Posted on 11/25/2007 7:45:05 AM PST by madprof98
Former professional basketball player Jason Caffey had two children with his wife, and at least six other children with women in metro Atlanta, Alabama, Louisiana and Illinois.
Professional football player Travis Henry, a Denver Broncos running back with a $25 million contract, has nine children by nine women in four Southern states, including a Lithonia boy fathered out of wedlock three years ago.
Caffey, who earned as much as $5 million a season in a 10-year NBA career with the Chicago Bulls, Golden State Warriors and Milwaukee Bucks, filed for bankruptcy in Alabama in August. His wife, who lives in Roswell, filed for divorce last year after eight years of marriage.
"She didn't know about all of the children," her lawyer told Journal-Constitution reporter Tim Eberly. "She knew about a few. She had no idea he was being that disrespectful to her."
In Henry's case, a propensity to exercise "bad judgment in his spending habits" put him behind on the $3,000-per-month in support payments for the Lithonia boy.
So the judge in that case - DeKalb Superior Court Judge Clarence Seeliger - did something that should be mandated by law or become standard practice for judges presiding over child-support cases involving athletes, entertainers and others of means, particularly in cases involving out-of-wedlock births. To guarantee the child's financial security, Seeliger required Henry to create and fund a $250,000 trust on the boy's behalf.
Coincidentally, federal authorities in Richmond, Va., asked for a similar guarantee on behalf of pit bulls. Citing Michael Vick's "deteriorating financial condition," prosecutors asked a U.S. District Court judge to freeze about $928,000 to care for 54 pit bulls seized from his Bad Newz Kennels property in Virginia. Children deserve as much.
The Caffey story coincides with release of a Brookings Institution study by Julia Issacs that tracked incomes of 2,367 families over 30 years. It found that two-thirds of the number, now grown to more than 8,000 families, have inflation-adjusted incomes higher than those of their parents. That's true in about the same percentages for blacks and whites, Issacs finds.
While median family income for both blacks and whites increased over those three decades, an income gap persists. "Between 1974 and 2004, white and black men in their 30s experienced a decline in income, with the largest decline among black men," Issacs writes. Families beat their parents largely because more households had two breadwinners and because of gains in women's incomes.
As framed by The Associated Press - "decades after the civil rights movement," the black-white income gap persists - this is a discrimination issue. Yet as Isaacs noted, "the lack of income growth for black men combined with low marriage rates in the black population has had a negative impact on trends in family incomes for black families."
At some point, the nation - and more importantly, influential blacks of the post-civil rights generation -really do have to address the harm intentionally inflicted on children by unmarried adults. When 69.3 percent of black children, 46.4 percent of Hispanic children and 24.5 percent of white children are born to unmarried women, the nation has a serious problem.
Rich athletes and entertainers are the Murphy Browns of this era. Fifteen years ago, Murphy Brown was an unmarried television sitcom character who opted to find fulfillment by having a baby rather than buying a puppy. Vice President Dan Quayle created a national stir by criticizing the character for "mocking the importance of fathers by bearing a child alone and calling it just another lifestyle choice."
Quayle's point was that role models are obligated to consider the consequences of their actions. Rich actressses and well-educated women with high earning potential can toy with children's lives, just as rich athletes can pleasure themselves at children's expense. But when the poor and uneducated pick up the culturally sanctioned lifestyle, it's deadly for children and for the nation.
> Jim Wooten is the associate editorial page editor. His column appears Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays.
jwooten@ajc.com
Did you read the article? That's not true for the last 30 years.
This is also the first time a smaller generation has followed a larger one. It is also the first time in America's history that a smaller generation had to fund the previous larger generations retirement, and healthcare....
No arguments with you there. But these are two different things: prosperity and the proper acculturation / civilization of our children and youth.
The human animal needs years (almost two decades!) of serious time, love, and effort in order to become a mature, decent, civilized young adult. The younger years really do require the actual parent’s presence for most of the day’s 24 hours.
But your tips are marvelous for insuring that a person will remain financially stable.
Wooten is the only thing good about the AJC, not counting the sports columnists.
Second, it is based on a survey group, not total national data, so it is subject to a lot more manipulation. Third, we have shifted production from in home to out of home, on average, and men do more of the in-home now, so it's not astonishing that measured women's income has gained relative to men. But it doesn't mean that the total income isn't real.
Yes, there is no doubt that SOME people or categories are worse off, but that has always been true. All that I asserted was that, ON AVERAGE, people as a whole are better off, and always have been, over, say, a 20-year period. And the per capita GDP is indeed up more than 40% from 1986 to 2006.
One final point -- the last stat is really remarkable, in one sense, as we have gotten more and more of families that you would expect to be dysfunctional and low-income. Broken homes, illegitimate children, single mom "families"; drug-using workers and parents, etc. If you just compare married-couple, or married-couple with children, families to their predecessors, the gains would be even more siginificant.
I don’t care 1 way or the other, frankly. I’m all for somehow pointing out that the parents SHOULD be EMBARRASSED.
But I do agree that in the PAST (maybe not now), “bastard” was often connoted as a bad thing on the OFFSPRING, not the parents so much. As if there was something wrong with the child (maybe by being illegitimate in bad situation, but not inherently). I think that’s where the sensitivity comes in.
This is why I thought maybe we can just attach the word to the parents instead of the child - BASTARD FATHER, etc. Also known to me as “sires”.
Stop insulting William. The term is perfectly good, it's nothing negative about him, and I don't like the way you're implying it's an insult or he should be thought less of for it!
I’m not implying anything about William. I am not talking about William. I am talking about the terrible label they put on children.
I make good money, but I am part of the first generation, Gen X, that will have a lower standard of living than the previous generation.
What label is “terrible”?
Oh, wait...you’re trying to make “bastard” imply something negative about a child, huh?
"Between 1974 and 2004, white and black men in their 30s experienced a decline in income, with the largest decline among black men," Issacs writes. Families beat their parents largely because more households had two breadwinners and because of gains in women's incomes.
My wife doesn't work so it's harder for me to support my family on one income than it was for my dad or the baby boomers.
The real wage has been stagnant or fallen for the past 30 years for men in their 30s. That will continue as the boomers hold onto the high paying jobs into their 70s.
If you can hire a staff of black people and/or women, pay them less, AND GET THE SAME LEVEL OF PERFORMANCE -
where are the companies that have all black women employees that are kicking the asses of all competitors because of the advantage of lower costs of employment?
maybe that’s why we’re seeing more of them - no shame factor on the parents.
Leftists refuse to admit that removing negative incentives for behaviors increases the occurrence of those behaviors.
I’ve seen a similar list.
Spend less than you earn.
Avoid debt.
Build in some liquidity for emergencies.
Have long term goals.
Remember it all comes from God anyway.
These are not fathers, they are merely sperm donors.
living arrangements - again, the removal of the consequence called “shame” for choosing to live with or have extended sleepovers with someone you’re not married to
has increased the occurrence of this behavior, to the detriment of society.
When you look at the “why” of any issue or agenda that leftists/liberals/secular socialists push, start from the question “what will destroy traditional society?” and you can pretty easily see how they’ll side on any issue.
This seems to be a popular word among liberals. It seems to mean the same thing as "spin".
Just wondering. What is so terrible about being called a child born out of wedlock? Is there some historical significance to the label? Is there some common consequence regarding being raised by an unmarried adult or by more than one unmarried adult? Has society used the label to predict future behavior as a result of being fatherless?
I cringe when children bear the burden of their parents’ behavior, too. Labels are often very inaccurate and offensive. (makes me think of racial slurs) But you’ve sent my brain off on a tangent now . . . :)
I don't know if they are 'hogging' them--They are a much larger generation than gen-x. They are in their peak earning years and will hang on for a very long time, so yeah, right now they have all the top jobs.
Hey, I'm the junior guy in my defense contractor company. I'm 40.
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