Yes, Culture Helped Kill the Two-Parent Family. And Liberals Shouldn't Be Afraid to Admit It.

Slate ^ | March 17, 2015 | Jordan Weissmann, blogs on business and economics

[Cincinatus' Wife]

"... “Had norms not changed, the growth of childbearing outside of marriage that we have recently seen among today’s unmarried low-educated and moderately educated young adults would not have occurred, even given the rise in income inequality,” Cherlin writes. College-educated Americans were able to adapt to changing mores because the economy was kind to them. But a shifting job market and easing taboos combined to tear a hole in the rest of the country's social fabric.

This is all in keeping with what researchers find when they actually go out and talk to single mothers. Women in low-income communities say they would like to marry, but have trouble finding men with stable jobs whom they can see as a husband. These women still want to have children, however, and so they choose to have kids before marriage, even if the pregnancy might be accidental. The economy pushes them to choose unwed parenthood—that’s the structural economic argument conservatives ignore—and these days, that choice is considered acceptable (that’s the cultural one liberals detest).

Liberals shouldn’t shy away from acknowledging any of this. Instead, it’s our job to ask: What next? Writers like Brooks or Ross Douthat can talk about the need for a cultural reckoning all they want, but nothing is going to quickly reverse 50 years of national evolution away from the Leave It to Beaver days. Moreover, how many people would want to? Last I checked, most women value the autonomy that divorce and birth control have given them. Many of those shotgun marriages ended in miserable, abusive relationships. And getting hitched young doesn’t make a great deal of sense in an era when going to college, and moving to cities where jobs are plentiful, are such enormous keys to financial wellbeing."..

[Cincinatus' Wife]

I quick read shows the writer is tying the crumbling of the family unit to income equality problems - loss of blue collar jobs.

NOWHERE in this piece, written by a "business and economy" writer, is the mention of business killing excessive taxation and crippling government regulations, nor does he touch upon the seduction of welfare benefits.

[lentulusgracchus]

The excerpt suggests that the writer is so deep into a box canyon that he can't figure a way out, and so has decided to pretend that box canyons are good for us.

Oh, that wonderful divorce! Oh, that liberating abortion-on-demand!

Yeah? And? Come on, genius, spell it out for us.

Only he doesn't. He just says, "It's still business's fault!"

[SkyPilot]

And nowhere in this article does the author discuss sin.

Women in low-income communities say they would like to marry, but have trouble finding men with stable jobs whom they can see as a husband. These women still want to have children, however, and so they choose to have kids before marriage, even if the pregnancy might be accidental. The economy pushes them to choose unwed parenthood—that’s the structural economic argument conservatives ignore—and these days, that choice is considered acceptable (that’s the cultural one liberals detest).

Fornication, adultery, child sacrifice (abortion), lust, irresponsibility, covetousness, sloth, and envy are the pillars of "single motherhood" and deadbeat "fatherhood."

[outofsalt]

"...50 years of national evolution..."

"Evolution" Yeah, that's it.

[lentulusgracchus]

{Knucklehead} The economy pushes them to choose unwed parenthood .....

No it doesn't. Their sex drives do. Lie down with Bobby ...

[piasa]

Slate fails to mention that multiple boyfriends are often abusive, maybe more so since they don’t have legal obligations.

[lentulusgracchus]

Somebody put up that obituary of New Orleanian decedent Larmonshell "Flair" Allen. That was a classic.

[piasa]

“cities where jobs are plentiful”.... where would these be and why then is inner city unemployment sky high?

[Adder]

because the economy was kind to them.

The economy is “kind” to no one. It just is.
Therein lies the nub of the income inequality argument: the forces, whatever they are, decide the winners and losers based on your [given] position.

They seem to think that everyone’s destiny is predetermined the some mysterious “them” who hold lotteries for the finite pool of capital.

I have never heard such bs before.

Hey dumbledummies! You don’t want kids stay off you backs with your legs in the air.

[kearnyirish2]

There is nothing accidental about gibsmedats’ pregnancies; they are simply making a “career choice”. When one is nearing the end of high school, barely literate, and can provide no value to a potential employer, they simply generate income and obtain housing by breeding.

[piasa]

They do want the kids.

But it doesn’t cost them to have them, so long as they stay unwed and on government assistance, so when they want a “raise” they just get pregnant again.

The government is what keeps families from forming by making things so easy that you never have to rely on anything but government.

[monocle]

The chicken-egg question rears its ugly head. It is far more likely that the rise in single parent families caused the income inequality.

[The Working Man]

At the risk of being pilloried by the people here I will say this:

In my lifetime I’ve known several unwed mothers. At least two of them intended on marrying the father of their child before getting pregnant. A case of pre-marital sex and then the father dying before the wedding.

Most of the others though, (at least six), told me frankly that having a kid was the way to get on the welfare gravy train. They even had ‘mentors’ that taught them all of the ‘secrets’ of what to say, how to look and more, so as to convince the social workers to ‘help’ them out.

The worst one for me personally was the family where ‘great Grandma and Grandma held all of the kids their daughters produced as foster-care so as to make even more money off of the system. Daughters were scrupulously taken care of because they had the potential to bring in more money with each kid they had.

The boys... the boys were only useful until they reached eighteen at which point they were told to go out and ‘take care of business’... elsewhere. Which from my reading of history and knowledge of cultures from around the world is really perplexing.

Everywhere else, boys are more valued as they can go to work and bring in ‘money’ to the family or clan. Here though? The woman is more valuable to these welfare families because each kid is worth lots and lots of money until they turn eighteen and then it’s sorry charlie, there’s the door if you are a male.

And here we stand looking at the crumbling society around us and saying ‘What happened?’

Yeah... What happened? Good ol’ FDR, LBJ and so many more politicians and those on the fringe that milk this situation for power over other people. For in the end it’s all about power, as long as the EBT cards are filled each month, as long as the Section 8 checks keep going out to the landlords. As long as...

Until the money stops that is, then all bets are off.

[jocon307]

“Oh, that wonderful divorce! Oh, that liberating abortion-on-demand!”

Yes, exactly, that’s the tone. Oh, those dreadful abusive marriages of old! Good riddance to Leave it to Beaver! What, no denunciation of Father Knows Best?

This is a person who doesn’t get it.

[Adder]

Very true: we allowed the controls on behavior to be so loosened they do not exist.

So long as that lack of control leads to more dependence on government and ITS controls, such behaviors are allowed and even encouraged by rewarding bad choices; More kids? You poor dear...here’s an increase in your bennies.
The class of gibmedats is growing. The class of paying drones is shrinking...and this drone at least is ready to stop paying for them.

[CharlesOConnell]

Sociologist Robert T. Michael said it was The Pill, with its 9% method failure rate.

[jacknhoo]

Excerpt: “Last I checked, most women value the autonomy that divorce and birth control have given them. “

Yeah, nothing says autonomy like the murder of 1.32 Billion innocent defenseless little boys and girls by their own mothers just since 1980. And nothing says autonomy, like bilking a father for up to 65% of his paycheck to fund the mother and the children she legally forces him to financially support for 23 years and babysit every other weekend. And they have a gall to call fathers deadbeats?!

[Regal]

“Yeah, nothing says autonomy like the murder of 1.32 Billion innocent defenseless little boys and girls by their own mothers just since 1980.”
__________

The reason why legal abortion has survived is because for every woman who has an abortion, there is a man somewhere, thankful, and cheering under his breath.

[jacknhoo]

Yeah, blame it on the father, even if its a lie. The truth is, only one entity in the world has legal license to kill children...their own mothers.

And kill them they do, to the tune of 123 Holocausts in just the past 34 years.

But you keep right on deflecting the guilt to fathers, if that makes you feel better about mothers...obviously that’s what’s important...to feel good, eh! Truth be damned.

[DaveA37]

“When one is nearing the end of high school, barely literate, and can provide no value to a potential employer, they simply generate income and obtain housing by breeding.”......

and live better than most others who actually WORK for a living, pay taxes and try to be good citizens.

“Why should I work when the gubmint sends me a check every month?” The gubmint has a huge hand in allowing, no CAUSING this to happen when they give all the handouts and “free sh(t” to the deadbeats and gibsmedats, all for the return of their votes. Blame the gubmint systems where it squarely belongs and then fix or eliminate them, perhaps doing so things might just change.