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The Nation's Pulse
Generation Unwed Motherhood
Perfecting an ethic handed down by the Boomers.
One of the most alarming charts from Charles Murray’s Coming Apart — an unparalleled treatise on the decline of white America — traces the increase in non-marital births during the 20th century. Between 1917 and 1965, rates of unwed motherhood in white America were well below 5 percent. Between 1965 and 2010, that figure spiked by over 25 percentage points.
And that’s in white America alone. Including minority groups, the out-of-wedlock birth rate in the United States is now 40 percent, nearly half of all births. Perhaps more than any other cultural developments, unwed motherhood — and absent fatherhood — are having a disastrous economic and cultural impact on the United States.
Kay Hymowitz, writing in the Los Angeles Times, recently summarized the financial costs for households, particularly those headed by women ostensibly liberated by the feminist revolution:
Poverty remains relatively rare among married couples with children; the U.S. census puts only 8.8% of them in that category, up from 6.7% since the start of the Great Recession. But more than 40% of single-mother families are poor, up from 37% before the downturn. In the bottom quintile of earnings, most households are single people, many of them elderly. But of the two-fifths of bottom-quintile households that are families, 83% are headed by single mothers. The Brookings Institution’s Isabel Sawhill calculates that virtually all the increase in child poverty in the United States since the 1970s would vanish if parents still married at 1970 rates.
In Coming Apart, Murray writes about the growing acceptance of single-parenthood households as both normal and good — perhaps even desirable. “For the first time in human history, we now have societies in which a group consisting of a lone woman and her offspring is not considered to be sociologically incomplete — not considered to be illegitimate,” he writes.
Unfortunately, Generation Y (or Millennials) — those Americans in their late teens, 20s, and early 30s — is the primarily culprit for this rise in single motherhood. As a generation, we Gen Y’ers tend to take a lackadaisical approach to relationships, marriage, and childbearing. It’s an approach that is having a seismic impact on American culture today, and will have an even greater impact in future decades as Generation Y gains more clout in the business, cultural, and political worlds.
Throughout history, marriage has been the foundation of communities, which in turn have been the foundation of nations. The proliferation of single-parent or cohabiting households has created significant instability in society, particularly for children. But as in many areas of life, Generation Y isn’t too concerned about that. Habitual preoccupation with one’s own happiness, to the exclusion of a life-long commitment to a spouse or the loyal parenting of a child, is the order of the day.
In past generations, it was commonly understood and accepted that adult relationships carried adult responsibilities. As a generation, however, twentysomethings tend to want their cake and eat it, too. We long for a loving marriage and the blessing of children — one day, far in the future — but our shortsighted relational choices don’t align with those goals.
Writing in Time magazine, Lev Grossman outlines the relational fantasyland of “twixters,” those young people stuck between adolescence and adulthood:
Marrying late also means that twixters tend to have more sexual partners than previous generations. The situation is analogous to their promiscuous job-hopping behavior — like Goldilocks, they want to find the one that’s just right — but it can give them a cynical, promiscuous vibe too. [Jeffrey] Arnett [a developmental psychologist at the University of Maryland] is worried that if anything, twixters are too romantic. In their universe, romance is totally detached from pragmatic concerns and societal pressures, so when twixters finally do marry, they’re going to do it for Love with a capital L and no other reason. “Everybody wants to find their soul mate now,” Arnett says, “whereas I think, for my parents’ generation — I’m 47 — they looked at it much more practically. I think a lot of people are going to end up being disappointed with the person that’s snoring next to them by the time they’ve been married for a few years and they realize it doesn’t work that way.”
Despite the ruckus over economic inequality in the United States, the formula for achieving a middle-class lifestyle is relatively simple. As Ron Haskins of the Brookings Institution has written, “If young people do three things — graduate from high school, get a job and get married and wait until they’re 21 before having a baby — they have an almost 75 percent chance of making it into the middle class.”
The problem is, few Millennials follow that advice. That’s especially the case among lower-income women, who are more likely to have out-of-wedlock births and perpetuate the cycle of poverty for future generations. These “welfare moms,” no longer primarily from minority communities, become dependent on the taxes of the rest of society.
W. Bradford Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, has condensed this truth into a tidy nugget of wisdom: “[The] dissolution of marriage in working-class and poor communities has also fueled the growth of government, as federal, state, and local governments spend more money on police, prisons, welfare, and court costs, trying to pick up the pieces of broken families.”
As Millennials, we are responsible for our actions. But those actions don’t occur in a vacuum. Many of us have been raised in a culture that glorifies permissive attitudes about sex, marriage, and divorce and puts children’s needs on the back burner to adults’ desires for fulfillment and gratification. It’s an ethic created by Baby Boomers, and Generation Y is perfecting it.
It will only change if Millennials realize that traditional norms of marriage, sex, and relationships aren’t just good for society — they’re good for individuals as well. A hook-up, no-strings-attached ethic is fun for the short term; it’s unsatisfying and destructive in the long-term.
These developments — along with others discussed by Murray in Coming Apart — foreshadow the end of a stable, prosperous American culture. “The trends of the last half century matter a lot,” Murray writes. “Many of the best and most exceptional qualities of American culture cannot survive unless they are reversed.”
About the Author
David N. Bass is a journalist who writes from the Old North State. Follow him on Twitter.
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Appleby| 6.11.12 @ 7:10AM
A very large majority of "Baby Boomers ", chiefly the ones over 45 -- are NOT included in this sweeping generalization. We have graduated from university and paid back our loans, made reasonably sensible decisions to marry (in fact, in my particular cohorst, if a girl was not married before the graduated from university, she was reckoned a failure, which explains the large number of divorces in the next ten years, I suppose) . Those of us who understood that a ful time career and motherhood were mutually exclusive have not married, and found plenty to do cleaning up the messes our romantic and/or desperate sisters created as they rushed to GettaMan before the supply ran out.
The masses of unwed mothers I have encountered would have preferred to be married, and in fact held the delusion that the father of their child would in fact marry her if he made her pregnant. Yes, this is a very long-standing delusion, but they still labour (literally) under it. The sorry wail, "But he LOVES me!" is the most popular response to the assurances that his love consists of another notch on the bedpoast and perhaps the offer to pay for the abortion. Otherwise "Shrug" it's HER PROBLEM and off he goes.
DTOM| 6.11.12 @ 7:43AM
Appleby;
There's another contingent. Young women who consider a pregnancy as their career with the state welfare system providing the cash to support them.
Sound fantastic? I know of a twenty-something whose best friend just copied her baby for income scheme. Neither is the slightest bit interested in the sperm donor...
Sad, but real.
TLP| 6.11.12 @ 8:32AM
Even sadder, and realer, is the FACT that this is one of the results of FORCED DESEGREGATION, of the Public Schools via FORCED SCHOOL BUSSING.
When you FORCE things to do things, ala a Square Peg in to a Round Hole, you usually break them.
This is no different.
Doctor Right| 6.11.12 @ 11:47AM
There's not much you won't blame on black folks, is there?
Is that all you've got for today's diatribe?
TLP| 6.11.12 @ 3:55PM
No, there isn't.
I calls'em like I sees'em.
That's why I call you a Doche Bag, Douche Bag.
Doctor Right| 6.11.12 @ 4:05PM
That's why we call you "Clint," Timmy!
TLP| 6.11.12 @ 6:11PM
Does your Mom know that you're on her computer?
KyMouse| 6.11.12 @ 10:41AM
In "Promises I Can Keep," which I've mentioned elsewhere in these comments, the authors say that just about the highest compliment a guy gives a young woman who is poor is NOT, "I want to marry you."
It is, "I want to make a baby with you."
The authors report that young women in poverty want to marry, but the pool of good prospects is very shallow. The girls don't want to marry a guy who is a loser, but they don't want to put off motherhood, either. So they have a baby, and by lavishing whatever attention and money they have on that child, they believe they can elevate their own standing in the community ("See what a good mother she is! Look at that pretty dress her little girl has on.")
Several decades ago, as I've mentioned before, I read an opinion piece by one of the former editors of the Left wing magazine "Ramparts." He wrote that the stigma against bastardy was hurtful to individual children, but it was a protection for society as a whole.
He said that once that stigma against having a child out of wedlock went away, America would have far more bastard children born. And because those kids had no fathers married to their mothers, the kids would suffer from poverty, lack of discipline, etc. One form of suffering (the label of "bastard") would be replaced by another.
Hey, even a radical Leftist is right once in a while.
Occam's Tool| 6.11.12 @ 10:31PM
Ky: it was probably David Horowitz, who, as you know, has come over to the Jedi side.
Seek| 6.11.12 @ 5:01PM
The actual raste of unwed white motherhood is a good deal lower when one separates Hispanics from the total. Many of these "whites" are really Amerindians.
MelvinNC| 6.11.12 @ 7:52AM
There is one thing that my wife and I hammered into our kids, and that thing is responsibility.
One day I sat the kids down, figuring they were at the age of what that special purpose was between their legs.
My wife and I had two boys and one girl. They sat on the couch with that, "Oh here goes dad again." I told them in simple terms that even a teenager could understand. "Boys you knock someone up, your immediately going to quit school and go to work to support your spawn. Your going to buy food, diapers, and health insurance. You will not be a burden to tax payers. You makeee baby, you supporteee baby. There will be no Friday nights hanging out with your friends, you will be hanging out with your child.
Your mother and I will be doting grandparents, but do not count on us to provide free babysitting. If you wish to go somewhere you must provide a baby sitter at your own cost. Continued
MelvinNC| 6.11.12 @ 7:52AM
Continued
Besides that probably won't be an issue because you'll be working two jobs on the weekends, and won't have the energy to hang out with your friends."
While the boys mouths were agape, I unloaded on my daughter. "The same applies to you young lady. Your child is not a dog, to be shown or cast aside at your whim."
"Furthermore, my young charges, you are teenagers. Enjoy your teenage years, because the friends and memories that you will collect will last a lifetime.There will more than enough time to play and be an adult and a parent. Just enjoy your time as a kid, make life's growing up mistakes now when it only effect you, and not others when your an adult."
My wife and I when alone, "Don't you think you were a bit too blunt?" "Dear, I fear that I wasn't blunt enough."
But our kids grew up fine, and now they are responsible adults, and responsible parents.
MK48| 6.11.12 @ 11:35AM
Melvin and others on this site the most important item in your post was "responsible parrents".
If the parrents of the parrents didn't do their job then how can this responsibility be passed down.
These sit down life lessons are important in the growth of your kids. I still have one not married at the age of 28 and we still have these "come to Jesus" moments.
KyMouse| 6.11.12 @ 9:58AM
Melvin, that approach worked for a relative of mine during the 1960s, when she became pregnant by her boyfriend. They have been married ever since, are financially well off, and have two children and grandchildren.
Unfortuately, the legal right to kill babies by abortion too often means that the boys won't quit school and go to work to support their "spawn." They will simply take the expectant mother to the nearest Planned Parenthood abortuary.
I can't remember the last time I heard of a couple getting married because they "had to." Shotgun weddings went out with "making an honest woman of her."
I'm glad your kids listened to you. Short of threatening to disinherit one's kids, there seem to be few, if any, ways left persuade them to save sexual relationships for marriage.
Good books on this subject: "Promises I Can Keep" and "Life Without Father."
Seek| 6.11.12 @ 11:02AM
Shotgun weddings also can mean desertion by the father -- which happens a lot less frequently as well.
MelvinNC| 6.11.12 @ 1:21PM
Now that my kids are adults, and at least during that period of time, my approach got them to think. Oh sure they were getting jiggy, but they were doing it with protection.
My wife gave me also the facts of life with our daughter. My wife started her on birth control. "Dear we can't be with them 24 hours a day." I didn't really agree with this, but it was the prudent thing to do, I suppose.
But in the long view of things, it worked out. I at the time impressed upon them, especially the boys, children are an hugely, immense responsibility. Our boys now men, agreed with me.
jaytrain| 6.11.12 @ 8:12AM
And rememeber how some 20 years ago the bien pensants thought Dan Quayle so gauche for quetioning the Murphy Brown single motherhood . I mean everyone who was anyone knew what a fool he was . Maybe now ,not so much?
c. j. acworth| 6.11.12 @ 8:37AM
"Murphy Brown" was supposedly a TV news anchor, who was pulling down a 6 or even 7 figure salary. She could've afforded any kind of child care in the world. What most young people don't want to understand is that they are not so well placed.
JimP| 6.11.12 @ 8:20AM
"It's an ethic created by Baby Boomers..."
Respectfully, David, that is not accurate. This is an excellent column and you have noted a key date, 1965, within it. That was the passage of LBJ's Great Society that set up the programs to support the licentious behavior you have well noted. Once the ethic took over with some Boomers the apparatus to support it and thus spread the contagion was already in place. As far as the licentious behavior itself, that was not a Boomer created ethic. It is an ethic created by the generation that was too young for WWII, but not part of the Boomer generation, and of course by ALL progressives (aka: liberals, communists, socialists, etc) always. The ethic was also adopted tacitly by the WWII generation although they were less affected than their children. This ethic was spread by the parents of Boomers who were running the media and government programs that promoted and fostered all the licentiousness. Perhaps it’s just coincidence that LBJ’s Great Society programs and the mass media adoption and promotion of behavior previously considered immoral occurred at almost literally the same time, but I think a case can be made that the forces of progressivism had been working toward this goal for decades in our country and government just waiting for the right moment to spread this contagion.
JimP| 6.11.12 @ 8:20AM
Boomers were not in positions in the media and government to have the power to spread this ethic until roughly the mid-1980’s at the earliest and it was the media and government that have been the most influential and powerful forces behind all the licentiousness. Boomers, like GenYers, have been seduced by the leftists’ kultur smog.
Bill84728| 6.11.12 @ 11:23AM
You forget that the rest of society followed the boomers. I will never forget the repeated TV and newspaper images of women past menopause wearing mini-skirts and doing the Twist.
JimP| 6.11.12 @ 11:54AM
I don't forget it. You seem to have not understood what I said. The Boomers did not "create" the ethic the author talks about. At the end of my comment I acknowledge that the Boomers were "seduced" by the leftist kultur smog. This means by implication that they promoted/continued it, just as GenYers are doing now. Will GenY's kids be able to say that GenYers "created" the ethic? Of course not, but the GenYers are promoting/continuing it.
JimP| 6.11.12 @ 11:59AM
It's popular among some to blame the Boomers for all manner of things. To be sure the Boomers deserve lots of blame, but let's keep it accurate. Boomers didn't invent leftist politics, licentiousness etc. They were brainwashed by progressives, and indulged by "The Greatest Generation", which also created the federal programs that made all the kids out of wedlock plague possible by subsidizing single mothers on welfare, etc. Where's the outcry against the WWII generation?
Skippy| 6.11.12 @ 4:45PM
It's difficult to blame the WW2 gen. for building things in society that they were assured were good, or at least better than what had been.
There were precious few voices warning of the cesspool America would become after Big Govt was allowed to do what it does best.
If they had been as good at foreseeing the dangers of Liberalism as they were at crushing Nazi/Jap fascism we might not be in this fix.
But, they weren't.
Now it falls to us to fight the fight that they wouldn't, and now, can't.
JimP| 6.11.12 @ 6:27PM
I don't blame them anymore than I blame the Boomers. My point in mentioning them was to make it clear that "The Greatest Generation" shares culpability for the current "ethic" and it cannot simply be blamed on the Boomers. Boomers make a convenient scapegoat, but the real problem is socialist/progressives/communists. See the Communist Party USA's 1963 list of goals for America. Compare it with now and what I've said above.
JimP| 6.11.12 @ 6:30PM
Check this out, 'Skip':
http://www.uhuh.com/nwo/communism/comgoals.htm
BackToBasics| 6.11.12 @ 10:41PM
I agree about 1965 being a turning point. It was also 1 year after the birth control pill was approved. That has had a large impact on American and world society and has had a larger impact on whites than non-whites in America.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01.....stats.html
Louis Jenkins| 6.11.12 @ 9:16AM
I personnally agree with Mr. MelvinNC's comments. We are too lax with our children, and the "talk" is perhaps one of the best things that we can ever do for them. Let them know, in no uncertain terms, that they have one life, and the decisions they make has ever lasting consequences. Too many young people lean on their parents when they screw up, or they lean on the government (everybody) to help them manage. Unfortunately, once they accept the government dole it becomes a habit. More parents should speak plainly to their offspring.
KyMouse| 6.11.12 @ 10:18AM
Louis (and Melvin), Planned Parenthood will offer them a shoulder to cry on -- and a quick way to get rid of the baby before you even suspect he/she is on the way.
As the Planned Parenthood "Mission and Policy Statement" of 1990 put it, "Planned Parenthood opposes any limitation or restriction on the access of adolescents to confidential reproductive health services, including contraception and abortion."
The vile Planned Parenthood web site for kids, www.teenwire.com, put it more bluntly in 2003:
"[T]ake the useful, smart stuff you've learned from your folks and kick the crap to the curb."
That "empowerment" is very seductive to kids, especially when so many laws are on its side.
Louis Jenkins| 6.11.12 @ 2:56PM
One day it shall be seen by the citizens; which is more important? The government or the tribe to which you belong.
Skippy| 6.11.12 @ 4:47PM
Both Govts and tribes leave a great deal to be desired.
How about a nation of self-interested free men?
Could we try that out?
vab| 6.11.12 @ 9:43AM
David,
You talk about the needs of childen. Isn't part of the problem that too many parents no longer see a difference between a child's needs and its wants? They seem to think they are being good parents by buying the kids the right clothes and toys and encouraging all the popular extracurricular activities, all the while neglecting things like basic skills for living, self discipline, and family stability.
PJ| 6.11.12 @ 9:45AM
We all knew about this problem, ie the positive relationship between unmarried mothers & poverty, way before Murray's book was published just by looking at the Black community in this country. It was only a matter of time before the White & Hispanic communities fell into the same trap. Why? Because human nature is the same no matter what color the skin is.
We know the problem: what is the solution? I think it will be a many-pronged solution where most of the "cleaning-up" will taken care of by the local community.
I can not help but notice how much religion was in our lives before this dreadful epidemic came about. Before we had morally strong priests, ministers, rabbis, etc to lead their communities cheerfully on. Being part of such communities positively affected one's way of life.
The 1960s disrupted that minister-community relationship resulting in people being led by the false god called the media. I'm starting to see my priests developing some moral backbones to counteract such influences & this in turn encourages the faithful to do their bit. I would like to believe that this is also taking place in other religious communities too.
All is not lost. Although, it will be quite a few yrs before any noticeable impact will be felt.
JimP| 6.11.12 @ 10:40AM
Don't forget that the ministry itself embraced the "ethic". Anyone raised in the "High Episcopal" Church in the 1950's and early 60's who compares the Episcopal Church then and now knows that it wasn't just the media and government that went astray. The clergy helped to usher in the new "ethic". Most of the mainstream denominations now are merely socialist front groups and/or new age cults.
JimP| 6.11.12 @ 10:52AM
Correction: I meant to add, but got ahead of myself, that the clery helped usher in the new ethic BY ABANDONING TRADITIONAL MORAL JUDGEMENTS AND STANDARDS FOR POOR BEHAVIOR. YOU FORGIVE THE SINNER, BUT STILL CONDEMN THE SIN. THE CLERY WENT SOFT.
JimP| 6.11.12 @ 6:38PM
Interesting. I get blowback for not genuflecting before "The Greatest Generation" in my comments earlier on this thread, but not a peep from any Episcopalians about this observation. Thanks for the corroboration fellow former Episcopalians.
Cobalt| 6.11.12 @ 11:25AM
What you see in the Black neighborhood, eventually shows up in the White neighborhood.
"The steady expansion of welfare programs can be taken as a measure of the steady disintegration of the Negro family structure over the past generation in the United States."
Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Today, we could certainly benefit from the integrity and wisdom of Mr. Moynihan.
"The Negro Family: The Case For National Action"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T.....nal_Action
Prester John| 6.11.12 @ 10:47AM
I am 56 and went to a big city high school (graduated 1973). To the best of my recollections there was a grand total of one girl who got pregnant while in school (I know, I know). But since this was just after Roe v. Wade it would've been rather hard to hide any others and none of the girls "disappeared" for a few months to take care of any similar situation.
In any event, fast forward 32 years (2005). I go to my son's high school for the first time after he enrolled to clear up some paperwork and I see a girl with a stroller and a baby in the school. I turn to the security guard and say, "Don't tell me..." The guard says as she rolls her eyes, "Oh yes, we have a child care center here for the students".
Fast forward another 7 years and we find out the Planned Parenthood will have a presence in a high school in Los Angeles. One would think this "presence" would be for counseling i.e referrals to abortion providers. But one must also ask, at what point will PP have it's own personnel to perform abortions inside our schools?
When that happens at least there won't be any more need for the child care centers.
Seek| 6.11.12 @ 11:04AM
I resent high school administrators who enable teen pregnancies. They should be discouraging them. The last thing the U.S. can afford to be is a primitive, semi-educated Third World-style country.
THKrupp| 6.11.12 @ 10:53AM
Something that no one seems to comment on is that a significant portion of single women are keeping their babies rather than getting abortions. They seemingly go into it knowing that its not the best for them economically yet they decide to keep the baby anyhow. At least this seems to be a positive development. True it would be best that a young woman delay pregnancy until she is married but at least from this standpoint they are taking some responsibility.
Skippy| 6.11.12 @ 5:11PM
Hmmm...
I call BS.
They passively keep the child because there are vast resources to tap into, and tons of positive affirmation from schools, TV, music, etc.
If the gravity and reality of their choice were actually considered, PP would have a lot more medical waste to dispose of, or lots of irresponsible young men would be dating Rosie Palm and her 5 sisters.
Bill84728| 6.11.12 @ 11:20AM
America has enjoyed (if that's the right word) the society it has over the past half century because the people who have accepted responsibility for making things work were white people. For a half century, white people have been blamed for everything that has gone wrong. Now, non-whites are making many or most of the decisions and things are going REALLY wrong. White people didn't make those decisions, and even though they're still being blamed, the falseness of the accusations is blatantly obvious to all. So we can tell where things are going, and white people are no longer responsible for it. That's too bad for white people (and the rest of our society), but that was the choice and it's already been made.
fmm| 6.11.12 @ 11:34AM
Throughout my career in industry I ran into many bright people having relatively low end jobs for mainly one reason, they had a child out of wedlock too early. These were good people, taking responsibility for their actions, getting married, raising their children, and progressing to the middle class, but without the ability to prepare for higher level things which they could easily have achieved otherwise. So even partially breaking Haskins' formula while evidencing time tested ethics seems to have long lasting effects on economic success.
THKrupp| 6.11.12 @ 11:44AM
Ive run into the same thing multiple times as well. Having children in and out of wedlock at a young age limits your potential. There is less "wiggle room" in society now than there was previously. You have to be almost perfect in your excecution of life or you will be sidelined. It goes beyond having children too young and includes many things a person doesnt have a lot of control over.
David| 6.11.12 @ 11:36AM
My daughters grew up hearing all the talk about the leeches in society, not having sex until married, etc..
Unlike some of the children described above, my children did NOT heed my advice. I had custody of them when they were teenagers and drilled certain things into their heads. It didn't matter. I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that their mother was "friend" to them rather than a "parent".
So, I am sad to say that 2 of my daughters have given birth to 5 children all at the taxpayers expense. One of them receives $505 per month for FOOD ONLY. For her and two very small children. Wow!!! She has enough left over at the end of every month to let her sister and mother buy groceries on the Lone Star Card (that is what it is called in Texas).
And both of them pay zero fed income taxes and get 3 - 4,000 dollars back every year in the form of the EITC (Earned Income Tax Credit).
Start asking around and see how few people have even heard of this substantial gift from those who do pay taxes to those who pay nothing.
It is time for a consumption tax, so everyone will pay their fair share.
THKrupp| 6.11.12 @ 11:52AM
David,
Interesting, I dont really have any idea of what an unwed mother can recieve through welfare. So far it appears as if your daughter gets about $10,000 in aid? Is that the entire amount of the support? It doesnt seem like enough to make up for the costs of raising one child. This doesnt seem like enough to make up for all the costs that go into raising children. I could be wrong, I dont have any children. I know my brothers costs are much higher than this. The ROI doesnt seem to be positive at least off hand.
Seek| 6.11.12 @ 1:43PM
The welfare state enables. Charles Murray recognized as much in his seminal 1984 book, "Losing Ground." It's as much true today. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Petronius| 6.11.12 @ 12:04PM
The behavior of this crop of lowlife regardless of race will soon break the rest of us just as the liberal politicians intended. And when the national wealth is consumed in total, and we are all in the gutter together there will be glorious Equality. I say Let It Come! When those of us who are productive have been robbed of everything to sustain these parasites we will draw the long knives and rid the world of them and those in power who authored all of it or perish in the attempt.
David| 6.11.12 @ 1:04PM
THKrupp, I don't have any idea how much in total compensation they receive from the local, state, and fed governments.
They do both work, but don't make a lot of money.
Again, from the Fed I know they get 3 - 4,000 a year from the EITC.
The Lone Star food card that one gets is from the state.
The fact that they had 5 children without paying anything had to be worth a fortune, and those births were via Medicaid.
To put numbers on it, a co-worker of mine had to pay for his wife and children's health insurance. Our employer paid our's, the employee's, portion in full. My friend paid right at 1,000 per month to cover his family. When he wife had another child, he told me he had to come up with almost 2,000 in out-of-pocket money to cover what the insurance did not pay.
After living in Houston and San Antonio my entire life, I can say there are millions of legals (my daughters) and illegals who are getting free medical care while the rest of us have to pay outrageous ins premiums and out-of-pocket expenses to cover our families.
THKrupp| 6.11.12 @ 1:28PM
Thanks for the info. While it is a lot of money, it doesnt seem like they are getting enough money to make it worthwhile to have a child out of wedlock. More than anything a child in that situation seems like it would put a damper on the rest of their life.
2Anglico| 6.11.12 @ 3:58PM
They probably get electric and rent assistance also. Note the mention of EITC. That means she earns some money...just enough to keep below the taxable threshold. So, however much she earned was non-taxable plus the $3-4K EITC which is a direct CHECK from us, via the IRS.
A welfare mother with 3 or 4 kids has more disposable income than a single WORKING mother making $60,000/yr. I've seen figures from $26-32,000 per year in benefits received with no tax. Why work?
JimP| 6.11.12 @ 4:29PM
Exactly accurate and true.
Re: THKrupp's comment- These young people are making bad choices for their long term best interests because being young means they can't relate to what they will miss out on in the future. They aren't able to appreciate that point of view. They live for now, and that includes the raging hormones telling them to procreate. A week feels like a long time and a year is like a lifetime. Twenty years hence is an eternally long time in the future. So, being supported by the government/taxpayers AND having $26-32K to spend per year looks really "kewl" and feels so grown up. If you think back I bet you can recall a time when you felt this way about something. Many people are not strong enough to resist such temptations as being a welfare mom when they are young. I'm not excusing it, just looking at what is really going on with these young people.
THKrupp| 6.11.12 @ 4:38PM
Im not really wired that way. Even as a kid I always thought about what would happen in a worst case scinerio for pretty much any action I did. My dad had me on an allowance of $20 per week from age 12-13 on. Everything that I got had to come out of that allowance. Clothes, school lunch, school books etc etc. If it was for me I had to pay for it myself. I had to budget very tightly to make it on that. He was then able to write off the allowance as wages. He said that way he killed two birds with one stone. He limited how much I could cost him and he saved money on taxes.
MelvinNC| 6.11.12 @ 3:36PM
I don't know how I could have missed the greatest weapon in a parents arsenal. I don't know why it worked as it was so effective with my teenagers but it was.
Maybe it was the utter simplicity of it. I forgot where I heard it, to give credit to the author, sitting down junior or the daughter for a discussion but it goes like this. "The things that you are thinking now, will you be thinking the same way in 10 minutes, tomorrow, next month, a year or ten years from now?" Don't expect an immediate answer, because some how it throws them off their game, in trying to digest the question. My daughter was my last lab rat and looked up like she just discovered the meaning of life and said, "No, I won't, I'll be thinking different, because things change." "So yes my dear daughter, the decisions you make now will have consequences in your future. So you must think things through before acting on impulse."
THKrupp| 6.11.12 @ 4:13PM
It probably also has to do with your on going expectations of your children. You may have had the "talk" only once but it was an entire childhood of expectations that lead to generally correct behavior. The closest my dad ever came to the "talk" was when I was about 5 -6 years old and I was helping dad in the breeding pen. I asked him what the boars were doing to the sows and he said " dont worry about it" LOL so I never did. Seriously though I knew what the expectations were in our house. We were treated like adults and given adult responsibilities from an early age. I didnt have to guess to know what my responsibility would be if I had a child out of wedlock.
PolishKnight| 6.11.12 @ 3:53PM
The elephant in the room roars again and yet I'm the one who has to point it out.
Both the soulmate concept and unwed motherhood surge have their roots in feminism even going back to seneca falls and the concept that women could enjoy chivalrous patronage and men as breadwinners while also "equality" in the workplace where it suits them. Nobody wants to tell women that they shouldn't be doctors, even if they're well qualified, and instead stay at home with the children but simultaneously, even many conservative men will tell their son that a "real man" will pay the bills even if he's good at looking after kids and cooking.
This is combined with the concept of the "soulmate" not only in terms of women (and many men) wanting the perfect spouse but also the soul mate life: an easy comfortable job with perfect working hours and high wages. Ironically, the feminist/leftist alliance has opened these jobs to many democrat special interest groups. I remember white feminists in the 1980's giggling as white males were having their jobs taken away while they plucked the few remaining white guys with great jobs to marry. Those days of plenty are ending just as Greek pensions are drying up.
We have a collision between expectations and reality and this isn't only for the feminists and leftist society, but the leftist influences in conservative culture that have taken root over the past 150 years.
David| 6.11.12 @ 4:06PM
THKrupp, as to your comment that 10,000 doesn't seem like a lot to rear a child, I disagree. Provided your child is healthy and you don't give him/her everything they want and allow them to join 15 sports and social clubs, children are relatively inexpensive. Again, if you are going to pay for their 4 year or graduate degree at college and pay their living expenses while there, well yes, that can be expensive. But, when they are K - 12th grade ages, they don't cost a lot.
THKrupp| 6.11.12 @ 4:20PM
I had always figured about $200,000 to get them to 18 which would be about $11000 per year. That may be on the high side I find its always best to error on the high side for things like that. Then I think I may have included the cost of a wife in that figure too. I dont remember what all I had in that figure. I remember running the numbers when I was in my late 20's early 30s. I think I prorated the cost of a wife between 2 children and I couldnt make it work.
THKrupp| 6.11.12 @ 4:30PM
Just insurance alone for a family plan through the workplace can easily cost $1000 a month. Of course a single woman in poverty isnt paying for insurance.
PolishKnight| 6.11.12 @ 4:37PM
Something else to consider: I don't ever remember my parents hiring illegal immigrant landscapers to work on our house. They had us (mostly the boys) doing that work by the age of 10 or so. The girls did most of the cooking and the housekeeping chores were split.
Food isn't that expensive especially if you choose to eat healthy. Processed stuff and expensive meats will cost, of course, but a big bag of flour and rice to last most families a year will cost about $100 bucks.
Finally, there's the head of household tax credit in addition the standard tax deduction. It's worth considering whether married couples should temporarily get divorced and "shack up"/live in sin to qualify for scholarships and government student grants?
Slacker| 6.11.12 @ 5:00PM
Why on earth would any man want to marry these welfare moms?
Traditional norms about marriage go out the window when the female is a fat nasty useless drunken whore. A no strings attached arrangement is the only equitable deal men can have with these foul women.
And therein is the trouble. It isn’t that Daddy should have married Mom. Daddy should have run like hell the moment he met mom. Today’s underclass is third generation stupid. This isn’t the underclass of yesteryear.
Henry W.| 6.11.12 @ 6:09PM
We need to keep our eyes on the facts.
1. In 1960 America was 90% caucasian, now it is 2/3 caucasian. Most of that remaining 1/3 lives and operates (in school, socially, according to the law) at a third world level.
2. Try as the "Conservative, Inc." types at TAS and National Review try to make everything an economic issue, this s not an economic issue. It is one that deals with intelligence, morals, cultural norms and ultimately genetic inheritance. As mentioned in (1) the genetics of our third world population drives third world behavior.
3. Regrettably our own white trash readily adopts third world low life behavior. One writer pointed out that many of the "whites" in the study are Amerindians who have an over 50% illegitimacy rate. Nevertheless, you can see in every Walmart a tattooed freak, overweight and dragging around a few unkempt kids: no daddy around.
4. To see what we will look like in the end stages see Detroit, New Orleans, Baltimore or any other third world slum whose like did not exist 40 years ago.
5. Anglo-Saxon man has given up. It is over for him.
Petronius| 6.11.12 @ 6:26PM
Hey Slack
Don't leave out the Sharks. I've seen friends ruined by conniving females who researched their portfolios and employed paternity suits as an alternate career. Unlike the old style gold diggers, marriage and living with the guy is never part of the scenario. The chump is her arm candy until she feels like setting the hook and bedding him. As soon as she knows she's pregnant with a girl on tap, he gets dumped. They abort boys. And when she drops the kid, he gets sued for everything. As bad as the welfare mothers are, these jack widows use their bodies as weapons to destroy the lives of men, not just for their financial assets, but for pure spite. In the end, their victims aren't dead but their existence from then on is one of abject suffering.
Occam's Tool| 6.11.12 @ 10:36PM
Wow. Me, I knew I wanted to be an MD at age 14, did it, got married at 33, adopted kids 7-8 yrs later. Boom.