Posted on 12/08/2006 8:31:16 PM PST by rakovskii
Mary Cheney’s pregnancy poses problems not just for her child, but also for all Americans. Her action repudiates traditional values and sets an appalling example for young people at a time when father absence is the most pressing social problem facing the nation. With 37 percent of American children born to fatherless families, Mary Cheney is contributing to a trend that is detrimental to all Americans who will live with the ramifications of millions of children whose anger and frustration at not knowing their father will be felt in the public schools and communities of our nation.
Mary Cheney is among that burgeoning group of adult women over age 20 that are driving the trend of women who don’t want a man in the picture, but want to have a baby. These older women are pushing out-of-wedlock birth statistics higher and higher. At a time when teen births and teen abortions are declining dramatically, older women are having more un-wed births and more abortions, including repeat abortions (indicating that they are using abortion as birth control).
Well-educated, professional Mary Cheney is flying in the face of the accumulated wisdom of the top experts who agree that the very best family structure for a child’s well-being is a married mom and dad family. Her child will have all the material advantages it will need, but it will still encounter the emotional devastation common to children without fathers.
One Georgia high school principal reported, “We have too many young men and women from single-mother families that don’t have the role models at home to teach them how to deal with adversity and handle responsibility. They’ve seen their mom work 60 hours a week just to put food on the table; they end up fending for themselves.”
When fatherless children get to be teens, the girls tend to start looking for love in all the wrong places and the boys tend to find as their role model the bad-boy celebrities of MTV, NFL and NBA.
As they grow older, fatherless children tend to have trouble dealing with male authority figures. Too often children in single-mother households end up angry at their absent fathers and resentful of the mother who has had to be a father figure, too. Typically, the boys who have a love-hate relationship with their mother end up hating all women. Numerous of them look for vulnerable women where they can act out their anger and be in control.
Mary Cheney’s action sets an example that is detrimental for mothers with less financial resources who will start down an irrevocable path into poverty that tends to be generational –– children in households without a father tend to themselves have unwed births later in life. Experts from both the left and the right cite a disastrous litany of negative outcomes that are predictable when a child grows up in a fatherless family. Such children tend to get involved in drugs, alcohol abuse, and delinquency; they tend to drop out of school and have teen pregnancies. An assistant principal in a Junior High School said that many of the behavioral problems that teachers face in the classroom stem from households without a father’s influence.
Mary’s pregnancy is an “in-your-face” action countering the Bush Administration’s pro-family, pro-marriage and pro-life policies. She continues to repudiate the work to which her father has devoted his life. Mary has repeatedly said that “studies” show that children only need a loving home. Her statement is incomplete because the experts agree that for the well-being of children, they desperately need a married father and a mother.
All those people who talk about doing what is best “for our children” need to get back to the basics: children need a married mom and dad. Children can do without a lot of the trimmings of childhood, but nothing can replace a home where the mother and dad love each other enough to commit for a lifetime and are absolutely crazy about their kids –– enough to be willing to sacrifice their own needs to see that their children get the very best.
Janice Shaw Crouse, Ph.D., Senior Fellow at the Beverly LaHaye Institute, a culturally conservative think tank for Concerned Women for America, is a recognized authority on domestic issues, the United Nations, cultural and women’s concerns.
It is unnatural for children to grow up with gay parents. Yes homosexuals have certain rights, but what about the childrens' rights to grow in a healthy environment? As a young person myself, I am very thankful that I was not raised by two gay men.
There are married Americans who are so desperate to adopt children that they will adopt foreign orphans. If an American child is an orphan, there is no pressing need for them to be adopted by two gays.
In 2000 Richard Hatch, the homosexual winner of survivor lost custody of his adopted son after charges of physical abuse surfaced. He was acquitted of criminal charges, but the child was still removed.
Remember, when you allow gay parents to have children, the children are completely under their care. I do not feel comfortable with gay men "spanking" and punishing children. Do you?
Even if most gay parents did not abuse their children, 47% of molestation cases come from within the family: fathers, stepfathers, and uncles. Allowing gay marriage endangers many more children.
Ms Crouse is correct: Mary Cheney's pregnancy strongly affects our society. It shows a strong trend in our country that few would have imagined just 15 years ago. The fact that America's conservative Vice President could have a homosexual daughter and the President congratulates them on her pregnancy- and on top of it they head the conservative party- shows where we will soon be if you and I don't take a strong stand against gay marriage.
People should mind their own business.
This country was so much better when degeneracy was called degeneracy. Turkey basters unite!
People should mind their own damn business.
This is nobodys business. Who cares? I don't.
This article is a big bunch of bullcrap. Their baby doesn't affect us in the least bit. For crying out loud, get a life already. At least she's not aborting a baby.
I'd say it's a pretty damning set of circumstances across the board, regardless of your political persuasions.
And may God help the innocent.
Quite correct; you remain unscathed, for the most part.
Pity the innocent child isn't, however.
Aren't most gays raised by straight parents?
Remember, when you allow gay parents to have children, the children are completely under their care. I do not feel comfortable with gay men "spanking" and punishing children. Do you?
Even if most gay parents did not abuse their children, 47% of molestation cases come from within the family: fathers, stepfathers, and uncles. Allowing gay marriage endangers many more children.
Good grief! Your logic implies that the optimal conditions for raising a child is with two lesbian partners because men are more likely to molest a child. It is curious with your logic that you have a problem with Cheney's daughter.
Baloney.
Here you have someone who is pregnant, is keeping the baby, and will raise the child in a secure, loving home.
And its none of anyone's damn business.
Good for Mary Cheney and congrats to the couple.
Aint that grand? Out of wedlock gay parenting didn't become a problem until Mary Cheney became pregnant.
I would dearly love to present a much more graphic, very realistic interpretation of this fruity, sanitized language.
But I'd be banned instantly.
here here...how on earth can we tell "certain" women they can't have a child. They're not allowed to have a child...of all the God given rights bestowed upon a woman, that's a biggie.
Dan Quayle was right!
Yawn.
This is as about much ado about nothing as it can be. Of course, the left will spin it wildly, along with some from the far right, to make noise.
It's not like Mary Cheney is the first nor the last lesbian to become pregnant.
If her father wasn't Dick Cheney, vice-president to George W. Bush, it wouldn't even merit the back page.
Dan Quail was right? When he spelled 'potatoe'?
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