"This is a social catastrophe"

[dixiehack]

Furthering deskslave's point, how many "unwed" mothers are raising kids with their lesbian partners?

 

[Baron Scicluna]

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.

These girls already don't have a male figure in their lives, so when a guy gets interested in them, they figure if they have a baby, the guy will remain involved in their lives.

And then the guy runs off to his next girl, leaving the woman and kid to fend for themselves.

What needs to be done is to teach these girls that they don't need a man to give them self-esteem. They can get that for themselves. And maybe if enough women start saying "No" to having sex, the men will start to treat these women with a little more respect.

I think what needs to be taught to these girls is not "Abstinence because you'll go to hell if you don't", but "Abstinence because you'll be only hurting yourself and your future." And have them do those classes where they have to carry a pretend baby around with them for a month. Then they'll see that it's not some sort of badge of honor to have a baby.

 

[waterytart]

This thread reminds me of parents wringing their hands about why kids do drugs, and trying to come up with countermeasures to address the kids' lack of self-esteem, indifference to school, desire to stick it to their parents/etc., etc.

I'm not saying that the need to replace an absent father, hold on to a boyfriend, stick it to your mother, etc., etc. aren't at play in some of these girls' lives. I'm just saying that sometimes girls have sex because it feels good. Any consideration of the situation that ignores that will fail.

 

[deskslave]

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.

These girls already don't have a male figure in their lives, so when a guy gets interested in them, they figure if they have a baby, the guy will remain involved in their lives.

And then the guy runs off to his next girl, leaving the woman and kid to fend for themselves.

What needs to be done is to teach these girls that they don't need a man to give them self-esteem. They can get that for themselves. And maybe if enough women start saying "No" to having sex, the men will start to treat these women with a little more respect.

I think what needs to be taught to these girls is not "Abstinence because you'll go to hell if you don't", but "Abstinence because you'll be only hurting yourself and your future." And have them do those classes where they have to carry a pretend baby around with them for a month. Then they'll see that it's not some sort of badge of honor to have a baby.

Or, you know, teach the guys some personal responsibility, rather than blame the girls for everything. And teach them to respect a woman whether she sleeps with them or not, rather than force them to use sex as some sort of bargaining chip for respect.

 

[YGBFKM]

How about personal responsibility across the board? Or is that too conservative?

 

[Dick Whitman]

How about personal responsibility across the board? Or is that too conservative?

For sure. But how do we set policy to facilitate it?

 

[YGBFKM]

We don't. I was mocking the idea that we should pick sides when it comes to promoting something so fundamental.

 

[Dick Whitman]

We don't.

We don't?

And trust ... what exactly, to stop this allegedly corrosive trend? Magic?

 

[dooley_womack1]

Single parenthood cuts across all strata. And all strata could stand to receive a better foundation of the most prudent, responsible way to live life. That's the only solution. And "use a condom" or "take your birth control pills as directed" can be as prudent as "don't have sex"

 

[LongTimeListener]

Or, you know, teach the guys some personal responsibility, rather than blame the girls for everything. And teach them to respect a woman whether she sleeps with them or not, rather than force them to use sex as some sort of bargaining chip for respect.

Until evolution changes it, the condition of the girl being the one getting pregnant renders this argument pretty much irrelevant. You can teach it to your own kids and you can even emphasize it on a grand societal scale, and that's great, but the high school guy is never going to experience the situation as the high school girl would. It isn't his life that gets physically put on hold for a year.

 

[Dick Whitman]

Single parenthood cuts across all strata. And all strata could stand to receive a better foundation of the most prudent, responsible way to live life. That's the only solution. And "use a condom" or "take your birth control pills as directed" can be as prudent as "don't have sex"

Tailor the message to the audience?

 

[dooley_womack1]

It's a household-to-household, hand-to-hand task.

 

[Dick Whitman]

It's a household-to-household, hand-to-hand task.

So live and let live? That's not working.

 

[waterytart]

Single parenthood cuts across all strata.

Ages, also. I wouldn't expect the reasons a single, pregnant 16/26/36-year-old keeps the baby to be the same.

 

[YGBFKM]

It would help if talking about personal responsibility wasn't repeatedly shouted down as partisan and obtrusive. Personal responsibility wasn't always such a divisive issue. But we live in a society in which a lot of people who have the power to promote it benefit greatly from its absence.

 

[dooley_womack1]

It's a household-to-household, hand-to-hand task.

So live and let live? That's not working.

Only way it's gonna work. Not that the birth of a human should necessarily be something to revile; the emphasis is on people having the values to raise the child right. And that goes for double-parent households as well. Hard to say that those type of households are necessarily doing a bang-up job in absolute terms.

 

[Dick Whitman]

It's a household-to-household, hand-to-hand task.

So live and let live? That's not working.

Only way it's gonna work.

In the 1960s and '70s, the violent crime rate in the United States was off the charts. A series of policy alternations helped lower the rate to today's rate, which is a fraction of where it was then.

Should we have just laid off and let things develop on their own? Is that the only thing that was going to work? No. When there is a social problem, we address it. It may be a multi-faceted approach, and there is usually no magic bullet, but we don't sit around and just wait for things to get better.

 

[Dick Whitman]

It would help if talking about personal responsibility wasn't repeatedly shouted down as partisan and obtrusive. Personal responsibility wasn't always such a divisive issue. But we live in a society in which a lot of people who have the power to promote it benefit greatly from its absence.

Delivering a message of personal responsibility is itself policy, though. The first question is: What is the delivery system? The second question is: Would that work?

 

[YGBFKM]

It's not a problem for roughly half the adult population.

 

[Dick Whitman]

It's not a problem for roughly half the adult population.

I don't understand what you're getting at.

It's a problem for society that the rate has gone up, even for the half of the adult population giving birth within marriage. Higher taxes. Higher crime rate. Higher unemployment. And onward.