I really feel to each their own and this is a country where people are obviously allowed to do whatever they feel is right. However, my mom and dad mentioned when I was a teen how that staying married to the right person would increase your financial security....and at the time I thought that was odd.

Now, 18 years into a wonderful marriage ( we are both 37 years old) and four kids later we DONT have the financial worries and emotional strain I see so many other young Americans going through. Our children have had both their mom and dad every single night eating together, doing homework together and tucking them into bed. Our kids are funny, bright and get straight A's in school (honestly I am surprised how well things have turned out) It is hard enough to be a parent but to do it alone without a steady stream of income is unimaginable to me.

If I were to give advice to a young woman or man I would say once you find the right person consider getting married before having children. Do everything in your power not to have a baby until you are married. It is really fun growing old with your best friend and biggest supporter. Also, all that white-trash-jerry springer-jerseyshore- stuff I see other people going through----you just won't have to deal with it. Sure there is a small chance your kids will find drugs or something else , but overall I see my married friends children doing significantly better in all areas than singleton's kids ( this includes gay couples)

Another thing I find really sad is men that only see their kids Wednesday nights and every other weekend. This is NOT parenting. A kid needs their dad home every single night to do the bed time routine and go over homework. It is so vitally important that the home environment be stable and loving. THis is hard with just one parent---heck sometimes it's impossible with two parents :)

The parents of these young people dropped the ball when it came to educating their children about sex, morals, and pregnancy prevention. For years the schools have wanted to provide good sex education to students and many parents went crazy saying that kind of education belongs in the home not the schools. Now we all see (and pay for) the lack of education they provided. While it does take two to make a baby, it only takes one responsible intelligent person in a relationship to prevent that pregnancy.

Plannedparenthoods provide low-cost or free

1) breast exams, mammograms to catch breast cancer. The cost to treat breast cancer caught early is significantly lower than when it is found late. Hospitals will treat women with no money passing the cost on to you. Wouldn't you rather plannedparenthood catch it early?

Planned Parenthood does not do mammograms, They do referrals, They are a multimillion dollar profit making corporation. All of their top executives have salaries of hundreds of thousands of dollars a year plus lavish expense accounts.

We should bring back the shot-gun wedding.

The new normal: A child out of wedlock

'Marriage has become a luxury good,' sociologist says

There is a more powerful and much broader study being done on this very same topic. It is taking more of an historical and cross-cultural approach. I understand that it is already two years in the research phase. The study is being done by teams of ethnologists ( social or cultural anthropologists) and psychologists, as well as a group of social historians. This is a massive effort; more to educate and elucidate by the application of a pure Socratic scientific methodology.
Frankly, what I find of great interest is that it is being privately funded by you and me; Americans, Europeans ( east and west and south), Scandinavians, South Americans, and Asians, and others. The study is being run by www.Focusas.com There will be no government money or non-profit foundation money, etc. so they can remain independent and unbiased. They are raising the funds, I have been told, a Dollar or Euro, or Pound Sterling at a time; dribs and drabs from all over.To my knowledge, never has such a massive study been done. It is my hope that they will be able to turn it into a movie or video game or any medium that will prompt all people of all ages not only in our country but all around the world to view and to learn.
So, my fellow Americans, send a buck or so, call your friends and ask them to do the same......

Kallie Post 1.1 Thank you for your post and sage advise. That, of which you speak, was once called " The Family or Nuclear Unit." I had to laugh and not at you or your words of wisdom. Here I am in my 90s and you are 37 years old. It is good that you speak to this. Please do not forget, the music lessons, the ball games, little league, ballet lessons, boy and girl scouts, church, temple, school plays and concerts. picnics, cook-outs with friends and their children, vacations, doctor and dentist visits, the special holidays, birthdays. We could go on and on about all the valuable events of a family. Bless your heart.

This is just one result of the rise of moral relativism. When people come to believe they are justified to do whatever they want, and none of the consequences are their "fault", the result is social chaos. And we hear the defenders of abortion "rights" absolutely denounce the dude who said in his time women put an asprin between their knees. Seems to me abstinance is a much better choice than legal murder. Oh, but there's that moral relativism again = it's OK to abort because it's only a "fetus" and couldn't survive on it's own. Look, it's legal in this country and if you choose it, you have to live with the decision. But let's at least call it what it is. So now, becasue over half the kids are born out of wedlock, it's OK, it's normal. But I would like to see the statistics on how many of the single parent kids are on food stamps, welfare, receive free school lunches, etc, etc... I'm willing to bet the vast majority of them receive some form of gov handout. Again, people won't take responsibility for their actions, because so many of us have come to believe nothing is our fault. Hey, I'm libertarian, probably to a fault. I really believe people should be abe to do what they want, as long as they take responsibilty for their actions. You want to have 5 kids on your own - no problem, but I shouldn't have to pay for your actions.

Marriage is expensive and when all said and done hurts more than it helps in this blood sucking economy, rather combined income.

I found myself pregnant

You don't find yourself pregnant, it's not an Easter egg, you make yourself pregnant. Too many of these women look at having a baby like going to the pet store - hey that's cute I think I want it. Like many pets, later the children are unwanted and not taken care of.

I guess my tax bill is going up to take care of all of these children while their parents go about their life as if they didn't have any children.

Another form of the downfall of America. We're going backwards and the American people don't have a clue that its happening right in front of them.

Think SINGLE people are the only ones that are bad parents? HA!

There are PLENTY of married couples out there that are f*king miserable because they DIDN'T think through having kids ENOUGH.

SOME FUN READING FOR YOU FOLKS: (AN EYE OPENER - sounds like some people YOU know- maybe even yourself?)

http://veronica.hubpages.com/hub/For_Unhappily_Married_Men

In my opinion, having children before marriage is a disturbing and negative trend. I think this practice and the chaos it creates for children is behind a great deal of the right wing angst that is dividing our country.

It is not fair to our children--the ones we love above all others-- to bring them into this world unless and until we are prepared to put them first in our priorities. A baby is not a puppy. A child is a human being and a life-long commitment, requiring a great deal of time, love, patience, sacrifice, and money.

Women who are not committed to a man should not have a baby with a guy who is not good husband or good father material. Better to have no children than to bring a child into a situation where he or she will be shortchanged by not having a stable family structure.

I'm sure there are instances where it can work out, but it is most definitely not a good idea to think your life will be like Brangelina's if you procreate by accident or on purpose without having a stable structure in which your child can be raised.

Contraception is a GOOD thing!

whatUU-

wait a minute. what about personal responsibility?!?! since when is the government and/or organizations supposed to run/control people's lives? people like you (yes, i said "people like you") are enablers of the "i'm a victim" mentality.

Marriage is expensive and when all said and done hurts more than it helps in this blood sucking economy, rather combined income.

Marriage doesn't have to be expensive. Why spend thousands of dollars to throw a party? Just go to the courthouse and have your family over for a nice dinner afterward. The money saved from not having a stupid-expensive wedding could be used as a down payment on a house.

My son was born out of wedlock but my wife and I were in love and both heartwarming in love with our boy..we later had a daughter and after thirty years now, still in love..Many of our friends have done the same thing. I believe many of the young with the help of the media, Hollywood etc. treat sex like a game..

This is just one result of the rise of moral relativism. When people come to believe they are justified to do whatever they want, and none of the consequences are their "fault", the result is social chaos. And we hear the defenders of abortion "rights" absolutely denounce the dude who said in his time women put an asprin between their knees. Seems to me abstinance is a much better choice than legal murder. Oh, but there's that moral relativism again = it's OK to abort because it's only a "fetus" and couldn't survive on it's own. Look, it's legal in this country and if you choose it, you have to live with the decision. But let's at least call it what it is. So now, becasue over half the kids are born out of wedlock, it's OK, it's normal. But I would like to see the statistics on how many of the single parent kids are on food stamps, welfare, receive free school lunches, etc, etc... I'm willing to bet the vast majority of them receive some form of gov handout. Again, people won't take responsibility for their actions, because so many of us have come to believe nothing is our fault. Hey, I'm libertarian, probably to a fault. I really believe people should be abe to do what they want, as long as they take responsibilty for their actions. You want to have 5 kids on your own - no problem, but I shouldn't have to pay for your actions.

I agree with that, except that I think it's unrealistic to expect a sudden drop in promiscuity in our culture. Hooking up is a fact of life, encouraged by every form of entertainment media. Even Hugh Heffner is mainstream these days. It's up to the individual to practice abstinence...there is no way sexual relationships can be policed.

If we could go back to the days when a woman said "no" and the man didn't simply turn to the woman on the other side of him at the bar for a ''yes", I'd think that we were making progress.

Maybe it will take something even more terrible and more deadly than HIV to wake Americans to responsibility and commitment in intimate relationships.

Maybe there will be a resurgence in romance, and in loving commitment to someone first.

The rates of venereal diseases and the infertility that results might slow the birthrate among the promiscuous somewhat.

This generation of teens were raised by the people doing the complaining. "The miracle of birth?" I'll tell my dog.

What needs to stop is one of the things highlighted in this article. You have two unmarried people living together with their kids but not married. They do not marry because if they did they would no longer qualify for the government handouts they are getting. Instead, they suck money from the taxpayer and use the money they save for luxury items. The standard for collecting government assistance needs to be changed to be based on total household income, whether the people are married or not. We need to stop this ability to game the system to collect unneeded benefits. The father is living with the mother and the kids but provides no support while the mom collects food stamps and "aid to families with dependent children" money from the government. These programs were set up to help those truly in need, not to support some new alternative lifestyle where mom and dad live together with the kids as a family but just do not get married so they can keep sucking off the government (read taxpayer) teat. So long as two people are living under the same roof in a relationship, they should be treated as a couple when it comes to eligibility to collect government benefits of any kind.

Lusitania, you're so right, it is just as important as food, water, clothing and shelter, all the necessities of life and something that each and every individual should buy before the big flat screen TV's, iphones etc. etc. etc. Take some personal responsibility and be accountable for yourself instead of an outside source to pay for your healthcare.

This is our societies and ultimately our country's slow motion collapse from within. The tragedy is that coupled with the rise of the entitlement faction, it is most likely irreversible and only those that are old enough will remember the greatness that once was these United States.

gumps- why do you assume that was directed at Hispanic persons? i know a small business owner who does over 2 million a year in business and deliberately refuses to marry his baby momma so they can collect welfare benefits- medicaid, wic, etc and they live in a home worth more than twice the value of the normal homes around here and drive brand new suvs and take vacations whenever they want. they have 7 kids in age from 21 to 2 years old.

This isn't about morality; it's about education. Smart people understand the best chance their kids have in life comes from a married household. They make their judgment based on what's best for the child, not how hot their current partner is. It's also more likely they came from intact families themselves and have better role models.

If we want to reduce out-of-wedlock childbirth rates, we need to increase accessibility to higher education.

"

Marriage doesn't have to be expensive. Why spend thousands of dollars to throw a party? Just go to the courthouse and have your family over for a nice dinner afterward. The money saved from not having a stupid-expensive wedding could be used as a down payment on a house."

Marriage is expensive. Do not confuse "marriage" with a "wedding." My younger son got married in 2011. Being married has increased his and his wife's federal income tax liabilities by more than $1300 over what they owed in 2010 when they were single.

Katie I'm soo happy for you but my first husband was a control freak hitter so I left when he said if I came back to the house I would need the police for safety. 6 months after I left he came to my door looking for me but got the wrong apt and was met by my 6'5" Sioux neighbor who wasn't happy about being disturbed. I went out the window to someone elses house. My second husband was a dog who would do the deed with anybody willing of either sex. I kicked his butt out. So I've been extremely glad I had a steady job through it all and had escapability.

Interesting how so many of the "back in my day when the world was perfect" posters miss the real point. The higher the education level, the higher the marriage rate, and the lower the divorce rate. Now what does that say about our priorities in all of this endless whining about how no one really needs a college education?

Lost in the Pines: you are lost indeed. Planned Parenthood does far more than refferals. In many rural parts of this country, they are the ONLY health provider for women. Wrong again. They are a NOT FOR PROFIT organization. What's next..a rant about contraceptives parroting Saint Santorum?

if they married, their official household income would rise, which could cost them government benefits like food stamps and child care.

"Government" benefits is me. I am the government and I'm paying for your kids. It's not my responsibility, it's YOURS. I'm sick of paying for your irresponsible behavior. If I were making the rules, if you have more than one child on welfare, you're on your own. Let your family pick up the slack.

fedupwithfed - Sounds like Planned Parenthood is not doing its job! Why are we funding them?

That's a very unfair statement, actually ridiculous. Not everyone who could use their services is doing so. The welfare situation would be tremendously worse if Planned Parenthood were not in the picture.

Yeah mozzie: that's what Amurika needs!! Let those 6 year olds take to the streets and WORK for a living!! It's their fault they picked the wrong parents--Maybe they could be put to work as janitors or something! Good thing you're paying ALL the taxes too...I had no IDEA I didn't need to be paying any. THANKS!!

How about keeping your legs closed if you are not prepared to have a child.

No birth control is foolproof.

As for this attitude of : "I'm prepared to commit to this child but not to marriage" -I'm sure that sounds nice when you tell yourself that.

But the reality is that you are hurting the child by not being in a firmly committed relationship so that the child has a mother and a father.

Look at the statistics in this article. It couldn't be more clear.

And after this grand debate we just had about birth control being forced to be purchased by religious organizations when it is already readily available (Generic for under $10 a month) - plus the 1.4 million abortions a year we still have in the US (killing so many unborn children is an abomination) - and then still we have all these out of wedlock births.

Thanks to liberal/progressive/Democrat policies and ideals - our country is devolving.

No personal responsibility anymore. Entitlement to what someone else has. Morality as a negative.

Those left wing ideas have been sown - now look what they are reaping.

Dick: you said "you make yourself pregnant."

That's a neat trick, how is it done?

Hi Walt and AG99,

Guys, think about what you are saying. Not that many years ago when there were less college educated Americans there was also less out of wedlock births. College educated women today might be more likely than other women to not have a child out of wedlock, but this doesn't explain the shift over the past 80 years. And I rather doubt it will do much to change the trend now to give more people, as you both seem to imply, a free college education.

This isn't some technical issue where we can simply award someone a degree and they will avoid pregnancy until married. This is about our national values, and about the culture we have put into place over these past 80 years. Do you honestly think that welfare rules which prohibited married women from getting the highest benefit possible had no effect? That those women, and the men who impregnated them, didn't at some point figure it was smarter to stay apart and unmarried than to give up the cash benefits?

As that trend became more the norm, it snowballed. When it began, as the article correctly notes, the problem was reserved to blacks, and while that was a bad situation, it was minor to the larger culture, and, frankly, it fed into the liberal mindset that blacks had to be taken care of. Now the problem is at a magnitude that will crush the USA. Social dysfunctions are highly correlated to having children out of wedlock, including poor education, later incarceration, lower incomes, and more.

The answer is not to give everyone a free education. The answer is to reward the right behavior and not reward the wrong behavior. This doesn't mean you outlaw out of wedlock birthing. It doesn't mean you take the kids away from the single mom. It means you do not pay more to support her bad choices. It means you go after the dads financially so that they have a greater incentive to keep it zipped up, or to marry a woman. Our policies, and these didn't come from republicans, Walt, have for decades diminished our values.

We DO have the culture we've wanted, and now we will be less wealthy, educated, powerful, and free, for it. Congratulations. Enjoy your bread and circus.

Gee, with all these people randomly swapping body fluids, don't any of them worry about AIDS or STDs anymore?

BTW...Charles Murray, as the article explains, has warned of the damage this trend was causing. For that he has been REVILED by the left in America. But don't believe me, go and look for yourself what American liberals have said and written about him. My point is that this hasn't just snuck up on us. And Murray was one of many making these arguments and being savage by liberals and the MSM for it.

Who, wanting to be president today, is talking most about these issues? Yep, Santorum. I don't know how I will vote, but he is the only one still in the race making the case that marriage is good for the economy, produces better students, and produces fewer criminal cases for us to deal with. These ARE moral issues, they are about our values as a society. If you ask Obama, or Romney, Gingrich, or Paul, they will all say marriage is the right thing to do. But none is sticking their neck out to make the case for it.

Saw this coming the day "baby-momma" and "baby-daddy" became legitimate words.

Hi AP,

No, you miss the point. When fewer people got a college education many decades ago there were also fewer out of wedlock births. The correlation you imagine exists doesn't. I'm not arguing we should have fewer people with education, just that this is about social values, not a four year degree. But you go ahead and keep focusing on what isn't the cause--I'm sure that will work just fine.

AP - ...Let those six-year-olds take to the streets and WORK for a living!!

Your comment is unreasonable and you are missing my point. I suspect you are a troll, otherwise you would comport yourself in a more civilized manner (I assume). However, my point is that if would-be parents knew the responsibility to pay for raising a child rested with them, they might think about whether they can afford it. It puts the onus onto them, and not on the one who ends up paying for their irresponsible behavior, which is the taxpayer.

Hey Mike,

Spot on, man, spot on. We have been witness to the beginning of the decline. My bet is that Rome in the 3rd century was going through similar debates. So we can make it several more generations, maybe, but unless we stop and return to things which we know work, then the gig is up. We just don't know the date on the headstone yet.

I was born in the late 1940's and I'm glad. I had the stability of a "normal" father and mother. They had their problems just like all people living together do but I remember it as a happy childhood.

This is not to say that the institution of marriage was all that great or you can't have a loving stable home without it. There were plenty of bad situations for kids in married households, too.

Economics obviously has a lot to do with raising a family.

I also had the luck to grow up during the post WWII economic expansion.

New Deal economic policies were still dominant: Strong regulation of businesses (if they tried to gouge people with high oil/gas prices like they do now the government would have been on their ass, big time), Strong labor unions kept wages high, high taxes on the wealthy and corporations provided revenue that was then used to make everyones life better, many grants and CHEAP government loans made a college education de facto free, etc., etc.

Cold War federal spending acted as a stimulus and helped keep the unemployment rate low (spending on domestic projects, not military, would have done the same thing). This is when the large prosperous middle class that the U.S. used to be famous for was created. Europe and Japan had even more protections and help for average people and their standard of living rose by leaps and bounds, too.

My family was poor at the start of the 1950's but we became solid middle class by the 1960's. Just my father working could support the whole family (how long ago did that go out the window?) and he didn't have to go into the army or national guard and get his legs blown off in one of our imperial adventures in order to get an education.

I feel sorry for young people today. They've really been screwed and have to cope with other things, too.

But people are very resourceful and sometimes they have had enough.

That's why you see so many young people at Occupy demonstrations now whereas even just a few years ago it was considered "uncool" to protest or demonstrate.

Good luck to them (and I will join them or help, too).

"Among mothers of all ages, a majority — 59 percent in 2009 — are married when they have children"

so the heading of the article- that children out of wedlock being the new norm, is a lie. Normal means that a majority 50.01% of people do it. If 59% of women are having babies in wedlock - THAT would be the norm. I didnt even finishing reading the article because if the author is too ignorant to figure out what majority of women (just about 6 in 10) are married, then the article isnt worth reading.

Its poor journalism, i dont know the intent is to try to promote children out of wedlock, or just simple ignorance of the author - but if create a headline, dont have it be dependant upon narrow results from research (IE - women under 30) unless you state that in your headline. Children out of wedlock the new norm for women under 30 - would have been an accurate heading. I simply cant respect a "journalist" that is too dumb or lazy to be truthful.

Rich-281385..(#1.42)..."Bread & Circuses"......That's where we're at.....

" Roman politicians devised a plan in 140 B.C. to win the votes of these new citizens: giving out cheap food and entertainment, "bread and circuses", would be the most effective way to rise to power."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses

Or as famous American author Robert Heinlein said, "Once the
monkeys learn they can vote themselves bananas, they'll
never climb another tree."

Mike: You are correct. The Romans also put in place a very large and very effective military. And of course, having spent all this money, they had to use it; so they went to war - again and again. "Bread and circuses" plus a very expensive military structure caused the fall of the Roman Empire. And aren't we on the same path. . .

It's society's fault. Today's generation are programmed to pay their bills, and not much else. No time for love, or enjoyment. That is why divorce (if they even make it to marriage) happens so frequently these days.

There is still love out there though.

mozzie-600....Rome went from a Republic to a Democracy to a succession of the Caesars ( Dictators...... for those that aren't up to speed on the Fall of The Roman Empire).....to the ash heap of history......See any similarities ????

Have we let them cross our Rubicon yet ???

So much of this article highlights the inherent evil in right-wing perspectives, that evil no better demonstrated by the fact that so many aspects of this issue expose how duplicitous right-wing perspectives are, advocating for certain values and at the same time working against the very things that would realize those values.

Can any more bias be showed here ? As if the left has a cleaner nose. Both sides are guilty and both sides can not make anything any better.

We seem to forget that many marrages of the past generation ended in divorce. One of the reason our children have decided to forgo marrage and raise their children alone. Another reason is there aren't many men willing to stay in one relationship. At 60 I remember that by the time I was 10 most of the fathers had gone leaving behind families of five to seven children. When I was in my forty's repeatedly I would attend funerals where another set of children were there for the deceased dad. Birth-control is not a cause but a response to women who did not want five to seven little ones to feed and ultimately raise alone. This whole leave it to beaver memory that America tends to have doesnt match up to those of us born in the fifties and sixties.

Welfare played heavy into this. In order for a woman to get any help, when she got pregnant, she HAD to be single. Welfare was intended as a temporary thing, but became a way of life for too many and the more kids the bigger the checks. It became a legacy of sorts, passed from one generation to the next. What it was, in reality, was a one way ticket to having no expectations for yourself or your kids. Then we had the "free-love" generation, where marriage was obsolete and having a "lovechild" was cool. Now we have the adults who are career driven and have no time for marriage, who have kids and hand them off to the Nanny. People who actually work at being married and raising their children, with one of them staying home to care for them are considered ODD.

U need:

At 60, apparently your memory is fading. I'm older than you, and I seriously challenge your "statistic" that most of the fathers were gone 50 years ago, because I was there. The whole divorce thing was brought to us by the baby boomers.

U need 2 think 4 Yourself.....Wow...I don't know where you grew up , I grew up in Brooklyn and out on Long Island, NY....And I didn't know anyone whose parents were divorced....It was unheard of in my extended family, aunts, uncles......Our annual family reunions were 100+ people back then in the 60's.....things are very different now....everyone is all over the country.....

Being married when your children are born is no guarantee of anything. I was married when my kids were born and still ended up raising them by myself. Somehow we managed without using welfare, but it was hard. They both turned out just fine, and are now productive members of society and helping me out in my older age. This issue is a lot more complex than this article and these comments are making it out to be.

I would say once you find the right person consider getting married before having children.

Sounds great in principle...but these days seems to be a very tall order in reality! No, not having children - that's the too-easy part - finding the right person!!

Women who are not committed to a man should not have a baby with a guy who is not good husband or good father material.

Again, this is something that sounds very good and should be painfully obvious. Unfortunately, most women out there today don't seem to find 'good husband or good father material' a desirable trait in men. In fact, most I've encountered think that some wealth is equivalent to 'good husband or good father material'. That way, she can marry, divorce, and proceed to collect alimony and child support from that man she didn't really want to be with while dating and living with the type of wild man she really wanted, expenses more or less paid. I know a number of soldiers and other servicemen who had this happen to them. They made a fairly decent steady income and had some solid benefits, but apparently were too clean and upstanding for a long term relationship. They returned from overseas only to find the wife had cleaned them out and left to move in with a drug or alcohol addicted felon who was apparently a bit more 'fun' to be around.

I believe there would be many,many more happy homes in this country married or not if Americans had health coverage.

Sadly, health coverage does not equal health care. It can pay for health care, but when and where there is a gross shortage of physicians and health care providers, someone else paying for it doesn't help much when you can't get it in the first place, or what you can get is substandard.

Marriage doesn't have to be expensive. Why spend thousands of dollars to throw a party?

Because many young women out there absolutely insist upon it! I know of many who are quite open to a wedding, which in their mind doesn't seem to actually include marriage. Needless to say, these are doomed to fail. But, quite often, if you're a young man and you absolutely want to ditch your fiancee, offer to have a justice of the peace or other 'courthouse' wedding. Never seems to fail! She'll find another prospective groom so fast you'll question whether or not you're still in this same universe. Of course, a lot of these gals will have muliple marriages in their lifetimes, and that's all right with them. Call them 'vanity marriages', if you will. The various celebrities have been doing them for a long time now...

In backwater Ohio, 60s, divorce was rare - only one "black sheep" uncle was divorced. BUT, once the mother (grandma) passed away, 2 more divorced. Then, by the late 70s, both sides of the family - 3 more divorced. This was an age span of 1926 to 1944 generation. A bunch of people who got married young, seemed the thing to do, and probably half of them - the woman was "knocked up". Oddly enough, of the over a dozen cousins that were these people's offspring (late 50s to early 70s)- one divorce only.

Hi Heartlight,

You are right that there are no guarantees that being married when you have kids makes everything alright. I don't think the point is that every married couple having kids produces a better outcome than every single person, or every unmarried couple, or every homosexual couple. The point is that on average kids with both birth parents in the same home married to one another produces the best outcomes for those kids, and, by extension, society as a whole.

I've coached hundreds of kids, and there is so much anecdotal evidence that this lesbian couple, or that single mom, or single dad, or whatever, are doing a great job that it would be wrong to condemn all non-heterosexual or non-married parents. But saying that in no way alters the point that if you want the most well adjusted, best educated, gainfully employed, non-criminal child, that being married with both birth parents in the home gives you the best chance at success.

I am a 26 year old bachelor. Im about 70% certain that I will never be married. I am also cetain that I will be a second class citizen for the rest of my life.

And that is because I am "unmarriable"? Im perfectly marriable. Im strong, loyal, smart, a military vet, and going to college full time to finish my degree. But that doesn't matter anymore. WOMEN DONT MARRY FOR VALUES ANYMORE. They marry for money! Oh wait sorry I mean "financial security".

Women are the problem, not men. Im so sick of hearing all this bull@!$%# about how women are so distraught towards men it sickens me. Especially when I see men who are of obvious less caliber than I get a girlfriend or a wife. Now men have become mere chattle: tools for breeding and child support.

F* women, Im going to adopt a son and raise my own family because women are F*ing worthless these days.

New Normal.....I guess they are saying we better get used to it....

"Social scientists have found that children growing up in single-parent families are disadvantaged in other ways when compared to a two-biological-parent families. Many of these problems are directly related to the poor economic condition of single-parent families, not just to parenting style. These children are at risk for the following:

• lower levels of educational achievement
• twice as likely to drop out of school
• more likely to become teen parents
• more conflict with their parent(s)
• less supervised by adults
• more likely to become truants
• more frequently abuse drugs and alcohol
• more high-risk sexual behavior
• more likely to join a gang
• twice as likely to go to jail
• four times as likely to need help for emotional and behavioral problems
• more likely to participate in violent crime
• more likely to commit suicide
• twice as likely to get divorced in adulthood

Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/single-parent-families#ixzz1mlZaqV1v

"Children in single-parent families by race (Percent) – 2010"

United States

Non-Hispanic White
24%

Black or African American
66%

American Indian
52%

Asian and Pacific Islander
16%

Hispanic or Latino
41%

Total

34%

http://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/acrossstates/Rankings.aspx?ind=107

Spadez - Women are F*ing worthless these days.

Sounds like sour grapes, to me. I'm sorry that you will be lonely in your old age; and with the attitude you have, that is more than likely.

I'm about 70% certain that I will never be married.

On behalf of all women everywhere, may I say thank you!

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.

And a further hint of the socio-economic catastrophy that has been befalling the nation since the early 2000s. It's not going to get better. Hold on to your hats.

Hey journal journal,

We do have a mess we've created. Just one dispute, but a major one I think. This has been coming about for well over half a century. Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote about this in 1965, but it was already being talked about for many years prior to that. And we still, STILL, decided to go down this path. Someone above, a fool quite frankly, blames all of this on republicans. Others, I'm sure well-intentioned, have said we must give out more free education so more women will marry before having kids.

This is cultural. It has been going on in governmental policy for at least 80 years. This is the seed we've sewn, and now we get to continue to reap the crop its produced. It's not too late, but we can't continue by pretending these real social pathologies are not correlative to the behavior of having kids out of wedlock. Change the behavior, that's how you fix this problem. Quit rewarding, whether through policy or social approval or simple indifference, the failure to do the best thing.

Societal norms are like snowballs, they tend to fall down hill rather than up.

There was a time in this country when people were "shamed" for acting out of what was considered proper.

Today, with our "anything goes" mentality, a woman with 15 kids thinks nothing of telling a reporter that "someone has to take responsibility for my kids, someone has to PAY!"

The sad part.....someone is paying, and it isn't her.

As we devolve into a mob of self-righteous fools, indignant at the very thought that we are responsible for anything, I hope that the next society realizes that self respect and self responsibility are the cornerstones of a prosperous society.

Welfare programs that never end and a repudiation of societal norms are the means of destroying one.

The real problem is that the bar has been set too high ---- If he can't be like the guys in the movies, then I don't want him. And if she can't look like Kate Upton in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition, I don't want her.

@Rich-281385

You are correct. The "Great Society" programs of the 60's went a long way in destroying the family.

Women were given more benefits if they had more kids, but if they married, their benefits would be cut off.

We all know that if we subsidize things, we end up with more of them.

We have subsidized single mothers to the point that they outnumber married mothers.

We all know that the children of single mothers are far more likely to commit crimes, so we are subsidizing future criminals as well.

We have sown the wind, and eventually we will reap the whirlwind.

Women are the problem, not men. Im so sick of hearing all this bull@!$%# about how women are so distraught towards men it sickens me. Especially when I see men who are of obvious less caliber than I get a girlfriend or a wife. Now men have become mere chattle: tools for breeding and child support.

F* women, Im going to adopt a son and raise my own family because women are F*ing worthless these days.

Bitter much, Spadez????

I love all the comments here about how "you" are "paying" for single kids. I'm sorry, but you all must have missed my address because I sure don't see any checks from you in my mailbox!! I'm a single Mother of two kids...good kids by the way...make straight A's, honor roll, Letters, etc.....and I receive ZERO dollars in assistance.

Don't let the few ruin the majority of us take great care of our kids...even though we're single!

@LS-415070

You either make too much money, or you didn't march down to the welfare office and demand your benefits, because they are out there, but you have to apply for them.

Don't get married though, or they will take them away from you.

Marriage is expensive. Do not confuse "marriage" with a "wedding." My younger son got married in 2011. Being married has increased his and his wife's federal income tax liabilities by more than $1300 over what they owed in 2010 when they were single.

The money married couples save by having only one house to maintain or one apartment to rent plus the savings on utilities should offset the higher tax burden. This assumes that a couple is not already living together before marriage, of course.

If higher taxes are a valid reason to avoid marriage, then the tax laws should be changed. Couples should not be penalized financially for getting married. That makes no sense.

@kaybeetoys

Couples should not be penalized financially for getting married. That makes no sense.

Yet that's exactly what the government does. It encourages single motherhood by rewarding women for having more kids. The more they have, the more they get. It has become normal in government housing projects to see nothing but single mothers with their kids occupying every home. Not a man in sight.

Why?

Because if these women were to marry, their benefits would be taken away from them.

So they have every incentive to procreate, but every disincentive to marry.

This is another offshoot of our economic race to the bottom and the demise of the middle class. People making minimum wage can't afford to get married.

Thanks George and Dick and Wall Street and the churches and the 1 percenters. You have killed our economy, now you've killed our ability to get married.

Now on top of that you are trying to kill birth control.

What's a mother to do???

Because many young women out there absolutely insist upon it! I know of many who are quite open to a wedding, which in their mind doesn't seem to actually include marriage. Needless to say, these are doomed to fail. But, quite often, if you're a young man and you absolutely want to ditch your fiancee, offer to have a justice of the peace or other 'courthouse' wedding. Never seems to fail! She'll find another prospective groom so fast you'll question whether or not you're still in this same universe. Of course, a lot of these gals will have muliple marriages in their lifetimes, and that's all right with them. Call them 'vanity marriages', if you will. The various celebrities have been doing them for a long time now...

Admittedly, I once lived with one of "those" women once, right after I got out of the USAF. She wanted the big grand posh-posh foo foo ceremony which would have put us in the hole for twenty five thousand dollars right off the bat. Then she made me promise that I would achieve the "realistic" goal of making an income five times my age by the time I reached thirty. And, of course - she wanted to stay home to raise THREE (that was HER number) perfect children in a "well to do" suburban neighborhood. And if she couldn't have three naturally she would want IVF to attain it.

She may as well have told me to cut off my hands and feet. I had just begun pursuing a career as a med tech, for Christ sakes. With prodding from my family I finally woke up and walked out. Four months before the wedding.

Two and a half years later I met the woman who would be my wife and since then I haven't looked back. We have decent jobs but a modest house we love with one son. I've never been happier. My ex? Last I heard she's twice divorced with - you guessed it- three kids.

The new normal is a disgrace. Statistics have shown a direct link between single parent children and higher rates of criminal activity / incarceration. There should be nothing "normal" about a child born out of wedlock.

The money married couples save by having only one house to maintain or one apartment to rent plus the savings on utilities should offset the higher tax burden. This assumes that a couple is not already living together before marriage, of course.

Ten or twelve years ago, a longtime clergyman I was acquainted with mentioned in conversation that it had been some years since he'd married a couple who were living at different addresses at the time they filed for their marriage license.

LMAO at bicfj,

Are you nuts? Seriously, are you, or should you be, taking psychotropic meds? You leftists are a truly amazing bunch. On the one hand you say George Bush ruined EVERYTHING (this despite the fact these trends began decades BEFORE Bush was even born) because he spent us into oblivion, and on the other hand you claim Mr. Obama can only save us by spending at least 40% MORE than Bush spent.

How does one use logic and reason to explain that your position is ludicrous? Look, because I think you aren't bright enough to figure these things out on your own, it was Bush that went to Congress looking for regulatory reforms of the financial/housing industries. And it was your demi-gods, Barney and Maxine and Nancy and Harry, et al, who said "Nothing to see here people, keep moving along, everything is fine, just fine". See, it was the DEMOCRATS who were the Party of No when it came to doing anything which could have lessened the damage when the bubble popped.

And, after re-reading your post, I am sure that everything I wrote will appear to you as dialogue in a Far Side cartoon between the cows and the farmer.

Since there seems to be NO type of social research done these days without the obvious question....not even mentioned in this article.

Race Percentages Please??? (You just know they have 'em)

Mike in Delray
New Normal.....I guess they are saying we better get used to it....

"Social scientists have found that children growing up in single-parent families are disadvantaged in other ways when compared to a two-biological-parent families. Many of these problems are directly related to the poor economic condition of single-parent families, not just to parenting style. These children are at risk for the following:

lower levels of educational achievement
twice as likely to drop out of school
more likely to become teen parents
more conflict with their parent(s)
less supervised by adults
more likely to become truants
more frequently abuse drugs and alcohol
more high-risk sexual behavior
more likely to join a gang
twice as likely to go to jail
four times as likely to need help for emotional and behavioral problems
more likely to participate in violent crime
more likely to commit suicide
twice as likely to get divorced in adulthood
Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/single-parent-families#ixzz1mlZaqV1v

"Children in single-parent families by race (Percent) – 2010"

United States

Non-Hispanic White
24%

Black or African American
66%

American Indian
52%

Asian and Pacific Islander
16%

Hispanic or Latino
41%

Total

34%

http://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/acrossstates/Rankings.aspx?ind=107

4!

Sorry, Mike, I call BS. I guarantee that poverty is the biggest factor. Try googling "income levels of unwed mothers."

justoneguy....See my post @ #1.59.....Click this link and it also give it State by State....some are quite the dooozie !!

http://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/acrossstates/Rankings.aspx?ind=107

However, my mom and dad mentioned when I was a teen how that staying married to the right person would increase your financial security....and at the time I thought that was odd.

That is so true one of the number one reasons for poverty is being a single parent. One of the things people don't understand it marriage is easy you both just have to pay the price for it.

Marriage is expensive. Do not confuse "marriage" with a "wedding." My younger son got married in 2011. Being married has increased his and his wife's federal income tax liabilities by more than $1300 over what they owed in 2010 when they were single.

I disagree being married you have a lot more wright offs our tax rate this year was 6.13% on 91K. Children are the most expensive thing you have. There are a lot of ways you can reduce the cost. We buy a lot of cloths and toys from second hand stores and garage sales. Go to a garage sale and buy all the cloths for a year for 25 dollars. We pay 8,000 a year for two children for child care that is costly but you would be paying that if you were single.

plus a very expensive military structure caused the fall of the Roman Empire.

The military is what kept Rome alive so long. It would take over a country and take all of it's gold back. Just look at the mountain in Spain the Romans destroyed to mine for gold. To day we are the worlds police force it has it's pros and cons. What put Rome to its knees is the political corruption.

Women are the problem, not men.

You should read the book "men are scum and women are stupid".

sandtrich....(#1.76) .... "Sorry, Mike, I call BS. I guarantee that poverty is the biggest factor. Try googling "income levels of unwed mothers."

_________________________________________________________—

" Many of these problems are directly related to the poor economic condition of single-parent families, not just to parenting style."

Did you miss that part in my post ???.....try reading it again.....so much for your BS call....you can google anything you like

Did you'se see all the Millionaires and Billionaires that were at Whitney Houston's send-off in Newark today ???....I wonder how many businesses they helped start with some seed money before they all took the limo ride back to their private jets and scooted back home to LA or wherever....Cops kept the little people at least 5 blocks away from the Church, Funeral Home and cemetary......

Newark's official unemployment rate is a staggering 15 percent.

"She "found herself pregnant"? Does she know how it happens?"

Read the article carefully. Those are the author's words, not her's.

Sure hope they remember who the real daddy is when they want to get child support.

Maybe I shouldn't reply cause Im hours late but to the person who wrote that it was the baby boomers of which I am one is the reason the stats dont pan out is because the dads left, didnt get a divorce cause that would disgrace the family but LEFT just the same. Many had other children outside their marriage because of course they couldn't marry new mom cause they never got a divorce.It didnt change the way the children felt because the paperwork wasnt filed they were abandon. The reason the stat is so high for boomers is because we didnt play into the sham of staying married in name only.

Its funny how little women are actually trying to change my mind instead are demogoging me further. Idiots.

Tsk. What we have here is a multitude of factors as to why more children are illegitimate. There are a few questions that beg an answer though. What about the children? The mother and her 'sperm donor' don't seem to understand the great responsibilites of raising a child properly. The government is not a substitute for a family consisting of both parents.

Children need a father. I've seen too many children who lack a moral compass, who are essentially raising themselves or grandma is raising them. I know several older women raising the children of their drug addled children. Then there are the women who have kids for all the government goodies it provides. They live a lot better than most since all their needs are met and all they have to do is have children. One woman I know has had eight children fathered by eight different men. She gets section 8 housing, free medical, food stamps, and an additional check from Social Security. The 'baby fathers' of her children are no where in sight and often the children are beaten and abused by the current potential 'baby father.'

@KayBeeToys 1.14: "Contraception is a GOOD thing!"

...when it works.

The woman in the article conceived at least one (and I am willing to bet both) of her children while on birth control.

With many of these out of wedlock births occurring due to contraceptive failures, is more contraceptives really the answer.

Oxymoron of the day: "new normal"

Another story about about a once great nation on a downhill slide resulting from a lack of personal responsibility.

We have progressed from apathy in the sixties to "I don't have a clue" at present....duh whatever....duh. Generation after generation of know-nothings demanding their "entitlements" while making no contribution to sustain themselves. Won't be long until the "Katrina Syndrome" sets in. In the mean time our leadership continues to play politics as usual as the sun sinks slowly into the west.

Spadez: When you refer to women who don't pander to you as idiots, perhaps the problem isn't with the women. Why should someone 'make' you change a mind that seems set?

One of the problems not mentioned is that today marriage has become such a expensive enterprise that for most couples it is not financially viable, and then it does not help out that every show on T.V and every magazine shows a 25 to 50,000 wedding, I am sorry I can not afford it, but this is what my best half wants, and she deserves it, I just do not have the means anymore to provide it. But as a man to state that we are just sperm donors I find offensive.

I was there for the birth of my child, I paid for the bill, and then because I was involved with bringing this blessing into life (you can ask my better half, she will vouch for me), I changed his diapers more then she did, have gotten up 5 out of seven days to see him off to school. I have taught my child values along with my child, and have loved my better half and have shown him that there is nothing unmanly about pitching in and helping out with raising what you helped create.

But to be honest, this came because of how I was raised. Today and for the last twenty years we have sheltered our children, did not discipline them, and then allowed the government to get involved in our family lives. Child protection agency has grown to the point that they are unanswerable to anyone and willing will hassle anyone if they can (if they show up on my property they will be thrown off unless they have a warrant), my faith and morals tells me how to raise my child, teach him there is discipline when he misbehaves and regardless is always loved. I do not need some one with children that are juvenile delinquents or worse have non, but have read a book to tell me how to raise my child.

Has it been easy, no! I broke my back in a accident when my wife was three months pregnant, and the great family planning that some of you want so much to defend told me after I all I had was just enough money to get us through the pregnancy and pay for the hospital bill that I should abort the child (and yes, check their records, they make most of their money due to referrals of single parents to abortion clinics, in fact until a couple of years ago they could go into middle schools and take your child to a abortion clinic without you permission or knowledge, but the school needed a parents OK to give them a aspirin) they should be called anti-family planning. I brought my child to their counter for his first three birthdays and told them to dispose of him, because that's what they wanted me to do. Of course they said it was different he was a child, so what is the difference between him and a fetus, they both grow into children if given the time. So please do not bring that this is your body and you have a right to do with it as you please, because you already did, and a child came around. Right to choice is nothing more then not taking responsibility for ones actions, you did the deed, now accept the results of it. Or why is it then that a women can be charged for child abuse for doing drugs while pregnant and the the day she gets out she can legally abort it? Which is more abusive to the child?

So yes, despite that I can not walk, had to live in my in-laws basement for three years until I got disability (and that even gets me mad because for 15 years I maxed out SSI and they took my money fast, and then would have had me sleep on the streets while they took their time giving me back what they took from me). And then I will never get back all that was taken.

So you know what has screwed this up? Us, we have allowed the government to make decisions for us because it was easier, we allowed T.V. to babysit our children because it is more convenient. Before I was hurt I owned many carpet cleaning businesses and cleaning services, it amazed me how many times I found a six year old in his room playing Full Metal Jacket or worse yet some game where you were picking up hookers and beating them and taking back they money you paid them for extra points. And then we wonder why our children are out of control, and then we sit in shock when a Mass Killing goes on in a school.

You want to stop it, get off your lazy but, I do it and I can barely move, and read to your child, check out what they are watching, and take the time out to teach them morals, values, and faith. And you if you think I am off my rocker, could one person please show me one case prior to 1980 when their was a Columbine event, a child just killed another because they have already killed so many they have become desensitized towards it. Teach them about love, not lust, and the problem of babies born from dead beat dads will go down because the little girl will not be so desperate for love, and this includes you dads, you are the most at fault because if it take two to make a baby, it equally takes two to raise one right!

kaybee - Come again???

...the chaos it creates for children is behind a great deal of the right wing angst that is dividing our country.

Dividing the country?

Call me old and I am, but, I don't understand how younger people think that getting married is a bigger commitment than having a child. There is no bigger commitment than bringing another life into the world. It is for the rest of your life and will break your heart and bring you the greatest joy possible. I see too many young Moms who seem to look at becoming a parent casually but are scared to death of getting married. I have been married for 30 years and it hasn't been a raving success but, it gave my children a stable home and they had a father who loved them and was "all-in" in raising them. Our own personal fulfillment was not as important as providing them with the best and safest life we could. All in all, it doesn't seem like a bad outcome.

The foundation upon which all other factors rest is POVERTY. "Sandtrich" #1.76 is right. Ignorance is a sprouting of poverty, and up it goes.

Because you younger folk live in a generation where birth-control is part of the norm you cant understand what it was like when families were seven or more. Now a family of four seems like quite a lot but even tho I was an only child I knew 3 family of ten or more. What birth-control has done is limited the amount of people that the parents are responsible for. Sure education make a huge difference but to only have two or three little one to be responsible for instead of the huge numbers of children women (who were married) plays a large part too

If I were making the rules, if you have more than one child on welfare, you're on your own. Let your family pick up the slack.

Such blind swinging of the cudgel results in inexcusable harm to children. You're going to have to do better than that to evade righteous condemnation for your suggestion.

Yeah mozzie: that's what Amurika needs!! Let those 6 year olds take to the streets and WORK for a living!! It's their fault they picked the wrong parents--Maybe they could be put to work as janitors or something!

That's indeed part of what mozzie needs to come to understand.

But the reality is that you are hurting the child by not being in a firmly committed relationship so that the child has a mother and a father.

And attitudes like mozzie's punishes the child on top of the harm you refer to.

No personal responsibility anymore.

Actually, apparently there is no responsibility whatsoever anymore. Mozzie's perspective, which very accurately depicts the right-wing perspective on this, demonstrates clearly a complete abrogation of social responsibility. Just dump babies on the street, treat them as they were treated a hundred years ago, right? After all, right-wingers believe strongly in selfishness and self-centered as noble values, right?

When right-wing reactionaries are ready to think about someone other than themselves, moderate Democrats will still be there waiting to work on a compromise approach to this problem.

Mike in Delray,

No one is going to click your links..Get over it.

Lusitania,

He knows. The links are provided so that if you dispute the facts he presents you can see them for yourself. The problem isn't that you will not check on his facts, the problem is that you didn't even see his post, or let it register if you did. It's a common trait with leftists. Your belief system precludes you from accepting any facts which are counter to your religion of more government.

Which isn't to say that the conservatives don't have a similar problem, but the effect there is not nearly as significant since traditions, while not always good or correct, are usually based upon hundreds if not thousands of years of human experience. So the conservative refusal to look at certain facts merely perpetuates the status quo, where your refusal to look at certain facts, as in this case, has resulted in a more dysfunctional society.

Brilliant.

Mac Forrester,

But you and sandtrich are wrong, which is anything but a surprise. It IS true that proportionally more people who are impoverished have children out of wedlock, but you two ignore the inescapable fact that the percentages have become worse, not better, since the war on poverty at the federal level really began in the 1930s.

The lives these people lead according to statistics are less impoverished than they once were relative to the rest of society, and yet the rate of illegitimacy continues to rise. What you've accomplished with your good intentions is to pave a road to hell with them, and what was once a fairly insignificant problem in terms of the whole society is now manifestly affecting us whether it's in generational poverty (which the USA had previously a good record against perpetuating), or criminality, or educational failure.

And for all of these created ills that policies you support have helped to cause your answer is simplistic: Let's do even MORE of the same. I've got no doubt that you and sandtrich and other liberals want to solve the problem, just as I have no doubt that conservatives want to solve the problem as well. My doubt rests with your capacity to comprehend cause and effect. Because of this the best we can hope for if your "side" prevails is to get lucky. To me this is a pathetically stupid way to try to deal with actual problems.

Spadez - Its funny how little women are actually trying to change my mind instead are demogoging me further. Idiots.

It's a wasted effort to try to change the mind of a misogynist. Maybe you need some help.

Rich and numbers,

I've read every single post on here, why do wingnuts always assume when they don't agree with someone their automatically a lefty " Never could figure that one out..Most people wouldn't click on the links for reasons your mind couldn't understand..Reading your posts you are only on this vine to spew trash talk against anyone who you don't agree with so again you know what they say when you assume.

Lusitania,

I think you are a leftist because I can remember from one discussion to the next the things you write. It's not that difficult. I can conclude I think I am right that you are a leftist because you refuse to join the debate seriously. It's not that surprising.

"Well now", you just assu,but if you must know I hate everything about our democratic government...Everything I have I've worked for. Again I see nothing in your post that would bring a solution to the topic above your nothing but a trash talker.

Lusitania....(#1.95)

"Mike in Delray,

No one is going to click your links..Get over it."

----------------------------------------------------------------------

I don't need to get over anything....It's one of The Newsvine rules.....If you post info from another site you have to give your source.....Try reading the rules....

COH rule #1 doesn't permit me to write what I think about you.....Have a Nice Day

I do believe that the really critical question here is not,are two parents actually married? It is are they good parents that are active financially and socially in the upbringing of the child. I read a poll recently that showed 39% of Americans considered marriage irrelevent,most likely this has something to do with the fact that greater than 50% end in divorce. The biggest problem in America are the deadbeat dads that would rather spend their money on gold chains baggy pants and eminem music than acknowledging their children!

it’s more about individual satisfaction and self-development,” said Andrew Cherlin, a sociologist at Johns Hopkins University.

Says it all, it's all about me. Selfishness, self-preservation, my security/potency is more important than yours, whatever you want to call it. It's no different than a good majority of the 1%'ers. It's innate behavior, although "most women" (more so than men) have a change of perspective after having children.

BALANCE DA BUDGET.......just to set the facts straight, a 50% divorce rate does not mean that half of all marriages fail. Many of those who do divorce, do so several times in their lives. The majority of people who marry, actually stay married. Agree though that kids with no active dads have much less chance of becoming productive members of society.

Lets look at this from the 1960's to now.

The pill, femanazis, welfare babies, whos your daddy?>uncle sam is my daddy, the attack on the family, on Christians, the promotion of single women to a regular accepted status in society- in fact PRAISED by the liberal owned TV and PROMOTED/ MARKETED as normal and good.

The increase in lawyers/the legal system ruining marriage's by making it financially attractive to women to divorce their men if they have $$$ and making men afraid to marry because of how BIASED the courts are against men financially and with custody and child support---what man is stupid enough to take that chance now a days???---even rock solid pre-nups are no guarantee you wont get raped by the legal rip off system. Some women make a living off of divorce nowadays, on to the next VICTIM idiot. Or trapping their targets with bedroom lies and oops I'm prego,s!

The fact is liberals have succeeded in attacking men, they have made the govt support single mothers at mens and or tax payers expense and promoted the very folks who should not have kids to have 3-8 kids and get BONUS payments for every additional kid and to not marry.

Folks that can afford kids have one or two.

The media has marketed to women to be liberals and do anything they want and you are entitled to be taken care of no matter what you do.... to buy their votes, they also do this to the poor folks,gays and black folks to buy their block votes. And are trying to figure out a way to buy the latino vote--hopefully they are smart enough to tell them what to do with their bloated promises that never materialize quite right.

The rich elitist liberals that control the liberal media buy block votes to put people in power that they can manipulate for their own personal reasons in exchange for their help. They vote Dem because it is the cheapest PR representative available to the filthy rich who own and control all media to make them sweet and charitable to the sheeple masses even though it has cause the results this article is sadly telling us the liberals have accomplished....sad really.

The liberal morons on here saying this is conservatives fault for not wasting more money through our WASTEFUL inefficient govt are simply liars or misguided at best or so dumb they are beyond hope or of course getting kick backs for voting liberals into govt.

Well done libs

Your right. I still firmly believe that the black race's greatest mistake and downfall was the acceptance of extensive social welfare policies. The repercussions from liberal welfare policies devastated the black family.

An upright, contributing member of society is what they are because of good self esteem. And self esteem comes when you pat yourself on the back for a job well done. Not when someone else does.

single parent household does not mean dysfunctional household. I'm illegitamate I had a wonderful loving family with uncles who cared. My grandfather set the tone of my life in 1947 when he told the family this is my grandchild and the boys took note. I didn't even learn my biological father's name until I was 22 because my birth certificate says unknown. The sperm donor has had no part in my life and if he was dying in front of me I'd step over him and go on.

Go to any third world or emerging country and you will see in a heartbeat WHY many people will never be able to improve their current circumstance no matter how much they want to. Immigration or even moving elsewhere isn't an option. They spend what little money they make by scrounging through the trash for recyclables so they can put SOMETHING on the table.

Why, because it takes MONEY, access to clean water, better nutrition, and medical care before most people in this world could even have a prayer of bettering their circumstances. Plenty of children live in abject poverty in America with no running water, heat, or electricity or food in their tummies...is this the child's fault? I think not.

Geography is also limiting for many. I encourage anyone to watch Guns, Germs, and Steel, a documentary produced by National Geographic to help understand why the deck is stacked against so many people who work harder than most of us do.

FakeMedia: Yeah...gee, why won't women just go back to no contraception, illegal abortions...ya know...the kind of thing that made us a GREAT country!!! (At least you have Saint Santorum to vote for this year! Maybe he'll take up your cause and we can REALLY get started on that Taliban thing of yours...keep trying...maybe it'll catch on!)

I find this comment very sad. I grew up with my parents divorced and having a weekend dad. Both my brother and I graduated high school at the top of our classes and he went on to college. He graduated with a four year degree from one of the top universities in Ohio. I am in college now after supporting myself in the military for 10 years. I am working on my second degree and next fall I will start my third undergraduate and first graduate degree. I am about to graduate from the top Environmental Science College in the country. I would think both of us turned out just fine.

Oh, we both grew up right out side of Lorain, Ohio.

Growing up in a single family home doesn't make you sad or a statistic. It makes you self reliant and smart. You know you have to work for what you want and you fight harder to get it.

I agree to an extent. I feel that younger people today like myself have seen so many marriages fail, mostly due to financial burdens. So if you are in your twenties and still trying to achieve financial stability why get married? You will only set yourself up for failure down the road. On the flipside, having a child out of wedlock can be detrimental to the child itself, and it is a bit selfish to deliberately raise him/her without the other spouse. Trust me coming from experience, growing up in a single parent home is no cake walk, and life can become that much harder for you.

How many CONSERVATIVES ARE

• LINE UP TO GIVE OUR AMERICAN CHILDREN A HOME SAFE ENVIRONMENT.

Once again CONServatives are speaking the language of hatred and intolerance: THE REPUBLICAN LANGUAGE.

Articles like these one is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT in order to understand how our society evolves.

_________________________________________________________________

MAMY IS NOT AROUND, daddy don't want to be ( don't give up ).

Fake media - you are pontificating. If anything, jerks like you ruined the "Ozzie and Harriet" scenario - which was just an ideal anyway.

Well, like my momma said, get an education, don't depend on any man. Because, if the the guy is good, wonderful, but if not - get the hell out and do better for yourself. (I got lucky.)

Democratic Senator Patrick Moynihan, and a great mind, in the 60's called Americans out on the issue of the disintegrating African American family unit and he was called all kinds of names by both parties, but he was right then, and history has proved him right. This "new normal" will have huge consequences over the next several generations, and saying not so, will not make it not so.

There is no way that this generation of 20 somethings will ever have the upward mobility nor will they live better than there parents generation, no way, no how. Welcome to America where self centered interests have slowly been ingrained into normalacy. This is a blueprint for destruction, and I'm damn glad to be in my 50's and not my 20's.

Lemur Lady, is called the generational procreation of ignorance, being passed on by self centered non -caring self absorbed adults / or kids who live in complete ignorance. Many have babies to feel good about something, the ultimate in selfishness. Poverty in this country is a joke compared to real poverty lady. Try outside Cairo or Mexico City, then you will see "real" poverty. American poverty is 2 TV's with cable and a/c. Don't give me any bull about Appalachia, I lived in North Carolina for a decade, and that's not poverty, that's called ignorance, and there is a huge difference.

You mean liberal policies for Blacks and "poor", that save their lives, because they are discriminated against in just about everything even today?, so they would not have to beg like the 55,000 Vietnam (mostly white) vets still alive living on the city lawns up and down West coast-----some of you should really get in the real world, before you start dishing!--same with lack of a medical system at min wage,--over 65 million work like that!--same all over the entire USA I have been there more than 99% of you, and it ain't pretty!!

All of this discussion about lacking personal responsibility is quite humorous. It's personally irresponsible to allow abstinence only education in schools, but to not teach our own children birth control methods. It's personally irresponsible to allow religious and moral convictions to cloud logic and rationality. Perhaps if we invested more in our children's basic education, they would grow up to be more productive contributors to society.

It is also entirely more responsible to abort a child when you know you don't have the finances, resources, time, or career to provide for it. Perhaps if we educated more people about birth control and allowed abortion to be more accessible, we wouldn't have so many individuals in the welfare system that concerns so many individuals.

Hi JCB,

All true except for your claim that DPM was savaged by republicans as much, or at all, as democrats. It was less about party ID and more about liberal versus conservative. Most republicans, by far, but few democrats, agreed with DPM even though he was a democrat. He served for presidents of both parties, but it was under Nixon that some of his ideas, like the EITC, became policy.

It wouldn't be until 1995 and 1996 that DPM would see some of his welfare policy ideas put into the reform bill. A bill which Mr. Clinton, and most congressional democrats, did not support. It wasn't until the third time it passed Congress and Stanley Greenberg (Clinton's pollster, one of them) told Bill Clinton he might lose the 96 election if he didn't sign the bill into law that he did. The Democratic party has a solid history of saying they want to do the right thing, and in everything they've done they made the problem worse.

Furor,

Yours is about the most despicable post I can imagine one could write. You want to use abortion for the purpose of eugenics. Aldous Huxley could not have predicted out future better. I imagine if you are like most people your parents struggled at some point, or points, in their lives as you were in utero, or even born. Do you ever wish they had taken your advice and aborted you? How amazingly disgusting. If you were not like most people, that everything was easy for your family, then it simply makes your condescending and arrogant attitude elitist, but no better.

I think your post is spot on!!! Education is the answer. I also would like to add this theory--- When I was born in 1961, Mom and Dad were married, Dad worked Mom stayed at home and raised me and my brothers and sisters. I got married in 1980 and had my only child (a son) in 1985. We both worked and he was raised by the school system and a succession of baby sitters. He is grown now and had his first child out-of wedlock in 2009. I was not there to raise my son, he grew up a heathen, but you just wait to see how my grandson turns out. You won't be able to turn your back on him, he will be an animal. Schools have turned into warehouses and childcare is non-existent here in my area. He just gets shuffled to whoever in not working a shift. No continuity in his life. He is poor, unloved, and nobody gives a crap about him. I am talking ClockWork Orange!!!

Says it all, it's all about me. Selfishness, self-preservation, my security/potency is more important than yours, whatever you want to call it. It's no different than a good majority of the 1%'ers. It's innate behavior

No the 1%ers give the lower 99%ers the following

1. a job (85%)

2. charity donations (lower 20%)

3. lower costs of living via buying power (100%)

and more

The lower 10% gives us:

1. Drugs

2. crime

3. killings

4. welfare fraud

5. no taxes

etc etc etc bringing down the other 89%ers in the process.

Hey lumurlady,

Yanno, it was in a different context that I made a similar case to a group of environmentalists I was collaborating with. The best way to protect the environment, I told them, is also the best way to create a stable society that doesn't have too many kids. Capitalism and a lightly regulated free market has created more wealth and improved the lives of more people than any other design. Of course, they all choked on their rice cakes, but it still remains a fact.

We could do wonders for the lower class by allowing capitalism to replace the kind of condescending socialism they have been compelled to endure for decades now by truly well-meaning leftists. Some people then, rather than most people now, would surely fall through the cracks but we can tackle that problem more easily.

Growing up in a single family home doesn't make you sad or a statistic.

No nothing is a grantee. However your family is not the average single parent family.

There is no way that this generation of 20 somethings will ever have the upward mobility nor will they live better than there parents generation, no way, no how. Welcome to America where self centered interests have slowly been ingrained into normalacy.

I'm not in my 20's I'm 31 I don't believe your statement. The issue with upward mobility is that most choose not to learn how and make the sacrifices here is one of the facts about most millionaire's they have only been married once and for more than 30 years, they are first generations millionaires. They are in their 50's and live at or below their pay. They live very frugal they never paid more than 30K for a car. most own a F-150.

lololol. sure. you right wing lunatics can talk about single moms with 5 kids on welfare all you want, but you should try and find you sense of irony when the guys you vote for are rabidly attacking contraception.

I encourage anyone to watch Guns, Germs, and Steel, a documentary produced by National Geographic to help understand why the deck is stacked against so many people who work harder than most of us do.

This needs to be reiterated. The only way people are going to get past their politically-motivated blindness is to educate themselves to the realities of the world.

Zaruski,

For reals? Tell me, who is attacking contraception, rabidly or otherwise? Yes, Santorum says that he and his wife do not personally use it, and that is his choice. You are for choice, aren't you? But no one is arguing that you should be deprived of contraception, though in retrospect one might properly conclude that anything we can do to help keep you from procreating would be a social good.

Easy to resolve... Stop paying benefits for single mothers. Let the inseminators pay. Can't wait for the it's not Christian comments.. Brought to you by the same people who think it's Christian to f*ck yourself to death and let the taxpayers be responsible for your immaturity.

wilman, how exactly do you think you can force the inseminators to pay? Even fathers who are supposed to pay court-ordered child support manage to skip out on it. I don't think the answer is to throw women and their children on the street to fend for themselves. Every time someone wants to stop benefits to single mothers, I wonder why they hate women so much.

Easy to resolve...

Take the aspirin from between your legs and put it in your mouth and drink some water.

If you go on any collage campus you will notice that the majority of students are women, for whatever reason it seems that men arent entering or graduating as much as in the past. For a collage educated woman her choices arent as great anymore, most of the choices arent fellow collage graduates but part time working men. I dont blame them for not marrying, seems most guys dont have any ambition.

square: modern america hasn't come to grips with what men are supposed to be. For better or worse, men have lost their way. Used to be a man got up, went to work, and supported a family. Roles were fairly well defined - men drove trucks, worked the assembly lies, performed the surgeries... women raised the kids, taught school.... Not saying this was right or wrong, but it did define roles. Since WWII, and especially since the 70's those roles have blurred. And, political correctness has made it even harder... even those voices who speak out against such historically male dominated roles as, say, front line combat, are drowned in a sea of indignatiion. Is it any wonder most men have no clue? Don't read this as critisism of women... It certainly isn't. Women have as much right to self determination as men. But when men hear over and over that women don't need them, they have trouble defining themselves. Yes, men should take care of their children. But a child support check isn't taking care of kids. I fear for this country.

drbillips-You suspect wrong. Sorry, check your statistics-in most states single mothers DO support their children WITHOUT benefit of welfare connected programs. In Georgia, their is a two year limit. They may not be able to support them in high fashion-but without a partner's help, they do the best they can.

square: modern america hasn't come to grips with what men are supposed to be. For better or worse, men have lost their way. Used to be a man got up, went to work, and supported a family. Roles were fairly well defined - men drove trucks, worked the assembly lies, performed the surgeries... women raised the kids, taught school.... Not saying this was right or wrong, but it did define roles. Since WWII, and especially since the 70's those roles have blurred. And, political correctness has made it even harder... even those voices who speak out against such historically male dominated roles as, say, front line combat, are drowned in a sea of indignatiion. Is it any wonder most men have no clue? Don't read this as critisism of women... It certainly isn't. Women have as much right to self determination as men. But when men hear over and over that women don't need them, they have trouble defining themselves. Yes, men should take care of their children. But a child support check isn't taking care of kids. I fear for this country.

They may not be able to support them in high fashion-but without a partner's help, they do the best they can.

Caroline, with all due respect, that is not good enough for our children. There is NOTHING more important in life than being a good parent, nothing.

Women who have babies without the love, help and financial support of a committed partner are shortchanging their children.

Funny how people get outraged by the possibility that single moms might get a few pennies of their tax dollars, but have nothing to say about the fathers.

A few pennies jeff,

WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Perhaps if girls took the responsibility for their own ACTIONS!!!! like women in the fifties did there would be no problem. The fact is the govt support and entitlement these girls get and the liberals in media actually train these girls to get pregnant ........ they have no problem being pregos......at 15 or 19 or whatever.........

Go to planned parent hood they will help you get all your bennies lined up.

Others noted that if they married, their official household income would rise, which could cost them government benefits like food stamps and childcare.

YUP, theres your reason right there. The welfare mentality is alive and growing in America. Why marry when Uncle Sam will reward you to live with your botfriend and pop out kids. They get section 8 houseing, food stamps, free health care. Part of the helthcare problem is welfare people running their kids to the emergency room all the time. America's going to hell in a HANDBASKET.

don't forget you can use your section 8 to have the gibsmedat gubment buy you a house and pay your mortgage , utilities, insurance, repairs etc...

http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/program_offices/public_indian_housing/programs/hcv/homeownership

i thought conservatives were being unrealistically stupid too until i saw this gem while looking to buy a home. why should people with no self control or morals get to OWN a home for free while we pay for it and get thrown out of the homes we PAID for. i am all for aid to help those who need it get on their feet not to provide an alternative lifestyle I have to pay for. here i am like a tool going to college, opening my own business 4x, getting married not having children I cannot afford, not going into debt and saving to buy the things i want in cash (like my new car) when really i guess i should have had some baby daddy in high school and had the government buy me a home.

Dont forget your free cell phone and bus rides around town to your free dental appts.

How else can the liberals use tax money to buy votes and increase generational poor folks block voting for them??????????

The more kids uncle sam supports the more future votes........in a liberals mind that is a WIN:WIN!!!

Fake media: You pine for the 50's??? Ok grandpa, I'll see your rose colored glasses and ask how many women of age in the 50's pine for a return to the days when contraception was illegal, back alley abortions were among the leading causes of death and severe medical complications in women of child bearing age, and legal quotas kept women out of the best colleges. In an extremist conservative mind: a WIN WIN WIN!!

Well in Texas they do. State law requires naming the father. The State's attorney general files suit in the name of the child. Neither parent has any control or is able to stop the proceeding. If they don't know for sure they have to name all possible fathers and the state DNA tests all of them and the daddy gets the jackpot and pays for the next 18 years through the attorney generals office. Failure to pay means the state will not issue you a license of any kind or even the ID card.

I am a single mother who had a child out of wedlock at the age of 24 AFTER I completed my bachelors, then finished my masters before my child turned 3. I held and continue to hold a very good job at the same company I worked at before becoming pregnant. I have never once received a cent of public assistance, earned income tax credit included. So yes, some single mothers do support themselves and their children.

Fake: You make my point. You think its all about "the girls" taking responsibility.

BTW, I was around in the 50s and I know that in those days we had an economy that could support most families in a way that is only a dream today. In those days if you worked hard you could spend your entire career in one company and retire with a pension. You didn't have to worry about being outsourced or being let go because management was obsessed with the quarterly stock price.

So I don't judge young people today based on how they would be expected to behave in the "good old days" that no longer exist.

Ap I dont want the 50's again.

But we certainly do not need to continue down the path we are on.

Thanks to liberals and their never ending desire to maintain govt control at all costs; even if it RUINS our country, as long as they can buy enough votes, that is the only thing they really care about.

It is like being a good parent AP,

If you give your child what they want, they will like you and support your decisions: say give them ice cream and candy bars at every meal, along with pizza or mcdonalds. No school ,just play video games all day this week.

Now we know this is not good for them, but they love it, so we'll do it anyway.

That is the liberals in govt, give them anything as long as they like us, doesnt matter if it is bad for the country in the long haul, what matters is we need that vote TODAY!

And no it is not just the girls responsibility, but they are the ones that have the most to lose from the wrong decision and they CONTROL that decision as boys will take any chance at a piece that they are given. Boys also need to keep it covered at all times!

Maybe there are so many unmarried women who dropped out of college because, w/ a baby, they couldn't afford to stay in? You can "spin" statistics any way you want.

Among the reasons why this is occuring seems to be lacking the Biblically immoral Gays. Surely they merit some blame for the continued deterioration of the Family and fabric of our society. Maybe they seduce the fathers away from the mothers? Or maybe they seduce the mothers into chasing men they can't have? Something. What say Robertson et al?

"For a collage educated woman her choices arent as great anymore, most of the choices arent fellow collage graduates but part time working men. I dont blame them for not marrying, seems most guys dont have any ambition."

Yet these low calibur, no ambition guys - who women simply would never marry because they are beneath them - those same guys are ok to shack up with and have kids? The guys may not have much ambition, but apparently the college educated woman is not intelligent enough to not breed with these low bred males.

If the guy isnt worth marrying/spending the rest of your life connected too - why sleep with them and have a kid? Im not arguing the truth to your statement, just the intellect of the women in those scenarios that go with it anyways.

Like most issues, there multiple parts to this situation.

Many Women truly believe they are doing it on their own even when the father is paying all the bills and shares custody. Besides a plethora of government freebies for single moms, some are being supported by their families and think that is their obligation. Some women think they will trap a man into marriage by having a baby with him only to be disappointed later.

Most importantly, it is never, ever a woman’s fault for getting pregnant; it is always because the “man” did this to me. How dare anyone say anything negative about single moms. Woman and especially moms do all of the work, pay all the bills and they are the only people that care! My mom taught me that!!!

The above may be a bit sarcastic but we all know that it is how our society is right now.

AP-1414066

back alley abortion leading cause of death?

where'd you get that from?

Thanks to liberals and their never ending desire to maintain govt control at all costs; even if it RUINS our country, as long as they can buy enough votes, that is the only thing they really care about.

I think that's an extreme view that has little or nothing to do with reality.

How do you figure that 'liberals' control the country? Who has the political power here, the wealthy or the poor?

Wealthy individuals tend to be Republican and conservative...that's the party that has their backs. Why would the wealthy want to perpetuate the welfare system?

The wealthy and their corporate interests are not out buying the votes of welfare recipients.

Your view does nothing to solve the current situation, and I believe that if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.

The only 'bastard/dumbf##ks" I've seen, use the names "Jerry Tremble and buy american products now" and post their ignorance on MSN, for all to read...

Wow really xfile1971 and MM-584706? My son's father passed away when our son was 7 years old. From then on I raised him alone. He is now about to graduate with a degree in programming, just started an internship and just got his 1st freelance gig as a programmer. He doesn't drink, smoke or do drugs. I would say he turned out just fine and then some in a single parent household.

@bobo the clown, if you read the article, it says that women who graduate from college are the ones more likely to be married BEFORE having the baby...

granny there is self-control enough not to marry the a$$hole just because you are pregnant and not have to live with a demanding, whining, abusive idiot. Or carry said idiot on your back because the loser thinks with what is between his legs.

lonereb---

Hmmm .... enough self control not to marry the all-the-things-you-said-he-was but not enough self control to keep from screwing him in the first place? Methinks it's more an issue of intelligent choices rather than self control.

How about paying for pills yourself? Is that beyond the thought pattern of Democrats?

wilman---we have free clinics for innoculating children against diseases. it is in societies best interest to prevent polio etc. it is also in our best interest to prevent teenage pregnancies. the cost of the pills is minor compared to the cost of raising a child. the republicans have a narrow view and their approach to this problem is to force their moral agenda on society. they are lawmakers not clergy.

Well stated, granny22. It's time the religious right stopped using their version of "morality" as a club to bash people they don't like.

what good is teaching them about birth control if the idiots wont use it to begin with?

this is exactly why i cant find a girl my age thats single with no kids.

. the republicans have a narrow view and their approach to this problem is to force their moral agenda on society

What is so narrow about wanting someone to be responsible for their actions, Your argument that it is cheaper to pay for contraception than to pay for children is an arm twisting argument, What about abstinence, Why is it my responsibility to pay for someones contraception devices/pill/abortion or to have to pay for their child, That is the problem we have in todays society, Why should I have to make a choice of which to pay for when I should not have to pay for either. It is you who are trying to force me to pay for your immoral agenda.

If you want to have sex then you either pay for contraception or you pay for the children, Having sex for other than the purpose of having children is having sex for pleasure, This is the same lame argument they use when they expect government programs to hand out clean syringes to junkies so that they do not get Aids/Hep/etc, They say if we do not give them the syringes then we risk the spread of disease, The fact is that if they did not stick needles in their arms then they would not be at risk. This is all part of the nanny state program where no one is responsible for their actions, Eventually you run out of other peoples money to support these programs, The individuals that use these programs become reliant and never make anything of their lives and their children fall into the same trap and the cycle continues.

Well stated, granny22. It's time the religious right stopped using their version of "morality" as a club to bash people they don't like.

The reason we do not like you and this has nothing to do with religion is because we always end up having to pay for your indiscretions, You want me to either pay for your birth control or pay for your babies, I should not have to pay for either, It has not to do with moralities, It has to do with what is fair.You want to have sex then you either pay for your own birth control or pay for your babies.

Lost
It's not wrong to ask someone to take responsibility for their own actions. I fully agree with that. But many need help and education to learn exactly how to do that. I'm quite sure that 99% of the mothers of the world would love to be able to support their kids, to give them enough food, shelter and safety. It's ingrained into our genes. But far too many young women don't have the skills to do so. And the drive to have a baby is the strongest drive a women has. Just like having sex is the main drive for most young men. We're hardwired by nature and that's not changing.

If our society wants to thrive we have to give our children the skills to make the right choices. Your 'why should I have to pay' BS is nothing more than short-sighted selfishness. If you truly don't want to pay for it, then put your support into programs that prevent it. Sex education, strong schools (meaning lets pay our teachers good money, they have a very strong influence on our kids), the ability to go learn a trade, good, inexpensive child care so those with kids can find a job. Those are some things we can do to aliviate the issue.

Sticking your head in the sand, crying about how you shouldn't have to pay and just wanting to punish the mother and child for their 'shortcomings' may make you feel superior but it really does no good at all.

lostinthe pines-------if as you say you want to prevent ''their children from falling into the same trap and continue the cycle'' then you should realize that birth control is the answer. sex is a natural part of life -the urge is hormone /nature driven. you repubs are attempting to thwart nature and nature wins every time. i would give my children birth control if i thought they were sexually active. they are most vulnerable in their teens --this is exactly when they need to be guided to safe reliable birth control. trying to teach abstinence to a hormone driven teen is ridiculous in tdays culture. you state ''pay for contraception or pay for the children''-----teens will do neither. society will pay-the children will pay -their parents will pay. preventing the pregnancy by providing birth control is the only cost effective approach to this age old problem.

What is so narrow about wanting someone to be responsible for their actions

The narrow-ness is not about the wanting, but rather about the vacuous, counter-productive manner they go about manifesting that wanting.

Your argument that it is cheaper to pay for contraception than to pay for children is an arm twisting argument

You mean that we're "forcing" you to accept the logic of something you'd prefer not be logical.

We've developed means where women can now live what the vast majority of them will tell you is a better life through reproductive choice. Of course, you can only come to know that if you're willing to listen to a woman about what it is like to be a woman, instead of (like this week's Republican-led farse in the House Oversight and Government Reform committee demonstrated) insisting that men know best about what it is to be a woman. Inflicting patriarchal oppression on women by withholding access to this advancement from them, especially while changing the structure of society (in terms of how much things cost and therefore how much it costs to make ends meet) such that reproductive choice can make the difference between poverty and financial security, is morally offensive, and doubly-so when a woman allows herself to be a mouthpiece for such patriarchal oppression.

What about abstinence

To co-opt a phrase often thrown around by right-wing reactionaries: "It's unnatural." God made most human bodies such that they develop strong instincts for sexual activity. To suggest that satisfaction of this God-instilled instinct should be limited to the affluent is self-centered and also morally offensive.

Why is it my responsibility to pay for someones contraception devices/pill/abortion or to have to pay for their child

For the same reason it was my responsibility to pay to have the street paved in front of your house - because society is a system, not a 270 million separate systems that have no interaction with each other. You don't earn money without there being a job for you to work or a business for you to own, and your job or business doesn't exist without an economy from which it derives money, and that economy doesn't exist without the underpinning for the economy that society provides. Greed is not a virtue; it is considered by many a deadly sin. And greed is specifically the perspective that fosters the idea that one has owes nothing to the society from which they extract their own personal fortune. Yet again, we're back to a morally offensive perspective that you're advocating for.

dsb, I happen to live in NJ, we spend more per pupil educating our children than most states, It is not about spending more money, It is about personal responsibility for your own actions, My guess is that you are a teacher and I personally have no problems with teachers, I do have a problem with dumping money into a system that does not work. Your method is still the strong arm twisting of that I should either pay to educate them or pay for the consequences, It is really all about personal responsibility. Real simple..if you do not have sex then you will not get pregnant.

The argument here is paying for something that is not certain persons responsibility.

ok

I dont have any kids in school, should I have to pay for your kids to go to public school..

I don't drive on your state roads, then should my tax dollars go to fixing your roads?

I should not have to pay for either, It has not to do with moralities, It has to do with what is fair.

And I suppose you are the person that decides fair?

Please Don't Tea on Me.

dads pay through unfair child support laws and demands that they take resposibility for their children,don't pay and your a deadbeat,but welfair moms can sit home and expect everyone else to support their child for them and some how that's different-----DOUBLE STANDARD ?

Conservatives, shut up and pay your damn taxes! It's earned income credit time and daddy needs a new big screen! Ha Ha Ha.....

lostinthe pines-------if as you say you want to prevent ''their children from falling into the same trap and continue the cycle'' then you should realize that birth control is the answer. sex is a natural part of life -the urge is hormone /nature driven.

Man is the only animal with the ability to reason, That is what makes us superior to the other animals of this world, We know that we have a choice to have sex or not, We are not hormone driven like animals that have one and only one objective and that is to mate and propogate, We understand that having sex is a choice and making that choice has consequences, To deny this is to admit to yourself that you are no better than an animal,

I refute your position on this, I did not have children out of wedlock, I waited until after marriage and after we could afford to have children before we started our family.

For the same reason it was my responsibility to pay to have the street paved in front of your house - because society is a system, not a 270 million separate systems that have no interaction with each other.

Bogus example, I pay taxes which pay for those streets, Now you want me to pay taxes to support someone who is not only not paying taxes but to also for me to support their children which they chose to have.

Short answer...if you can not afford to have children then do not have sex, If you are saying that your hormonal urges overide you human reasoning then you are admitting that you are no better than a dog in heat. I am better than that, If you are not then that is your problem and do not expect me to pay for your animalistic urges

Lost
No, I'm not a teacher. I just happen to appreciate what they go through. I'm 60 years old and I can still remember a few that had a huge impact on my life. We give our kids to teachers for most of the day, for most of the year, during the formative years of their lives and yet some treat teachers as leaches on society. If we really valued our kids and our future teachers would be one of the top paying positions in society.

That being said, I don't care if you did pay more per student. Just throwing money at a problem doesn't solve it.

The whole thing IS about personal responsibility. But it's 'personal responsibility for the good of society'. Not just for yourself. And not one human has ever been born knowing that. It must be learned. And for that it must be taught. Not just in schools but at home and in our social lives.

Think about what you are teaching your kids when you say 'why should I have to pay....', are you teaching them to consider society as a whole or only what they can get and keep for themselves. Not everyone is born lucky enough to be able to achieve success. We have to help them. Seems like there is an old saying...'you are your brother's keeper'. Well, we all have to aid each other, otherwise our society will fall apart.

I fully believe in personal responsibility, I think we should put more effort into teaching it. Then we can stop supporting those who decide not to accept it.

Lone
You may have paid taxes to help pave those streets but you didn't pay the entire bill. Nor did you pay the entire bill for the highways that are used to transport your food, or the water treatment plants that provide you with clean water, nor the electric plants that provide you with electricity, etc.

Just try making a go all on your own. Move somewhere in the mountains or desert and try to survive without society. You wouldn't last a week. So don't try to tell us that you pay for everything. Perhaps you should think about 'there but for the Grace of God, go I' because not everybody is lucky, smart, or born into the right circumstances to succeed. And if we don't help these individuals correctly we'll do nothing but create another generation with the same issues.

Bogus example, I pay taxes which pay for those streets

That's a bogus rebuttal. The cost to maintain the street in front of your house costs more than the cost to maintain the street in front of my house, or there is some other differential where you're getting some benefit from society that someone else isn't getting. Stop trying to rationalize away excuses; stop trying to evade your social responsibility.

If you are saying that your hormonal urges overide you human reasoning then you are admitting that you are no better than a dog in heat.

More bs totally devoid of comprehension of the human condition. Your patriarchal attitude towards people less affluent than you is inexcusable.

Lone
You may have paid taxes to help pave those streets but you didn't pay the entire bill. Nor did you pay the entire bill for the highways that are used to transport your food, or the water treatment plants that provide you with clean water, nor the electric plants that provide you with electricity, etc.

Just try making a go all on your own. Move somewhere in the mountains or desert and try to survive without society.

I live in the NJ Pinelands, I actually paid the entire cost to pave my street, I have my own well and septic , I grow most of my own food and raise much of my own stock , My power comes from a Privately owned power company for which I pay, I paid for all the electric poles and lines that lead up to my home, I heat my home with wood from my own property, I send my children to a private school for which I pay for both the cost of the education plus the transportation cost to send them there, I contribute much more than my fair share to the cost of services which I chose not to use. You argument is lame and weak and has no merrit.

One of the biggest parts of the problem is displayed her by granny22 and her supporters. Pregnancy is not a disease nor is it like polio.....it is the result of your PERSONAL CHOICE to participate in an activity. And you knew what that activity could lead too. So GROW UP and take responsibility for your actions.

That's a bogus rebuttal. The cost to maintain the street in front of your house costs more than the cost to maintain the street in front of my house,

Well considering We actually paid for and maintain the road in front of my house I find your comment amusing.

Your patriarchal attitude towards people less affluent than you is inexcusable.

LOL...first off you are assuming that I am a man and second you are assuming I am affluent.

Wrong on both countsand there is nothing inexcusable about expecting people to bear resonsibility for their actions.

Lone
Then good for you. But you still have no leg to stand on. Even if you did pay for it all the tools, workers, etc. still contributed. I guess you just see yourself as separate from society. You still don't realize how dependent you really are. I, nor anyone will ever convince you that you really aren't on your own. But if you think you can do without society, why are you even sending your kids to school? I mean, if they wont need society then why teach them anything except to chop wood and grow food?

lostinthe pines-----''no better than a dog in heat''--------all animals respond to sex drives as nature intended. the difference is we humans have choices. providing birth control to child bearing age teens is a responsible choice that would benefit society and help teens delay child birth to a time when they are financially and emotionally able to cope . since you have chosen to be ''off the grid'' in your personal life you are not the average citizen and are a bit stunted in your ability to deal with the problems most of us face.

Well considering We actually paid for and maintain the road in front of my house I find your comment amusing.

You conveniently cut off the rest of my statement. Such disingenuous rhetorical tactics show you really don't even believe what you yourself write.

There is some other differential where you're getting some benefit from society that someone else isn't getting. Stop trying to rationalize away excuses; stop trying to evade your social responsibility.

LOL...first off you are assuming that I am a man and second you are assuming I am affluent.

Your comment is sexist: You don't have to be a man to espouse patriarchal perspectives.

And yes I'm assuming you're affluent compared to the poor people in this country that some in this thread are seeking to attack.

since you have chosen to be ''off the grid'' in your personal life you are not the average citizen and are a bit stunted in your ability to deal with the problems most of us face.

Evidently I am not as stunted as you are as I am not the one that thinks that man/woman can not restrain themselves from their hormonal drive to have sex. I may live off the grid but I actively participate in the world every day.

You just keep making excuses for those that will bear no personal responsibility for their own actions.

Using your logic about hormonal urges then is it ok for men/women to sexually assault others because of their hormonal urges.

You just keep making excuses for those that will bear no personal responsibility for their own actions.

And you just keep making excuses for those who suggest harming children is the right approach to addressing this issue.

Using your logic about hormonal urges then is it ok for men/women to sexually assault others because of their hormonal urges.

Are you really equating making love to rape? Do you even know anything about the nature of rape?

...just don't breed 'em if you can't feed 'em.

...and don't expect society to pay for your piss-poor personel choice & what is now your personel responsibility...

...its doesn't take a village to rasie a child, just village idiots to create 'em & expect the village to pick up the tab...

LOL...first off you are assuming that I am a man and second you are assuming I am affluent.

I actually paid the entire cost to pave my street... I paid for all the electric poles and lines that lead up to my home... I send my children to a private school

Sounds like you're pretty affluent to me. I didn't include the well and septic because that's just a reality of rural life, and most power comes from private (or publicly traded) companies. You do seem to own quite a bit of property though. I'm not sure what you define as "affluent" but you are certainly very well off (I'm guessing well over $100,000/yr) you probably married someone that's raking it in as well.

lostinthe pines------were you ever young? do you remember being a teenager about to get lucky-are you suggesting that at that moment you would extinguish the passion and think ''this is not responsible behavior.'' ya right! i live in the real world -i pay electric bills. send my kids to public schools and have raised children thru drug epidemic / sexual revolution and i know that providing the tools to survive the teen years is a part of responsible parenting. you seem to be providing your children a shield from the real world. talk to me again in 10 years.

Man is the only animal with the ability to reason, That is what makes us superior to the other animals of this world, We know that we have a choice to have sex or not, We are not hormone driven like animals that have one and only one objective and that is to mate and propogate, We understand that having sex is a choice and making that choice has consequences, To deny this is to admit to yourself that you are no better than an animal,

First, man is not superior to the other animals.

Second, we are animals. We are driven by urges and instincts that are every bit as strong as those which drive other animals: hunger, thirst, sleep, mating. Do not kid yourself that you are not an animal. To deny this is to put yourself in a situation where it is easy to fall victim to your sexual urges and act irresponsibly, with potentially negative consequences: unwanted pregnancy and disease, not to mention emotional distress.

This topic will generate a lot of heat on both sides. In the end, it comes down to personal responsibility for your own offspring, and shared responsibility for all our children. It takes a village to raise a child.

Less availability of birth control? Fewer unplanned/unwanted pregnancies?Conservatives, you can't have it both ways!

Get past morality/ ideology and find ways to solve the issues that we face in the real world.

Palebluedot, We own a farm and we work the land plus we both are self employed in our own small businesses when we are not working the land or working in our businesses we are doing other things to make money, Our children also work the land and do their chores as required, Our gross is less than $100,000, we earned everything we made. We both started out poor and I mean dirt poor and have scrimped and saved to get where we are now.

Granny, Yes we were both young but we did not have sex before marriage and after marriage we planned when our children were born, Our children are young adults well educated and getting ready to start families of their own, Our children are not shielded from the real world, They have been educated and taught what is important in life and how to make the best from what you have. No need to talk to you again in 10 years.

kaybeetoys---getting past the morality ---that's the problem -----agree with your post----every baby deserves to be born to a parent or 2 parents eagerly awaiting the arrival.

The taxpayers could provide all the birth control in the world to those who want it, but that does not mean they will use it effectively. No form of birth control is 100% effective, so people must be accountable for their actions. I for one do not want to pay for other people's birth control. This country has lost its moral compass.

lostin the pines--you have created a life for yourself and your family that most would envy. you had children when you could afford them and taught them to be self sufficient. if you remove your presence from your family and they were without your guidance and support and they made a mistake which resulted in a unplanned for child --would you then reconsider that birth control would have been beneficial. when teens get pregnant there are no good choices-----keeping the child ends education options and creates a dependency on society or family members ---adoption is a life time of wondering where your child is/ abortion is wondering what your child would have looked like and living with the christian right accusing you of murder. birth control -if you consider it a bad choice seems to be the least damaging of all the choices.

raleigh dolly

The taxpayers could provide all the birth control in the world to those who want it, but that does not mean they will use it effectively. No form of birth control is 100% effective, so people must be accountable for their actions. I for one do not want to pay for other people's birth control. This country has lost its moral compass.

raleigh dolly, not to make this personal, but who among us has NEVER acted irresponsibly? We have the means to plan our families, so why not use it? The argument about morality is great, but it's not going to change the reality of unplanned pregnancy. Contraception can do that.

I believe it's highly likely that you are covered by a health insurance policy that already does cover contraception, so you are indeed paying for the contraception of others, just as they are paying for your coverage for high blood pressure or whatever.

Should I demand that I not have to pay for health insurance coverage for people who live an irresponsible lifestyle: drinking, smoking, eating too much and exercising too little, with the resulting diabetes, cancer and heart disease?

Get past 'morality' and move on to 'rationality'.

granny22

kaybeetoys---getting past the morality ---that's the problem -----agree with your post----every baby deserves to be born to a parent or 2 parents eagerly awaiting the arrival.

granny, I think so too. It's so hard to care for a baby, it's almost impossible to do it alone. With all the cultural garbage that's thrown at our teenagers, the single mom reality shows, the celebs and their self-centered lifestyles, the sexualization of every aspect of our lives...it's no wonder there are so many unplanned babies.

My cousin had a baby out of wedlock, and she is really struggling, trying to juggle school, work and childcare. Her little girl pays the price in long days at a less-than-desirable daycare, no dad in her life, and a frantic mother who has very little time for her. The rest of the family tries to help...we love the little girl, but I still wish my cousin had waited to have a baby.

Rubbers are free at public schools go ask the nurse!

Give your sons and daughters 10$ and show them the condom rack at CVS.

Planned parent hood gives out free/low cost pills if over 18 I think.

Teach your daughters/sons to be responsible and yes actually parent them, this is easier to do if you are MARRIED! Start by taking away their TV!

None of this matters b/c kids have been trained by the liberal media MTV that teen moms is a way to a successful actress job on a hit reality series.

Pregos means a govt pay check and goody- child support for 18 years if i trap the right guy.

The liberals and the media-TV they use to buy votes for self serving reasons has caused this progression.

Nice job!

Lost in the Pine Barrens really does not live in New Jersey, but in a part of KY or WVa that has been accidentally placed within the confines of Jersey. You may be "in" NJ, but you are not "of" NJ.

I'm really tired of people blaming the "libs" (definition, please?) for women and men not taking responsibility for their own actions. I was 13 when I finally found out what goes on sexually between a woman and a man - my mom was scared to tell me! This was back in the early 60's. At 18, when I was in a serious relationship with my high school sweetheart, I asked my doctor for birth control pills (my mom didn't know about it until she saw the doctor's bill - stupid mail!). I was on birth control pills to prevent myself from becoming pregnant, as I didn't want to have a baby before getting married. Out of wedlock babies were taboo in our family, even though, shotgun weddings were fairly popular. Seven years into our marriage, we finally decided to have a baby. After having taken birth control pills for so long, I didn't think I would get pregnant for awhile. Wrong! After two months, I was pregnant and eventually gave birth to a healthy son. Apparently, I came though the "summer of love" and liberal 60's period unscathed. I was a bit of a liberal feminist and hippie at the time. Oh, and guess what? I think I may be a liberal!

I don't understand why any young woman would want to get pregnant without the love and support of the man who helped her get that way. It's much more difficult to support the baby, both emotionally and financially, without the help of your partner. Birth control is widely available, so there really is no excuse to "find yourself pregnant" in this day and age. It seems like women are going backward, instead of forward. Babies are not just cute little things to dress up and play with. You will suffer from sleep deprivation (a lot, sometimes), they get sick and take up a lot of time. They eventually grow up with real feelings, real problems and attitudes and require even more time throughout the years. You will have to take care of your child for at least 18 years, maybe more, and you will never be cured of the worries and troubles of being a mother. With a partner to support you, you get not only, a great father to your child, but a big supporter of YOU, your dreams and wishes.

Sometimes...you just can't do this all by yourself. With government assistance, you only become another cog in the wheel with no sense of self or the satisfaction of raising a productive human being. You're just struggling and getting by.

My husband and I have been married for 38 years and when the kids are grown, you'll still need the same love and support as you get older. Best of all, you'll still have your best friend when you need him.

first for granny you said you were the sole support of 2 children but then say others do not support their own. I and many others do. second since the mid-eighties unprotected sex has been a contributing factor to AIDs and still the younger generation doesn't use condoms the only preventative measure that works. So we give them pills so they can be promiscious and then we cover the increase in STDs of all kinds and that's somehow better than asking them to use self-restraint. In whose world some of the STDs contribute to vaginal scarring and uterine cancer,and also blindness and birth defects when the pill doesn't work, but BC is somehow supposed to be for womens health.

lonereb - I agree with you about condoms, but STDs have been around for centuries and will never go away as long as people have unprotected sex. Abstinence is a joke and birth control is the only way to prevent pregnancy. Condoms only prevent pregnancy if they are used and don't break. Many men feel that condoms don't provide that full contact arousal and will not use them. The only way, then, for a woman to keep from getting pregnant is to take birth control and common sense when selecting a partner.

I wish abstinence worked, but it simply doesn't. Many teenagers think that STDs occur rarely and will never happen to them, no matter how many educational films they see or how much the information is disseminated.

It's important that parents give as much information as they can to their teens so they understand the options they have, as well as the consequences of what could happen when they have unprotected sex. Unfortunately, like my mom who was afraid to tell me anything when I was young, many teens are still left in the dark about something that will affect them for the rest of their lives.

lostinthe pines------were you ever young? do you remember being a teenager about to get lucky-are you suggesting that at that moment you would extinguish the passion and think ''this is not responsible behavior.'' ya right!

Ah - so that's why you think that all humans have the mental capacity of an unspayed female cat. Thanks for setting the bar so low.

Yes, in fact, I have been a teenager and I have walked away from such moments, when I thought twice and realized that sex in this particular circumstance was a really stupid thing that I was going to regret in the morning (and perhaps for a very long time thereafter). Normal parents used to teach their kids stuff like this, but I suppose that's old-fashioned. I expect six-year-olds to have better impulse control than you're suggesting.

I do agree in principal with what Granny says. Think about it... our society is so sexually charged no doubt from centuries of sexual repression. Our society doesn't know how to deal with sexual expression and our kids suffer. The by product is sex without understanding fully the consequences. Even in the day when you have sensationalized teen pregnancy reality shows kids and young adults must have access to <stuff> for things previous generations wouldn't even think about doing outside of marraige. I'm sorry, parenting and schooling are responsible for this to some degree - the values of patience and respect and of love. Without them young people will seek what they are missing out of their home and end up fallling prey to one of natures cruelest jokes. Thanks to republican theocracy, they would have the children have these children that they can't care for and thanks to democrats and their social policies we have to support their policies with hard earned tax dollars.

Wow, some of the comments on here make me sick. So women need to keep their legs closed, but men don't need to keep their pants on? MEN are to blame as much as women, you archaic jerks! Not only that, but I know more healthy, long term relationships, with children involved, then marriages.

Lone ... its great that you're so sufficient. But, do you realize how incredibly inefficient that it would be for everyone to pay for their own electric poles, develop their own power plants, pave their own roads, etc? We'd tie up the GNP providing personal infrastructure rather than leveraging the economies of scale. We live in a society for a reason.

By the way, do you pay for your own aircraft carriers, too?

We live in a society for a reason.

Yes BarryNJ...we do and just look at all the wonderful things that has brought us..just look at the topic of this conversation.

By the way, do you pay for your own aircraft carriers, too?

No Barry but my taxes do and they also help subsidize several of the cities in NJ.

And Barry...it is Lost not Lone, Try a little reading comprehension

Jerry G, EIC amounts to a couple thousand dollars a year. It makes a little difference, but no one is actually "supporting themselves" with the EIC. The purpose of the credit is an incentive for people to keep working rather than go on welfare programs.

I don't understand how people think that a single mom with a low-paying job is somehow living the high life. And I don't get why people are so mean about it.

And such short-sighted comments fail to project what happens next. What happens when a single mother has even less money, driving her family deeper into poverty? That's when we hear about (for example) mothers who leave their children in the care of underage cousins so that they can work to make an offensively low wage, resulting in those cousins losing their opportunity to benefit from educational opportunities, and resulting in tragic consequences when the inexperience and/or immaturity of the underage cousin results in harm to the children.

The solution to the ills you see in society isn't to make things worse, but to make things better. Why do so many refuse to acknowledge even such basic logic?

Excuse me, but Jay does know what he is speaking about. If you would take a minute and respond instead of reacting you may understand. Think then speak, not speak and then think.

JayEll: EIC = "a few thousand a year"??? Maybe for those whose income is higher, but there are a lot of single mothers out there (which is what I'm referring to) who might earn a thousand a month, end up collecting between state and fed returns, 6-8k. Tack that on to their monthly income, along with SNAP, HEAP, EHEAP, Medicaide, child care, and Housing assistance and they are living a good life on my dime because of their irresponsibility.

add up the freebies and many POOR women are making more than the poor sap forced to hand over 40% of his income to support his children,while the freebies aren't even considered income for POOR welfare mommy

Excuse me for stating the obvious Michael. If the poor sap does not want to pay to support his child, then I suggest he take custody of his child and raise it himself. There. Problem solved.

truettcollins-----society in general did not create the problem of unplanned for pregnancy. but society has to deal with it----we can chose to demand responsible sexual behavior or pay the consequences or we can provide a means of prevention. i approach this problem with a common sense approach with no moral judgment ---society would benefit by preventing teen pregnancies. my comparison to free clinics for polio innoculations (previous post) is meant to illustrate that society provides services for public health and this should be one of them. i think we all know that the party objecting to providing birth control is driven by a political faction. preventing unwanted pregnancies is beneficial to all concerned.

i did get custody of my children,worked for a living to supprt them and never got a dime of state aid. OH, Thats right thats what dads are expected to do,SUPPORT their children

What ever happened to putting an unplanned child up for adoption? oh thats right why do that when we the tax payer will pay for everything you could ever want if you screw up. if we limited the aid that was available single parenthood would look a lot less attractive and adoption would look a lot better. i know there are thousands of kids in the system but not everyone want to deal with a traumatized older child who isnt the same race as them. infants go quick, we have far more homes for infants than infants available for adoption- i would bet that most of the older kids in they system would never have gotten to that point if adoption was a better option while they were infants than riding government bennies until the state takes them from neglect. as long as we reward people for making poor choices they will keep making poor choices either to get pregnant or keep a child they really cannot raise.

What ever happened to putting an unplanned child up for adoption?

As of the last annual report, 662,000 children are in the system, over 100,000 of them are actively waiting to be adopted. Less than all children awaiting adoption each year are adopted. [Source: HHS.] Putting children up for adoption doesn't seem to be working in this country - because too few people are willing to put producing their own offspring above providing a loving home for the children already born who need a home.

momgam

" If the poor sap does not want to pay to support his child, then I suggest he take custody of his child and raise it himself."

If a woman decides to have a child and remain unwed then she is deciding to go it ALONE. She can't have her cake and eat it to although that would really help in the free ride.

What mom is going to give up custody, uh i mean their meal ticket?

Then the dad can get child support from the mom right? Well I bet NOT!

The men I know in divorce would love to have full custody.

Michael the money for child support legally is the property of the child, not the mother and why should you play then not pay it is YOUR child too. And I do know women who pay child support if the father has custody. Just see how far your childs mother would get in my state telling the attorney general to drop the child support case. His answer would be it is the child's case not yours.

Who gets to spend the money?

truettcollins-----society in general did not create the problem of unplanned for pregnancy. but society has to deal with it----we can chose to demand responsible sexual behavior or pay the consequences or we can provide a means of prevention. i approach this problem with a common sense approach with no moral judgment ---society would benefit by preventing teen pregnancies. my comparison to free clinics for polio innoculations (previous post) is meant to illustrate that society provides services for public health and this should be one of them. i think we all know that the party objecting to providing birth control is driven by a political faction. preventing unwanted pregnancies is beneficial to all concerned.

Granny, I think the key to this issue is exactly what you said: common sense. It makes no sense whatsoever for society as a whole to have to pay for the upkeep of children whose parents are too irresponsible to support them...so let's make birth control readily available and at low cost to those who want to use it.

Why are the Republicans trying to take away access to contraception and abortion, and yet at the same time are unwilling to help the children that result from unplanned pregnancy? It's nonsense...political spin masquerading as religion and morality.

I take great offense to your comment...I found myself with 3 children, NOT my choice or plan and I alone supported us. It was not easy, at one point I worked a full time and 2 part time jobs...not every single mom is on public aid, housing or looking for a bread winner.

What mom is going to give up custody, uh i mean their meal ticket?

What are you suggesting?

Don't blame only the men. They have been disenfranchised , castrated, and infantilized.

The NOW movement, (I don't call it the women's movement because it's real agenda was to use women to weaken American society), denigrated men and their roles until today children are trained almost from birth to think of men as stupid, juvenile, inept, and superfluous. Don't believe me? Watch any commercial on children's programming that features a dad. You'll see what children are taught about fathers.

No one is willing to take responsibility without authority or respect.

Cassie321, I don't think you can blame the NOW movement for that. Don't you see through the media manipulation? Feminists aren't doing that--the media are. And really, it's more likely a male plot. Have you watched those ads in which a man plays dumb while putting something over on a woman? Or he outright lies to a woman so he can keep playing with the boys? It's not women who are writing those ads. It's to a man's advantage to be seen as inept, because then he gets out of all those "women's chores" like laundry, cleaning, doing dishes, and so on. I agree with you that men need to "man up," but that doesn't mean more beer and NASCAR.

What an incredibly self-serving rationalization for inexcusable behavior. Uplifting others shouldn't be perceived, either internally or externally, as downgrading of one's self. That kind of "I should be treated X% better than someone else" mentality is egocentric and damaging to society overall.

Yes, absentee fathers are indeed to blame, along with all the other blameworthy agents. Society fosters this ill by failing to vigorously enforce obligations onto absentee fathers, using progressively more draconian approaches as the fathers continue to evade their obligations. Society gives up too easily in this regard.

To be fair, it isn't the whole answer, and isn't really even a big part of the answer, since you cannot get blood from a stone. In the end, a decision needs to be made whether this life of abject poverty and relegation to what is essentially a poverty caste in society is what the woman wants for her family. If not, it serves her best interests, the would-be absentee father's best interest, and society's best interest to give the woman every tool our society has at its disposal to prevent the pregnancy in the first place.

JayEll--

I don't think you can blame the NOW movement for that. Don't you see through the media manipulation? Feminists aren't doing that--the media are

I grew up in the 50s and 60s. Telling that to provide some context to my remarks. I was in on that NOW stuff.

Labels are the problem in discussing women's rights. NOW was never about "feminism" if by feminism you mean the fight for equality for and empowerment of women. NOW never gave a rat's you-know-what about women. It was, from its inception, a political strategy for destroying America. Oh yeah. No, I don't wear tin-foil hats. I'm not even a conspiratist. I was there. I attended the meetings. I listened to the propaganda and I saw first-hand how they treated women.

There were a handful of women in power, and all other women either toed-the-line at a level of submissiveness that would make bin Laden blush, or they were thrown out of the organization.

The women in power were all about taking over the political process. Some were more careful than others about how they verbalized their plans, but the highlights included men being totally disempowered and children being raised in institutions run and staffed entirely by women so that they would be taught the "right" values.

Would you say they succeeded?

Have you watched those ads in which a man plays dumb while putting something over on a woman? Or he outright lies to a woman so he can keep playing with the boys?

Yes, I've seen them. Now ask yourself what the sub-text is.

The woman is an adult with responsibility and authority. The man is a little boy lying to mommy so he can play with the other children.

granny22, thanks for demonstrating your complete ignorance about what conservatives want or believe in. Talk about narrow minded, you take the cake.

betterrightthan wrong---rubbish!!

Cassie: Women's equality "destroying America"??? Oh my, these topics do bring out the Neanderthals. Perhaps you and a few posters here could take up a collection and start a "bring in the Burkas" society? There's a few Presidential candidates that I'm sure you could get behind.

Fathers have been walking out on their children since time began. Married or not just find out how many deadbeat dads are on the IRS list for their refunds to go to the mothers or the states that are supporting their children. Don't want to be a daddy make sure you use the birth control don't put it on her. I believe in equal rights in the workplace for the simple reason that it gives women the ability to walk out of abusive relationships. How many of you loudmouth men on here believe a woman should stay home and pander to your wishes? How many don't carry their responsibilities but still say women should respect them because they were born with external plumbing? Want that respect then live up to your side of the social contract pay ALL the rent, utilities, food and clothing bills for the household.

Cassie - The reason why women are put in a more positive light by the media is primarily to sell their products. Even with the effect of NOW - yeah, I grew up in the 50s & 60s, too - women still do the majority of housework and child-rearing. There's a reason why women are pushed to have the cleanest house in the neighborhood and the yummiest meals on the planet and that reason is product sales! This is the same reason why men are featured primarily in beer and truck commercials - to make them more manly by buying their product.

This is nothing new. I guess you never saw the 50s & 60s commercials where women in dresses, high heels and pearls did housework and were absolutely giddy over a new refrigerator, stove or TV dinners. Women do the majority of buying in this country, which is why most commercials are geared to them. That's all. No hidden agenda, except to push sales to the consumer. And who are in the majority where CEOs are concerned for most of these companies? Yep, you guessed it - men.

You sound like a bitter old man who, unfortunately, got screwed over by your ex. Do not think that your situation applies to all men and women across this country and that NOW is the culprit here. You're really grasping at the proverbial straw here.

@lonereb There are plenty of deadbeat mothers out there too, my ex-wife is a prime example of one.

George you know that kids had out of wedlock does not automatically mean they are going to be raised by only one parent right? Many couples actually live together. Marriage really has no meaning anymore in modern society, it is just a title and is definitely not a luxury good; it actually defies the label because if it was a luxury good people would be clambering to buy it, an idea the article says is wrong. All marriage gets you these days is special tax benefits.

Married couples are not magically better at raising a child, that is a myth or a lie; not sure which is more fitting. Good parent(s) will raise good children while bad parent(s) will raise bad children. There may be some wiggle room for kids that are illogically bad in a good family or vise versa but that is generally what it boils down to.

Had not thought of it like that, but the righties will always start a war somewhere............

Just like a lefty to blame the U.S.A. for starting a war.

WASHINGTON CNN From the Oval Office, President Clinton told the nation Wednesday evening why he ordered new military strikes against Iraq...

The president said Iraqs refusal to cooperate with U.N. weapons inspectors presented a threat to the entire world.

Saddam Hussein must not be allowed to threaten his neighbors or the world with nuclear arms, poison gas or biological weapons, Clinton said.

Operation Desert Fox, a strong, sustained series of attacks, will be carried out over several days by U.S. and British forces, Clinton said. - CNN News, Dec, 1998

Funny how Dems can't remember this stuff.

Yeah, cause we all know the Iraq and Afghanistan war were started by democrats...oh wait. Funny how Repubs can't remember that stuff (you know..the fellow who must not be named?)

"insuring"? No, it is not like Geico, it is ENSURING. GOP likes are the ignorants then? Save the gross generalizations.

Thousands of men are out there, who have gotten left with a huge alimony/child support bill, that leaves them living like rats in a slum, yet have no rights and half the time cant even get regular visitation to see the kids.

Men have been ordered to pay child support for children that they did father.

You could not pay me to marry with the current laws as they are. Not a chance in hell.

I don't blame you, but just be sure that YOU control the birth control. There are still women out there who get pregnant to hold on to a man or to force marriage. I personally know a young woman who has pulled this stunt twice, with two different men, and two disastrous marriages, both times claiming her birth control didn't work.

FYI, birth control very rarely fails. So rarely that if a woman says it did, you're safe to call her a liar to her face.

Most courts will award child support even if you aren't married. Don't get a woman pregnant if you don't want a child.

Birth control very rarely fails? What kind of birth control are you thinking of? If you mean, men wearing a condom every time, we all know how successful that is. And condoms do fail.

Fortunately these days DNA testing proves paternity, so no one needs to be "tricked" into being called a father if they didn't do the deed. But I agree that MEN need to be responsible for birth control if they don't want to become fathers.

Men seem to always walk away from the responsibility of raising a child so easily when there is no marriage. I see why the young people of today choose not to marry. Over half of them are products of divorce since over half of all marriages end in divorce. But the commitment of raising a child has been diluted. The women get the titles like single mom or welfare queen while the men only get stuck with paying a pitence so they can continue on their merry way. I agree with your statement "Don't get a woman pregnant if you don't want a child.", but if you do get her pregnant then you better be willing to be a parent not just a monthly check.

Birth control very rarely fails? What kind of birth control are you thinking of?

An IUD is effective more than 99% of the time. Pills are effective more than 90% of the time. Combination pills and foam is so effective that there's nothing more to talk about.

However, condoms are effective only about 75% of the time. If you want to control the situation, use a condom and contraceptive foam. Learn how to apply the foam properly and apply it yourself--which could be fun, I think. ;)

Im not against child support. Im against the courts leaving a man with barely enough to live on, and putting ALL the responsibility for support on the man. It takes two to tango. And support should be shared equally. A man should not have to pay a dime more than what the woman can pay equally. If she cant afford to pay half, she shouldn't have gotten pregnant.

And the man has little control over birth control, especially if the woman lies about being on it, or goes out of her way to get pregnant. And he has no say over whether there's an abortion or not. Whether he wants the child, or doesn't want it. He gets no say whatsoever. But he sure gets all the responsibilities and bills though, doesn't he.

Ive had women pull the condom off the floor when she thought I wasn't paying attention, an put its contents you know where, trying to get pregnant. For the very reason its an instant free ride at my expense. That's why I flush them now. I don't trust any woman anymore.

There are millions of divorced men out there whos lives have been ruined by the courts and the current laws. They get all the responsibility, and get nothing in return for it. There are thousand of stories of men who get 75-80% of their wages taken for child support, and left with minimum wage to live on. If that.

Its not surprising in the least that men have little interest in marriage anymore.

Thousands of men are out there, who have gotten left with a huge alimony/child support bill, that leaves them living like rats in a slum, yet have no rights and half the time cant even get regular visitation to see the kids. -Freedom4Everyone

This is what grandpa meant when he said uphill both ways against the wind in the snow.

Grandpa did it. Dad did it. I am doing it. No, it's not the easiest way to do it, coping with divorce is brutal, because as a father I initially wanted to PROVE that I care, but years have taught me that it's the little things now that they grow older.

I am a tree. You can lean on me, sleep under my branches, I will shelter you from the sun. But I am immobile, fixed position and flex only so far before breaking.

As always, 'defining the limits' for children so we all know what to expect.

7 years after separation, 5 years after disolution, I found someone I've known for 25 years. She was there all along... (pauses) and now helps me be 'there' for my kids.

As much as I thought that my wife had it all wrong, she was right. We did need a divorce.

-Much happier Jim.

Freedom, don't take it personally that I'm having a little fun at your expense, but you know that 'he' doesn't get all the responsibilities and the bill. At most he gets 1/2 the responsibilities and most of the bill - unless, I suppose- she abandons him with the child. And if a hot babe came to my house and the floor was littered with used condoms, I would think her reaction would be to run screaming for the door...

i think the point in the draconian measures against men in divorce was to prevent men from walking out on their family. if your kids need to go on state aid because you dont think your wife is hot anymore, you were criticized (the horror) or you think daddy duty is boring you should be penalized, they are your kids not mine. BUT this has not worked it encourages men to not marry, they still walk out but hide income so I still pay to raise their kids for childish reasons and now it looks like an easy target for women to walk out of the marriage- why not? they get a big check from him, her income, boytoys income (if he has one) bennies and nothing bad happens and she can do it over and over.

James: You're really sick, but this isn't about your inability to get a female to come within 100 yards of you.

Alimony and child support are two different things legally. She gets remarried the alimony stops but the child support is the right of the child that goes until they reach 18 unless they go to college then often it continues to 22. You had the fun dude now pay the bill it's your kid not mine. There are no illegitamte kids only illegitamate parents.

@Cassie321 - we're straying a bit off topic, but I am curious why you would post your birth control method effectiveness numbers in an apparent attempt to support the argument that if people used birth control there would not be significant numbers of unwanted pregnancies. Your statistics suggest the opposite. A 1% failure rate is actually fairly poor, and I consider 10% (let alone 25%) disastrous. Would you call an air traffic safety system that allows 1 out of every 100 flights to end with the airplane falling out of the sky effective? You yourself seem sufficiently concerned about the effectiveness of any given method to advocate using multiple methods. So how can you defend your claim that "birth control very rarely fails"?

Jay, the pill is 99% effective. Using the pill and wearing a condom gets you to over 100% protection unless the planets are aligned. The reason the pill "fails" is because women forget to take it sometimes, resulting in a false positive for a birth while on the pill to people who make studies that do not ask if they forgot to take it.

I do not know about you but I do not know many people out side of horses that could burst a condom, unless you mean not wearing one at all. They guys that refuse to wear a condom are just selfish prigs that probably do not deserve the honor of sleeping with women. I chalk that up to idiocy not a failure of the product.

But it is true that there can be failures, which is why relying on only one form of BC is also idiocy. Double cover and you can be reasonably sure that you will be safe.. If not there is always the Morning After pill to be triplely sure.

JamesBuchanan

I call it like I see it, the best birth control is the back of her throat. As for the court issues limiting men's interest in marriage, its the worry about what the dumb bitch will do with the money once she has it. I got lucky that my mother was pretty responsible with the child support money she got from my father. I have heard some horror stories, though.

I'm afraid that you are no Prince Charming, James. With that negative attitude, you are liable to experience major difficulty in all your relationships with women, unless you get counseling to understand your issues. Good luck to you, and don't have any kids until you've worked through it.

@Geowill: "Jay, the pill is 99% effective. Using the pill and wearing a condom gets you to over 100% protection unless the planets are aligned."

Let me guess, math wasn't your best subject?

"If not there is always the Morning After pill to be triplely sure."

You are an idiot. The morning after pill is just a higher dose of regular birth control pills. If a woman is already on BCP, the MAP doesn't add any protection.

As the article mentions, welfare benefits were cut and regulated more closely. What happened? Out-of-wedlock births went up even more. This seems to contradict your Newt Gingrichesque stereotype from the 1960s.

Hateful people, its always somebody else fault. Maybe you should stop worrying about what other people think and start worrying about what you think.

Well cherokee keep it zipped in Texas because here the state will go after every bit of income you get SS, tribal benfits anything, tax refund you name it. And if you are behind when your kid turns 22 they will still go after you for the back payments. They caught my ex when my kid was 27. He paid till the day he died.

I'm not a big Obama fan, but I hate to say this but the problem exsisted long before Obama took office. I know some will moan at this, but there is something to say about morality. Aside from the regilous side of it we are now seeing the pracitcal side of morality. How many programs today would need to be cut if we didn't have to pay out for all those welfare and food stamp programs to those single mothers out there who can't or won't get a job. To those few minority of women who do make on your own look at the children, many are have numerous social problems that still cost us many years down the road. What we have here are generations of the young that were not taught one thing how to take responcibility for ones own actions, this is particularly true of the men who treat sex like gunslingers of the old west just how many notches in the ole gun can they get before they get caught.

according to the administration, the jobs have returned. are they just to demeaning to fit your sytatus.

If you think living on a social program is desirable, you are an idiot.

Then why do so many people do it for generations?

I believe in appropriate social support programs. A single mother without education and no way to support her family needs social support for three years.

That support should include:

1. Enough money to put a safe and decent roof over her head--which should be paid directly to the landlord.

2. Day care for the child--which should be paid directly to the care provider.

3. Food stamps--which should be issued to an individual who should have to show ID when using them and should show where they were used.

4. Health care.

5. Mad money, because no one can live without some.

6. Enrollment in approved vocational training with maximum 2-year graduation. Approval should depend on the training qualifying the graduate for a job that pays at least double the poverty rate. Failure to attend or maintain a passing grade should result in all support being stopped within 30 days.

7. If the applicant doesn't have a high school diploma, they should get probationary support for 6 months contingent on getting a GED during that time.

There is no reason for our society to fail to give support to those who need and deserve it. We can afford it. But there is also no reason that the support cannot be rational so that lazy bums don't play the system. We can't afford that because not only does it cost a fortune, but the children are too often turned into the dregs of society.

Welfare benefits never make ends meet. They are a stopgap at best.

Above all, let's clamp down tighter on access to birth control and abortion. Let's stop sex education, because if they don't know, they won't do it. And, let's hate women even more and ignore what is happening to unwanted children.

Sarcasm noted, and the underlying message appreciated.

All you people whining about social programs. Create some jobs and people will work. If you think living on a social program is desirable, you are an idiot.

Create your own jobs, I am self employed, I go out and find work almost everyday, I do not think it is my responsibility to create a job for you, You have the same opportunities in this country as I have.

Your expectation that everyone must have precisely the same gifts from God that you have is myopic and unreasonable.

So WaltUU, What you are saying is that all men are not created equal, You are saying that some are better than others are, You are saying that because I worked hard my whole life,Scrimped,saved and did not start my family until after I was married and could afford them that I am superior to those who did not...Well they were your words just remember that.

Mty expectation is that everyone should take responsibility for their own actions.

because you are assigning that motive to someone doesnt make it true. you are intellectually dishonest and resorting to a straw man argument there that attacks a person's motive

No, I'm not. The previous poster espoused the directive to others to go out and do exactly what he did. In doing so he unequivocally placed expectations on others to be exactly as he is, since that is the only thing that would justify his directive.

Pay more attention to the thread of the discussion.

So WaltUU, What you are saying is that all men are not created equal

False. All are created equal in the eyes of God. All do not have the same gifts - the same capabilities to exploit the same opportunities in the same ways with the same results.

You are saying that some are better than others are

Having the ability to better exploit society crafted to some extent your benefit doesn't make you a better person. That's actually one of the biggest problems with right-wingers, their presumption that affluence implies that someone is a better person when in reality we are all equal in God's eyes.

You are saying that because I worked hard my whole life,Scrimped,saved and did not start my family until after I was maried and could afford them that I am superior to those who did not

No, you're just demonstrating the immoral nature of your perspective by making stuff up to argue against instead of trying to argue against what I actually did write.

I know many people who have worked harder than I have, scrimped and saved far more consistently than I have, that started their family late in life and some not at all, and yet still live in poverty, while I do not. Blinding yourself to the reality of inequity in society doesn't make your position more valid; it just makes it a reflection of denial of reality.

Well they were your words just remember that.

That's just the thing, though. They weren't my words. It was all just crap that you made up because you couldn't defend your perspective against my repudiation of it.

My words were these:

Your expectation that everyone must have precisely the same gifts from God that you have is myopic and unreasonable.

Live with it, and with the stain of having been called-out on the dishonesty of your contentions about what I wrote.

No, you're just demonstrating the immoral nature of your perspective by making stuff up to argue against instead of trying to argue against what I actually did write.

You are the one advocating that having sex and children out of wedlock is moral and you have the audacity to call me immoral.

Live with it, and with the stain of having been called-out on the dishonesty of your contentions about what I wrote.

I live with the knowledge that I worked hard to make something of myself and despite all the immorality and depravity that is going on in this world that I will not be drug down and succumb to it. That is the reality I live with. This has nothing to do with being affluent or being intellectually or physically superior to anyone, It has to do with the will to want to control my own destiny.

give it up; you're making a fool of yourself.

In other words you have no rational rebuttal so you figure that a vacuous attack like this is going to make up for the indefensibility of the perspective you support.

the long the rant generally the weaker the argument.

It wasn't a rant. It was a very deliberate repudiation of what you wrote. And it presented a very strong case for the immorality of what you were supporting. Live with it. If you don't care to or cannot pay attention for more than a split second to something you're discussing then don't engage in a discussion.

all you are doing is deluding yourself and contorting logic

Apparently all you can post now are messages that are nothing but evasion and self-congratulatory nonsense.

You are the one advocating that having sex and children out of wedlock is moral

No I'm not. You just made that up because you didn't have a legitimate rebuttal to what I wrote. When you have to resort to making up things to argue against, it is pretty clear that you realize you don't have anything legitimate to say.

and you have the audacity to call me immoral.

To be very clear, I don't know you. I don't know if you're a moral person or an immoral person. You could just be posting stuff you don't believe just to be pulling people's leg. I had "the audacity" to characterize what you wrote as immoral - I sure did - because what you wrote does advocate an immoral perspective. I am holding you to account for what you support, when what you support is morally offensive.

I live with the knowledge that I worked hard to make something of myself and despite all the immorality and depravity that is going on in this world that I will not be drug down and succumb to it.

Good for you. The same applies to me. And the same applies to many people who by your advocacy you seek to denigrate.

if state aid is so bad they why do i know 3 families that keep an able bodied parent at home with no job? they would lose some of their benefits if the other worked is why, plus they feel a stay at home parent is best( which it is )but not at my expense. why are none of them taking advantage of the free college they could be getting? why does one turn down raises to avoid losing bennies? people should be getting pissed that they cannot have the stay at home parent they desperately desire despite both parents working and saving while welfare queens can choose to do this since we all pick up the tab. I do agree the we need higher paying jobs- no one should be able to work a full time job and not make enough to support themselves- if they can't and we pick up the tab its another form of corporate welfare. they say they cannot pay a living wage but employ people anyway and we pay the difference via government benefits to dependent families.

Cassie I don't know what cave you've been in for the last 20 years, but in almost all states food stamps and most other welfare is given as a debit card. It has limits on what you can take out for things other than food and cash registers in most stores won't accept payment by that card for anything not allowable under food stamps. It was done to keep people from buying small things with the paper stamps to get change to buy things not on the list.

Bodi,

not everyone is a selfish idiot. Some people still believe that you have to work for what you earn. The right just does not think that the left has this level of standard and they are wrong. I say this because I know many Democrats that work and work hard for what they have and I know many Republicans that are leeches on their friends, family, and neighbors. Both sides have the same kind of people; the ones that refuse to acknowledge that they are not morally and ethically superior are the main problem with this country.

We get rid of those self-righteous idiots and we can get some real work done instead of arguing about how social programs are how the devil get's inside of you.

lonereb--

I don't know what cave you've been in for the last 20 years, but in almost all states food stamps and most other welfare is given as a debit card. It has limits on what you can take out for things other than food and cash registers in most stores won't accept payment by that card for anything not allowable under food stamps. It was done to keep people from buying small things with the paper stamps to get change to buy things not on the list.

Oh, blame it on my misspent youth in which I was acquainted with lowlifes who sold their food stamps. But you're right--now they sell their debit cards.

We're not talking about loose change here. We're talking about the fact that anyone can use the debit card, not just the person it was issued to.

And don't be rude to me. You can disagree without denigrating me. Behave like an adult if you want to interact with me. I overlook that sort of thing if it's a high-emotion issue, but otherwise it's two strikes and you're on the ignore list.

we should be jerking the babies of welfare queens away at birth, if they cannot figure out birth control/ adoption/ abortion/ abstinence while taking my money to support the kids they already had, they do not need nor should they keep any further additions they bring into the world. infants have an almost 100% placement rate (except special needs) take them from those that will not support them and give them to families that can and desperately want to support and raise them properly. hell at least adoptive parents are thoroughly vetted while birth families are a grab bag at best.

im sure ill get plenty of how dare yous and whining but i for one do not want children starving in the streets or ending up in foster care anyway 6 years down the road nor do i think penalizing the productive is gonna work. we do not have the money to endlessly fund people poor choices and stupidity. taking the children away is the best option i can think of unless you like forced abortions or forced sterilization.

What moral system? Morals are dictated by society, not by religion or by law. The morals of law are actually dictated in part by society and our constitutional rights. If you mean "religious" morals that say that x type of people are less equal then other types of people I say it cannot happen fast enough.

I am tired of seeing the Homosexuals getting beaten down and denied the rights to what they deserve no more then what straight couples deserve. I am tired of seeing Muslims getting bashed on incessantly by those same groups. People are people, religion is irrelevant because almost no one follows their religion to the letter. The ones that do follow it to the letter are the fanatics like the West-borough Baptist Church and the Taliban. Non-fanatic Muslims are like non-fanatic Christians, they are just normal people irking their life out of everyday society.

The only difference is the climate has skewed their vision of the World, but living in an area where you are likely to get shot for expressing yourself will do that to anyone. The Middle East, up until last year, was the perfect template for gauging how apathy effects those that are submissive toward control freaks.

Anyway that got a small bit off topic. The sooner people realize that what religion you practices does not make you better then someone who does not the better off the World will be for it. Those that think that are some how morally superior for believing in a religion are the ones that drag society down by claiming anyone who doesn't is less entitled to the same benefits as those that are.

Morals are a personal and social thing. There are some morals you cannot force onto others. There are some that society forces on to you for your personal approval or rejection. There are still others that are extremely personal that you cannot force even on to your own kids. Morals are not cut, dry, and cemented into society, they evolve, like everything else, with the times.

Holy crap! Is that the next Einstein?

Yeah, I'm sure women live below the poverty line because they love all the financial rewards they get from it. I know when I need more money, the first thing I think about is going on welfare. Anyone that thinks being poor is some sort of extended vacation, has never been poor.

gramps: They're just not making old angry white uneducated men like they used to...Where else could we go to be entertained like this by the absurd rantings about all the "free benefits" of poverty?? What a country!

How many of you would put up with housing inspectors coming into your house and telling you where you can put your furniture just to save $100 on your rent? They also have the right to check if you might have drugs so they can go through your things to do it. My neighbor is eligible for section 8 but he won't apply because of the intrusions into his life.

Actually, Bodividedus3 is right. Having worked at a bank years ago, there were many women/customers who deliberately "timed" their children in order to stay on welfare. Disgusting...couldn't actually prove it, but they always called to make sure their social security and other checks were going to beon time. Such irony - I was working, to pay taxes so I could support these people. Only in our society. And it continues.

The other problem is you pay higher taxes if you are married. 2 single people living together pay less taxes than 2 married people in the same type of household. And they should get married to have the priveledge of paying higher taxes? They aren't that stupid. Any man who has sex should then pony up the money to support the child. Since the beginning of time man+woman = child.

LG you moron it is the demos and obama that have made this horrible rate rise to much. To them it is a new voting block that they can control via more and more welfare and free crap. The young anymore are almost too damn lazy to wipe their own butts. Get real ya idiot.

Maxie you are seriously delusional,,,hate can do that..

Maxie: LOL! A "new voting block"?? How does that work exactly? Children born out of wedlock will come back in 18 years and vote for who exactly? Thank HEAVENS we never had out of wedlock births in George Bush's years!! Whew. (That tin foil hat of yours needs a little loosening.)

Sorry the rate has been on the rise consistently since the end of WW II regardless of who was in office. Try checking the statistics for the last 70 years. Before WW II two parent households were the norm. Divorce rate was very,very low. After WW II the divorce rate and the illigitamcy rate have been on a constant rise. We have had presidents and congressional majorities of both parties and it didn't change. Society changed during WW II. Unfortunatly all of you in both parties would rather spout @!$%# than study the trends. I'm glad I'm an independent and can actually think for myself instead of spouting party bull.

The question now is, how do we as a society change direction?

Yes, that is indeed the question.

Some possible answers: Start with education about contraception and STDs, as well as information about the real-life negative consequences of having children before you're an adult, educated and fully employed.

Make sure your kids know how you feel about teenage pregnancy. Set a good example with your own behavior.

Help workers get the skills they need for sustainable jobs, with affordable technical education and training.

Require extended family to help financially. I think a lot more irresponsible kids would be more careful about contraception if their parents made it clear to them how they felt about being required by law to support their illegitimate grandchildren.

De-romanticize the culture of having a baby alone. Celebs should not be role models when they don't live like the rest of us do. Celebs who are good role models should promote intact families.

Reform the welfare system and put more muscle behind collecting from deadbeat parents.

Help in your community. The kids who don't have two parents need people who care about kids to volunteer at schools and organizations that support children.

What a bunch of right-wing B.S! BKER1492 has no basis for any of his assertions. Sounds like he's parroting another Limbaugh sermon.

Oh Puhleeez! Stop it with the evil liberal crap already! Any major decisions that affect this Nation have usually been made by conservatives and liberals together- to include welfare and various other programs and policies.

This particular subject, unwed mothers, has been with the American people since the pilgrims first stepped foot on this continent. In our earliest settlements up to 3/4 of the births happened out of wedlock at times. Puritans? NOT! Poor academic performance is more than it just being cool. It is the result of a school system and home life that doesn't require the children to rise to challenges. Blaming it on "liberals" is a tremendous cop-out as liberals don't control what every parent may require of their children academically in their own homes. Parents can demand book reports, papers and other academic work of their children on their very own- school not needed and no "liberals" involved. But what do YOU do? Whine about liberal this, liberal that. Conservative parents raise just as many irresponsible loser kids as anyone else- children who have had everything handed to them and are still children the day they gain their majority, looking for a free handout wherever they can get one even if it means mooching off an unwed mother who struggles to feed her own. What is even more disgusting is seeing a young mother headed off to war and it's attendant risks while a dead assed,lazy baby-daddy remains at home to care for the kids and mooch off her paycheck. Not only do I despise such a cowardly loser, I also despise the parents who raised him. Conservatives raise just as many of that type as do liberals. One can't shake a stick without hitting one of that type.

Sticking together thru thick and thin only works when people want it that way- ask Newt Gingrich. To cover his unforgivable behavior in abandoning a wife suffering from cancer he now acts like questioning his decision and actions is the offensive thing, and not his abandonment of an extremely ill wife to be with his partner in adultery. Then there are the many conservative republicans who seem to agree with his assessment since they still back him for this Nation's highest office. It isn't the liberals who put Newt forward as an acceptable candidate.

So like I said at the start, stop with the "evil liberal" crap already. Your soapbox has huge gaping holes in it that will swallow you up instead of supporting you.

Well BKER you sure prove stupidity is the fashion

Gump,

I agree. If anyone relies on hypocritical old Flush Rimbutt for anything more than sound bites and propaganda they'll soon end up sorely disappointed.

Notice: "Flush Rimbutt" is a registered mockery and if anyone cares to use it-feel free but acknowledge the source..MERLIN 420455

I agree that this situation does exist in all segments of our society today. It is just completely irresponsible of people to make a baby when they don't have plans for the future of that baby........and that should not include that either parent takes no responsibility and the other one takes it all........with the help of working people who are doing all they can to support their OWN, probably planned, children! But the latter can have unplanned children and go ahead and do the right thing for the children............like work together to support them and to actually do the old fashioned marriage thing! I taught school for more than 30 years, and I can truthfully say that almost all the children I taught who had behavioral and/or learning problems were from single parent families. To me, the safety net of social programs to help raise the child is just unthinkable! But, then, I was the child of married parents who stayed together through thick and thin and raised us. Once you have a child on the way it's not the time to think about whether the other person is marriageable material! First you find a person you love and admire and get married. THEN you get a baby on the way! It's still disgraceful to have a baby out of wedlock.

About ten years ago I had a boy in my class who was on free everything: lunches, school supplies, food stamps for food at home, etc. This boy had the nicest clothes of anyone in my class with at least 3 pair of expensive athletic shoes. Every day, though, he had at least $2 in his pocket to buy extra snacks at lunch! Just how is that teaching him responsibility? School lunch cost about $2; shouldn't that have been paid for instead of buying snacks? He was 10 or 11 years old, and during that school year his mother, still unmarried, chose to have another baby to throw into that mess!

To sum it up, children have to be raised to be responsible and to be proud of living within their means and being responsible. If raised to be a lazy bum of a taker, then that will continue and be handed down to his/her children. Children need to learn that all their actions have consequences and to think about it before acting, even though having sex might seem desirable.

This all just makes me steam!

very well said, Thank you

If conservatives are so virtuous and liberals such free-loaders, why are the most conservative states the greatest net consumers of federal tax dollars? States such as AL and MS receive more in federal spending than they pay in taxes, while "liberal" states such as NY, NJ, CT, CA, etc... pay more in federal taxes (see http://www.scribd.com/doc/8229012/Tax-Donor-or-Contrib-States).

This conservative vs. liberal argument gets us nowhere. There are few, if any, problems facing this country that can be put squarely on one side or the other. Our society is too complex for such simple categorizations.

Barry, in most red states, the majority of people on welfare are Democratic non-Asian minorities.

In Mississippi, 83.6% of people on welfare are black

In Alabama, 66.3% of people on welfare black.

http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ofa/character/fy2009/tab08.htm

The govt's breakdown of people on welfare in each state, by ethnicity is above at the TANF program link.

Blacks vote 90% Democrat.

Overall, in America non-white, non-Asians make up 66.7% of all people on welfare.

All this means is that whites, who hold all the jobs, and do all the interviewing, and control all the laws, and judges, and policing, are kicking down the decendants of the slaves to this very day, thats all. NO ONE WANTS TO BE POOR. The issue truly is this. A White person sees a job opening at EVERY SINGLE BUSINESS HE COMES ACROSS with the right skillset in his hand. This includes every single ma and pa diner,to every small little 4 person office. Every receptionist job, to vice president position. WHITES see no reason to not be hired. BLACKS on the other hand, know full well that a very small company with all whites will never hire them. Period! Every three man construction crew, will never pick up a black unless its to play the clean up grunt man for the whites, BUT NEVER the equal pay worker. WE as blacks do not see EVERY bar as a place to stop and drink. We do not see EVERY single little city as a place to stop for the night when travelling. We look for Big name places. We do not feel comfortable going to a Bed And Breakfast in some white area. AND THERE ARE MORE WHITE AREAS THAN BLACK ONES, so its not equal to say whites dont feel comfortable in the hood.

All this means is that whites, who hold all the jobs, and do all the interviewing, and control all the laws, and judges, and policing, are kicking down the decendants of the slaves to this very day, thats all. NO ONE WANTS TO BE POOR. The issue truly is this. A White person sees a job opening at EVERY SINGLE BUSINESS HE COMES ACROSS with the right skillset in his hand. This includes every single ma and pa diner,to every small little 4 person office. Every receptionist job, to vice president position. WHITES see no reason to not be hired. BLACKS on the other hand, know full well that a very small company with all whites will never hire them. Period! Every three man construction crew, will never pick up a black unless its to play the clean up grunt man for the whites, BUT NEVER the equal pay worker. WE as blacks do not see EVERY bar as a place to stop and drink. We do not see EVERY single little city as a place to stop for the night when travelling. We look for Big name places. We do not feel comfortable going to a Bed And Breakfast in some white area. AND THERE ARE MORE WHITE AREAS THAN BLACK ONES, so its not equal to say whites dont feel comfortable in the hood.

Oh bull@!$%#!!!!!!!!

EXCELLENT comment, Mj3378.

I've tried to teach my children that you only get out of life and your relationships what you put into them. Yes, marriage and parenthood are hard, but the best things in life are the things we have to work hardest for.

All marriages are tested. Sometimes the only thing that keeps one going is to grin and bear it. In the end, the commitment to our family is what life is all about.