaining about (a) are devoutly religious and (b) don't have easy access to birth control, nor knowledge on how to properly use it, in large part due to social stigmatism brought about by (a).

Hmmm, I wonder how we could go about greatly decreasing the number of babies born in poverty to single moms?

 

[YankeeFan]

Re: "The is a social catastrophe"

I wonder how many of the unmarried moms the Right are complaining about (a) are devoutly religious and (b) don't have easy access to birth control, nor knowledge on how to properly use it, in large part due to social stigmatism brought about by (a).

Hmmm, I wonder how we could go about greatly decreasing the number of babies born in poverty to single moms?

I think a lot of these women (girls) actually want to have babies, or at the very least aren't trying to avoid having them.

I'm not sure greater access to birth control or better info about it would make that much of a difference.

 

[YGBFKM]

Re: "The is a social catastrophe"

I wonder how many of the unmarried moms the Right are complaining about (a) are devoutly religious and (b) don't have easy access to birth control, nor knowledge on how to properly use it, in large part due to social stigmatism brought about by (a).

Hmmm, I wonder how we could go about greatly decreasing the number of babies born in poverty to single moms?

You seem to really care.

 

[Evil Bastard (aka Chris_L)]

Re: "The is a social catastrophe"

I wonder how history would have been different if Barack Obama's or Bill Clinton's mothers had easier access to abortion services.

 

[Bob Cook]

Coincidentally, for some odd reason I got an email at work from actress/conservative talk show host Janine Turner about this very subject.

As it turns out, Turner is a single mother. And her point was that consevatives were doing themselves no favors demonizing (I'm not sure if those were her exact words) single mothers and their children -- mainly, because they are such a large demographic. And, also, because every single mother has a different story -- they're not all trailer park queens sopping up welfare. Or words to that effect.

 

[TigerVols]

Coincidentally, for some odd reason I got an email at work from actress/conservative talk show host Janine Turner about this very subject.

As it turns out, Turner is a single mother. And her point was that consevatives were doing themselves no favors demonizing (I'm not sure if those were her exact words) single mothers and their children -- mainly, because they are such a large demographic. And, also, because every single mother has a different story -- they're not all trailer park queens sopping up welfare. Or words to that effect.

But, but, but, conservatives -- especially of the white male variety -- know better than anyone how unwed single minority moms should live their lives. If you doubt me, just look at the posts above.

Please tell Turner to go find a job!

 

[YGBFKM]

There are plenty of wonderful single parents. Too pull off such a thing requires a level of sacrifice and goodness that is beyond what many are capable of. But taking that into account and putting politics aside, which some people cannot do, this is still a disturbing trend. There's nothing inherently wrong with single parenthood, and I know from experience that it can be necessary. But it's not something we should want to become prevalent.

 

[YankeeFan]

Coincidentally, for some odd reason I got an email at work from actress/conservative talk show host Janine Turner about this very subject.

Probably not that big of a coincidence.

The New York Times is the assignment editor for newsrooms & talk radio stations across the country.

 

[YankeeFan]

There are plenty of wonderful single parents. Too pull off such a thing requires a level of sacrifice and goodness that is beyond what many are capable of. But taking that into account and putting politics aside, which some people cannot do, this is still a disturbing trend. There's nothing inherently wrong with single parenthood, and I know from experience that it can be necessary. But it's not something we should want to become prevalent.

This is true.

But, here's the other thing. In Scandinavia for instance, single parenthood isn't limited to those with a lower income, so it's not as big a problem. And, the lack of a marriage certificate doesn't mean the father isn't in a relationship with the mother and/or an active parent.

So, it's not single parenthood per se that's the issue.

The problem is young, poor women who have kids, and don't have the means, or time, or education necessary to give their children the tools they need to succeed. And, too often the father is not involved at all.

And, that's sort of where the article about Stuyvesant High School comes into play. It points out that a large percentage of the student body are either immigrants or the children of immigrants. But, the African-American and Hispanic population at this magnet school is extremely low.

And, part of it is a general lack of awareness about the school, the advantages of attending it, and what is necessary to get your kid in it.

So, to me, the problem isn't single parenthood, it's "uninvolved" parenthood. And, I don't know how you address that problem.

And, most of these articles don't really even identify the problem.

 

[franklin lincoln]

There are those who suggest a solution to something correlated this "problem":

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCwQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fpricetheory.uchicago.edu%2Flevitt%2FPapers%2FDonohueLevittTheImpactOfLegalized2001.pdf&ei=fCxJT4avGc_AtgfU_qjwAg&usg=AFQjCNEfFX4oPJiBZ7qeCfphscTehyyNQQ

 

[Dick Whitman]

There are those who suggest a solution to this problem:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCwQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fpricetheory.uchicago.edu%2Flevitt%2FPapers%2FDonohueLevittTheImpactOfLegalized2001.pdf&ei=fCxJT4avGc_AtgfU_qjwAg&usg=AFQjCNEfFX4oPJiBZ7qeCfphscTehyyNQQ

I think that's largely been debunked.

 

[deskslave]

Without having read the article, I wonder if it's not conflating unmarried parenthood with single parenthood. One doesn't necessarily imply the other. I can think of at least four couples on my relatively short FB friends list who had at least their first child unmarried, two of whom are now married and the other two of whom are still together.

That, then, is a matter of the changing approach to marriage among the generation being discussed here.

 

[franklin lincoln]

There are those who suggest a solution to this problem:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCwQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fpricetheory.uchicago.edu%2Flevitt%2FPapers%2FDonohueLevittTheImpactOfLegalized2001.pdf&ei=fCxJT4avGc_AtgfU_qjwAg&usg=AFQjCNEfFX4oPJiBZ7qeCfphscTehyyNQQ

I think that's largely been debunked.

I was posting this with derision. It still has its influence, which I don't like.

 

[Ben_Hecht]

RCP has everything on earth from NR linked on their home page, but not this. Alas.