Where's Dad?

The Boston Globe ^ | 19JUN05 | Ned Holstein

[familyop]

First, we enacted no-fault divorce, creating lower legal barriers for leaving a spouse than for firing an employee or evicting a tenant. This coincided with the explosive growth in the 1960s of the philosophy of personal liberation, including the acceptance of divorce and of bearing children out of wedlock. Moreover, welfare policy rewarded mothers financially for having children without fathers-- the more children, the more money. Both the divorce rate and the out-of-wedlock birth rate immediately skyrocketed. . . . Liberals consider efforts to strengthen marriage a right-wing obsession. . . . Conservatives see a handful of gays and lesbians getting married and decry the death of marriage, while largely ignoring the elephant in the room of divorce and out-of-wedlock childbearing among heterosexuals. The alpha-males among the conservatives denounce the ''irresponsible fathers" they would never be, ignoring the fact that maternal choice far outweighs paternal choice both in divorce and in the decision to have children outside of marriage.

[familyop]

Ping!

[Nowhere Man]

ping!

[Servant of the 9]

First, we enacted no-fault divorce, creating lower legal barriers for leaving a spouse than for firing an employee or evicting a tenant.

Then we should have followed through by making it easier to fire employees and evict tenants.

SO9

[familyop]

And in the following, you'll see what the feminist policies of both of our prevailing US parties are for. More singles vote Democrat than do marrieds, and more women vote Democrat than do men.

"Then it will be plain that the first condition for the liberation of the wife is to bring the whole female sex back into public industry, and that this in turn demands the abolition of the monogamous family as the economic unit of society" (Frederick Engels, "Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State").

Mao's Little Red Book on Women
http://www.paulnoll.com/China/Mao/Mao-31-Women.html

Some of Lenin's words on women
http://www.marx.org/archive/lenin/works/1919/nov/06.htm

The following is from the "Manifesto of the Communist Party" (Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Fredrick Engels)
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm

"The bourgeois sees his wife a mere instrument of production. He hears that the instruments of production are to be exploited in common, and, naturally, can come to no other conclusion that the lot of being common to all will likewise fall to the women."

He has not even a suspicion that the real point aimed at is to do away with the status of women as mere instruments of production.

For the rest, nothing is more ridiculous than the virtuous indignation of our bourgeois at the community of women which, they pretend, is to be openly and officially established by the Communists. The Communists have no need to introduce free love; it has existed almost from time immemorial."

“Everyone who knows anything of history also knows that great social revolutions are impossible without the feminine ferment. Social progress may be measured precisely by the social position of the fair sex (plain ones included)” (Karl Marx Letter to Ludwig Kugelmann, MECW, Volume 43, p. 184, http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1868/letters/68_12_12.htm)

[Hodar]

First, we enacted no-fault divorce, creating lower legal barriers for leaving a spouse than for firing an employee or evicting a tenant. This coincided with the explosive growth in the 1960s of the philosophy of personal liberation, including the acceptance of divorce and of bearing children out of wedlock.

So, allowing people in bad marriages to get a divorce means that women now are having children out of wedlock? So, then using this logic; if we make divorce nearly impossible to get, women won't engage in pre-maritial sex, every child born will be planned and wanted, teen-agers won't experiment with sex and drugs; and taxes will go down. Sorry, simply makes no sense whatsoever.

[concerned about politics]

Where's Dad?

My kids took him to see Star Wars. LOL. Poor guy. They picked the movie for him.

[DoughtyOne]

Good article. Thank you.

[concerned about politics]

And in the following, you'll see what the feminist policies of both of our prevailing US parties are for. More singles vote Democrat than do marrieds, and more women vote Democrat than do men.

Democrats thrive on failure. Failure causes dependency. The social misfits have to vote Democrat to get their weekly block of government cheese, or they'll starve. That's how it works.
Liberalism destroys souls. People need to figure that out.

[Fido969]

Reductio ad Absurdum

[familyop]

"So, allowing people in bad marriages to get a divorce means that women now are having children out of wedlock?"

Yes. As research reports have shown us what was already obvious, children of divorce are more likely to divorce/cohabit and have children out of wedlock.

[bitt]

duh.

dope, dopiness and 'don't care' have created this situation. The 'me generation', the 'age of personal development', the 'sexual revolution' and the 'war on poverty' have created some unique problems that have grown exponentially.

[Hodar]

As research reports have shown us what was already obvious,

Yes, of course; I should have seen this. Raising children in a house with a drunken, unemployed husband who beats his wife actually encourages marraiges to last. Gambling, cheating and abuse are just little character flaws, that make marriage just that more special. Nothing instills morals, ethics and compassion more than watching Mom and Dad fight. And trapping adults into a lifelong situation is not only fair .... it's our duty. < /sarcasm>

People change, like it or not, this is a fact. Some people rush into marriage totally unprepared for the reality of the situation. There are kids who get married while still in High School; are you indicating that these marriages should be a life long committment? Do you think that children raised in these are going to be better off?

This article is reducing different social phenomina, and linking them together to the point of absurdity. Consider the sexual activity of adolescents today compared with the sexual activity 50 years ago. TV, movies, radio, music and advertizing ... it's all around us. And yes, many pregnant teenagers were never married. Some of them come from married families, some from broken families.

You need not look much farther than Mexico, where divorce is more difficult to get than up here. There, the man simply abandons the wife and starts a family with another woman. You simply cannot legislate morality.

[familyop]

"Democrats thrive on failure. Failure causes dependency. The social misfits have to vote Democrat to get their weekly block of government cheese, or they'll starve. That's how it works. Liberalism destroys souls. People need to figure that out."

What Republicans need to figure out is that our Republicans in Congress voted in favor of and helped to pass every one of Clinton's family breaking laws. We should begin to care about what happens to our next generation. If the divorce and cohabitation industry continues to prevail, all of our government will be Democrat (or both parties socialist) all of the time (see "more singles vote Democrat than do marrieds").

[concerned about politics]

Yes. As research reports have shown us what was already obvious, children of divorce are more likely to divorce/cohabit and have children out of wedlock.

Children learn through example. If divorce is good for mommy, it's good for them, too.

What gets me is the number of teens who get pregnant just to get a life time free ride. They just act stupid, and they never ever have to work a day in their life.
My husband does accounting for subsidized housing, and they breed like animals. They just keep having kids and collecting those government checks. Those kids grow up and do the same thing. Generations lump together in adjacent apartments so they can baby sit for each other.

[RPTMS]

A divorce case where the husband has been beating his wife is anything but a "no-fault" case. I believe this article was referring to marriages that break up because of so-called "incompatibility."

You seem to have a guilty conscience about something.

[familyop]

There's the kind of pro-divorce, anti-family feminazi propaganda that destroyed so many families to make way for the current ripe situation for homosexual so-called "marriage," but there are also facts.

Archer debunked feminist "research" on domestic violence with peer reviewed research. He showed that the feminist studies were done by surveys to man haters in feminist groups. Dr. Martin Fiebert also has a long analysis debunking feminist DV myths online. Brinig and Allen found that it is women who seek and file for divorces 2/3 to 3/4 of the time, and that very few cases even involved so much as allegations of abuse.

Archer, J. (2000). Archer, J. (2000). Sex differences in aggression between heterosexual partners: A meta-analytic review. Psychological Bulletin, 126, 651-680., 126, 651-680.

Archer, J. (2000). Sex differences in physical aggression to
partners: A reply to Frieze (2000), O’Leary (2000), and White, Smith, Koss, and Figueredo (2000). Psychological Bulletin, 126, 697-702.

REFERENCES EXAMINING ASSAULTS BY WOMEN ON THEIR SPOUSES OR MALE PARTNERS: AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm

(“These Boots are Made for Walking: Why Wives File for Divorce” Margaret F. Brinig and Douglas W. Allen, 2000, The American Law and Economics Association)

Also:

“Who Divorced Whom: Methodological and Theoretical Issues” [Sanford L. Braver, Marnie Whitley and Christine Ng. Journal of Divorce & Remarriage Vol 20(1/2) 1993, p.1.] and the May 21, 1991 National Center for Health Statistics, Monthly Vital Statistics Report [Vol. 38, No. 12 (S) 2].

[Jim Noble]

It is amazing-amazing-that Ned Holstein got an op-ed in the Globe, especially on Father's Day, when the text usually is about "deadbeat" Dads or homosexual adoptions.

Ned has been working tirelessly, and usually thanklessly, for Dads in Massachusetts and everywhere for ten years.

Bravo!

[familyop]

I recommend the following book to anyone who wants to know more.

"Divorced Dads: Shattering the Myths" by Sanford Braver and Diane O'Connel

Use those as keywords to find the book at an online book site. [Note that socially left Amazon books misspelled Dr. Braver's last name and has not corrected that yet, despite calls to do so.]

[Search4Truth]

Given the apostate state of the mainline Protestant church denominations in this country, are we surprised by any of this? If these churches are any indication of where the American family is heading, and I believe they are, it's going to get a lot worse, before it gets better.