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Mary Cheney's Pregnancy Affects Us All
Townhall ^ | December 7, 2006 | Janice Shaw Crouse PhD, Concerned Women for America

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.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Editorial; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: antifamily; antifamilyvalues; cheney; fatherlesschild; gay; heterosexualagenda; homosexual; homosexualagenda; marycheney; pregnancy
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To: Central Scrutiniser

Yes it would. And your point?


441 posted on 12/09/2006 12:30:58 AM PST by DoughtyOne (Victory will never be achieved while defining Conservatism downward, and forsaking it's heritage.)
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To: GregH

Just to chime in, I think you express well the point that seems to escape Central Scrutiniser.


442 posted on 12/09/2006 12:31:42 AM PST by dr_lew
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To: rintense

Perhaps you can show me where I stated otherwise.

A flippent comment was made about the 30s and 40s being so bad, and I reminded her that there was an aspect of that era that wasn't very bad at all.


443 posted on 12/09/2006 12:32:37 AM PST by DoughtyOne (Victory will never be achieved while defining Conservatism downward, and forsaking it's heritage.)
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To: GregH

Bestiality had no relevance on this issue, no more so than a building code, therefore it is moot.

The Haggard example is relevant, Ted Haggard is gay, Ted Haggard spent his life preaching against gays and attempting to lead a "normal" life by marrying and having kids.

Haggard has done more harm to his spouse and his kids (in my opinion) than the typical gay couple that adopts or has kids.

So, prove to me that bestiality has a place in this argument, I'm waiting, I want some hard data.

And please, tell me how conservatives can push a gay parenting ban? How? Are you as a less is better conservative asking for more government intervention? Do you want a constitutional amendment?

You might just be able to get away with that in Iran or Saudia Arabia, but not here.


444 posted on 12/09/2006 12:33:06 AM PST by Central Scrutiniser (Pro Evolution, Pro Stem Cell Research, Pro Science, Pro Free Thought, and Conservative)
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To: DoughtyOne

That can be said about the majority of eras in American (and world) history.


445 posted on 12/09/2006 12:34:13 AM PST by rintense (Liberals stand for nothing and are against everything- unless it benefits them.)
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To: rintense

I would agree...


446 posted on 12/09/2006 12:35:02 AM PST by DoughtyOne (Victory will never be achieved while defining Conservatism downward, and forsaking it's heritage.)
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To: Central Scrutiniser

It has some relevance to the adoption issue. It has some relevance to whether a gay couple can have a child via a surrogate egg donor, and surrogate female (now someone else for obvious reasons) to serve as the womb. That is the subject of the law arena. All of it is totally legal in California, and in that one respect at least, my state has it right. But I need and will get around to trying to find some data. None of that has so far appeared on this thread. This thread needs completion.


447 posted on 12/09/2006 12:35:33 AM PST by Torie
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To: DoughtyOne
I think that those on the extremes - whether left or right - do not value personal freedom as much as they value control. Many of us in between the extremes realize that in a free society bad things happen - but we are willing to risk imperfection for the more valued ideal of free will and free choice.

I suspect that many on the extremes have a great deal of fear and that that fear sometimes has its way and their common sense can be diminished or lost.

The United States of America is NOT a country that promotes social engineering either from the left or the right. And, like it or not, homosexuals have children and will continue to.

448 posted on 12/09/2006 12:35:54 AM PST by Sunsong
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To: Central Scrutiniser
Yes God gave free will as a gift. Don't ask me to explain the mind of God.

Let's say I had you over for dinner. I knew you would love a fillet mignon grilled to prefection. For an accompaniment, I thought you would enjoy a delicious twice baked Idaho russet potato and steamed asparagus with a balsamic vinaigrette. When you ate this delicious feast, you hid the asparagus under the plate (I didn't know you hated asparagus), you burnt your tongue on the potatoes, and for a grand finale, you ate the fillet mignon so fast you started choking. For a coup de grace, I had to revive you using a Heimlich maneuver. After the trauma, you were in no mood for the desert--plum pudding with French vanilla ice cream. Was it my fault I had you over for dinner?
449 posted on 12/09/2006 12:36:08 AM PST by jonrick46
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To: rakovskii
I find it amazing that the so-called Christian Right wants us to all focus all our energies on outlawing abortion, because the fetus is a human being from the moment of conception, deserving all the Christian love we have.... except if the parents are gay.

Is it their new Christian teaching that unborn children are to be condemned by the acts of their parents?
450 posted on 12/09/2006 12:37:26 AM PST by MindBender26 (Having my own CAR-15 in RVN meant never having to say I was sorry....)
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To: MindBender26
The homophobic Christian Right is so proud they stayed home in the wake of the Foley scandal. Ms Pelosi is proud of them too.

I've been looking for them stats. Do you have a URL?
451 posted on 12/09/2006 12:38:04 AM PST by loboinok (Gun control is hitting what you aim at!)
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To: angelanddevil2
Why not only 1 parent?.

My sister, a single mom, is one loving parent raising a kid. And she is doing a good job if I do say so myself.

452 posted on 12/09/2006 12:38:19 AM PST by Sunsong
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To: Central Scrutiniser
God allows free will, so its His fault...

Disagree. God does allow free will, we're free to do with that will what we like, and we'll be judged by Him on our decisions. Satan learned right away what happens when you reject Him.

453 posted on 12/09/2006 12:38:38 AM PST by BigSkyFreeper (There is no alternative to the GOP except varying degrees of insanity)
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To: DoughtyOne

The point is that you fall into a trap when you romanticize the "good old days"

I prefer to think that, as a society, we are moving forward.

But, if you want to live in the good old days, go ahead, do so at your peril. Attitudes and norms change, if you don't believe that, go to the beach, you'd be hard pressed to find many women out there covered neck to ankles in a swimsuit.


454 posted on 12/09/2006 12:38:45 AM PST by Central Scrutiniser (Pro Evolution, Pro Stem Cell Research, Pro Science, Pro Free Thought, and Conservative)
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To: Central Scrutiniser

Any conservative advocating a gay parenting ban, or any reproductive right ban, is NOT a conservative. In fact, a bill was introduced in either Maryland or Virginia (can't remember) that only married, straight couples, be allowed to seek assisted reproductive technologies, including the use of sperm donors. That should scare every single conservative to their core.


455 posted on 12/09/2006 12:39:09 AM PST by rintense (Liberals stand for nothing and are against everything- unless it benefits them.)
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To: Monterrosa-24
Who said it was his household. That's the point.
456 posted on 12/09/2006 12:39:13 AM PST by Sunsong
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To: Paridel
Many homosexuals and lesbians, in the past, have had heterosexual marriages and had children.

Sadly, many heterosexual parents have been/are lousy parents.

For the length and breadth of recorded time, children have grown up, and either turned out well; or not.

No matter HOW you want to twist the words of the DoI, nowhere in that wondrous document, does it claim, by any stretch of the imagination, that children have a GOD given or any other kind of given right to a mother and a father. And FYI.....Jefferson wanted it to read PROPERTY, not HAPPINESS. And since slavery was still part of the law of the land, some of those glorious words did NOT apply to everyone.

BTW, I never said that until Victorian times, all children's lives were horrific; though that was more true than you realize, for some. And the newly invented CHILDHOOD of the mid 1800s and early 1900s, only applied to some; not all and not even most children of that era.

457 posted on 12/09/2006 12:39:30 AM PST by nopardons
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To: Sunsong

The United States doesn't promote social engineering? Oh is that right? LMAO

Look, we limit personal behaviors across the board based on societal concerns.


458 posted on 12/09/2006 12:39:30 AM PST by DoughtyOne (Victory will never be achieved while defining Conservatism downward, and forsaking it's heritage.)
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To: DoughtyOne

Well, except the 80s. ;) WAIT! Reagan and Maggie were good.


459 posted on 12/09/2006 12:39:57 AM PST by rintense (Liberals stand for nothing and are against everything- unless it benefits them.)
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To: Torie
"Does the "dialectic of negative criticism" have any nexus with the "nattering nabobs of negativism"

It usually takes the form of finding victims without a voice.

That dialectic says, "The destruction of the earth is too important to wait for scientific proof." "Global warming is too critical for you to demand scientific proof." "Trees are too important to cut down. Prove otherwise." "Kangaroo rats living in your backyard are bruinbirdman specific rats. There, we created a new species, you can't be rid of them. Forget that there are only a billion of them in the desert, that one is living on a lawn."

Dialectic of negative criticism says "prove that it is better to have a mommy and a daddy" when no one has thought that a necessity for thousands of years.

Children should be taught in school how to challenge authority..

It picks moral obviates, advocates the opposite, and asks for proof that the opposite is destructive.

In the meantime, the Cultural Destructionists through the tool of linguistic stigma demand tolerance of anti-social, anti-cultural behavior.

yitbos

460 posted on 12/09/2006 12:40:10 AM PST by bruinbirdman ("Those who control language control minds." -- Ayn Rand)
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